Tiffany and Andrew Bourelle Publish New On-line Resource

Tiffany Bourelle and Andrew Bourelle have published a webtext article in the digital peer-reviewed journal Kairos: Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. The article addresses how to develop a successful multimodal curriculum in a fully online classroom, providing instructors with advice on creating instructional tools.
http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/19.1/praxis/robertson-et-al/index.html

Cris Elder Selected as UNM Teaching Fellow

Dr. Cristyn L. Elder has been selected by UNM's Center for Teaching Excellence as one of eight faculty from across the disciplines to be a UNM Teaching Fellow during the 2014-15 Academic Year. Fellows will investigate carefully-defined teaching challenges by examining the latest research on teaching and learning in one's discipline, design a teaching innovation, and collect and evaluate evidence of student learning. Dr. Elder aims to work with faculty outside the English Department in an effort to increase undergraduate student success in designated "killer courses" (i.e., those with high fail rates). Specifically, Dr. Elder will be working with faculty in designing and implementing scaffolded class activities and writing assignments that align with disciplinary course content in an effort to help students successfully address course goals and learning outcomes while developing their writing skills. Dr. Elder's overall research question is the following: Does an increased focus on writing as it relates to course content improve students’ success rate in the course?

Stretching for Student Success

In Sunday's Albuquerque Journal, an opinion piece, titled "Rethinking Remedial Education Is Essential to Student Success," describes two curricular initiatives within the Core Writing Program that may eliminate "remediation" courses for first year writing that do not carry college credit. As Dr. Mark Peceny, Dean of UNM's College of Arts and Sciences, writes, 

"Our 'Stretch' program extends the work of the first semester writing course over two semesters, accompanied by overall assistance in the transition to college. In a trial run last summer, 100 percent of the students completed the first semester of work. In our equally successful 'Studio' program, students began typical first semester writing immediately and were supported with an extra one-credit-hour course that provided additional assistance in college-level writing. UNM is now prepared to extend these opportunities to all main campus students in the 2014-2015 academic year."

You can read the complete article here: 

http://www.abqjournal.com/353726/opinion/rethinking-remedial-education-is-essential-to-student-success.html

Lindsey Ives Selected for A&S Teaching Excellence Award

Our own Lindsey Ives is the well-deserved recipient of this year’s College of Arts and Sciences Teaching Excellence Award. I was particularly happy to see the Dean and Associate Deans recognized the amazing work she has done for the new Stretch 101 initiative and for Core Writing generally as  “a great role model for other TA’s and an asset administering” the program.

 

Congratulations, Lindsey! On behalf of all us in English, thank you for your dedication to our students and for contributing so positively to the English Department’s teaching mission and reputation.

~CPaine

Dan Cryer wins Susan Deese-Roberts TA of the year award

It's no surprise that university awards for teaching always go to TAs in the English Department. We simply have the brightest, most experienced, committed, pedagogically sophisticated TAs on campus. Many congratulations to Dan Cryer for winning the OSET TA award this year. Congratulations to all the TAs who were nominated: we know how excellent you are. gail

Core Writing Teaching Awards

The results are in for the Core Writing Teaching Awards. Our judges had a tough time choosing among some very competitive application packets, but here are the winners:

Outstanding English 101 Sequence: Stephanie Spong

Outstanding English 220 Sequence: Breanna Griego

Outstanding First-Year Instructor: Emilee Howland-Davis

We'll be presenting these at the EGSA Awards Ceremony, Friday May 11th at 4:00pm in the SUB, Lobo A&B. Please come help us celebrate our winners, and all the great teaching that gets done in our program.

Celebration of Student Writing Videos

Explore the Celebration of Student Writing:



And for those who missed the Lady Gaga Cover that everyone has been talking about, check out the video:

Celebrating Student Writing

Composition Across Cultures

Discussion and tutoring for non-native speakers of English

Thursday, Nov 19 2:00 - 3:00

SUB Luminaria

All non-native speakers of English enrolled in composition classes (101, 102, 219, 220) are invited to:

• Discuss your classroom experience with other non-native speakers of English
• Get help on papers from experienced English composition instructors
• Eat FREE SNACKS!

In order to better serve non-native speakers in composition classes, the English department's Office of Core Writing wants to know more about your experiences writing and taking classes in English.

In return for your valuable input, our instructor volunteers will help you to revise a paper for your composition class.

We hope to see you there!