Department of English

My research focuses on how first-year composition (FYC) can aid in student retention. I believe that FYC can play an important role in helping students to adjust to the university. FYC courses are able to offer students multiple opportunities for support and growth, both due to the course positioning and the ways in which composition pedagogy can be applied.

I am very interested in learning how writing can impact the success of nontraditional college students coming from diverse backgrounds, particularly for those coming from backgrounds where college was not a recommended option, or for those who faced greater challenges getting to college. FYC courses can be a chance to help them get more comfortable with practices of the university. For this and many other reasons, FYC presents a unique and important opportunity to help our students, and I would like to try and find ways to make this course as meaningful and beneficial as possible for our students.

I am also interested in how we can teach the writing process while avoiding burnout, both for students and instructors. Writing can be a challenging task, and the process of integrating feedback from instructors and peers can intensify this challenge. For instructors, it can be difficult to find a balance as to how much feedback is too much for students to realistically utilize, and this can cause them to give more feedback than is usable, adding to their workload while overloading their students’ ability to effectively utilize the feedback they have received. A goal of mine for the future is to try and find ways to make the teaching of writing a bit more manageable in this regard, determining how much feedback, as well as what sorts of feedback, is most useful for our students as they are developing their writing skills. I believe this will help make the grading process more focused and effective for instructors and the resulting feedback more helpful for students.