We would like to take the opportunity to recognize excellent student work! ENGL 150 and 250 instructors and students are invited to submit an example of work for the ISUComm Foundation Courses Student Showcase. Winners will receive a certificate, a $50 award, and recognition at the spring English Department Awards. Who is eligible? All English … Continue reading 150/250 Student Showcase Nominations Due April 7
What do you wish your students knew about you? Qi: I feel very happy when they reach out to me with questions or insights. Connor: While I teach composition, I am a creative writer who focuses on the genres of fiction, fantasy, fabulism, essays, and memoir. What one word would your students use … Continue reading New TA Q&A
February brought the 2023 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). The conference’s theme, Doing Hope in Desperate Times, was well reflected in the relief and joy of this gathering of scholars, teachers, and administrators. Despite the cold and lake-effect snow in Chicago, I was delighted to travel to a conference for the first time … Continue reading Dispatch from CCCC’s: Student support and familiar faces
As an alternative to the traditional research paper, CWE MFA candidate, Tara Labovich, teaches their students how to create zines. Zines are self-published, original works that include text and images. While zines have served many purposes over the decades, including identity development, storytelling or the sharing of art, the common thread among them is opposition … Continue reading Up Next in ENGL 250
To help students practice listening and explaining skills relating to multimodal design, try this quick activity that CWE MFA candidate Fred Johnson has used with his students. This activity will help students become more familiar with the identification and description of design elements, such as contrast, color, space, texture, etc. Pair students and tell one … Continue reading Up Next in ENGL 150
Brenna Dixon, Associate Teaching Professor and Learning Community English Links Coordinator, came to ISU in 2009 as a graduate student in the MFA program and has been teaching Foundations courses ever since (along with Advance Communication courses, fiction workshops, teaching methodologies and independent studies)! She is responsible for coordinating and supporting the Learning Community English Links … Continue reading Instructor Spotlight: Dixon Discusses Learning Links, Helping Students Find their Confidence, and Working through Challenges
Ryan Everett, RPC Ph.D. student, pushes his students to consider the rhetorical situation with every module in ENGL 250, but for many students, it is the Rhetorical Analysis module where it really clicks. Regardless of the selected medium for this assignment, instructors can encourage students to think about the elements of the rhetorical situation, not … Continue reading ENGL 250 Teaching Tip: Rhetorical Analysis
In the first half of the second week of the profile module (when students are brainstorming people to interview/week six), Natalie Meyer, Associate Teaching Professor, shows her students an interview with the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and analyzes Stone Phillips’ interview skills. She asks students to discuss what they can learn from the interview to … Continue reading ENGL 150 Teaching Tip: Profile
Carina Collet Fatemeh Dehghanian What do you wish your students knew about you? Carina: I wish that my students knew how much I enjoy it when they stop by my office hours! Fatemeh: I am more playful than they are! What one word would your students use to describe you? Carina: Hopefully “passionate” Fatemeh: … Continue reading New TA Q&A: Collet & Dehghanian
Dr. Manisha Sharma’s favorite teaching moments are those when she actually fades into the background, with her students becoming the center of the classroom, overtaken by student learning. “It could be anyone else teaching that content, it shouldn’t matter; what should be paramount is the learning that’s happening and the engagement of students,” says Manisha, … Continue reading Instructor Spotlight: Dr. Sharma Leads with Gratitude, Relevance & A Focus on Her Students