students in the department’s MA in Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse. A small, highly com-petitive program, TAP requires instructors to be near completion of the MAWRD, have taken a set of teaching writing courses, and submit a rigorous application detailing teaching philoso-phy and experience.

This year’s six TAP instructors taught sections of WRD 103: Composition and Rhetoric I under the close supervision of WRD Professor and FYW Director Darsie Bowden. Each week, instructors met as a group with Bowden to problem-solve, discuss positive classroom experiences, antici-pate issues that might arise, consider theoreti-cal underpinnings, examine pedagogical tech-

niques, and workshop new teaching methods. Additionally, instructors worked together and with Bowden to assess potential assignments, grade papers and projects, and prepare for what they’d be teaching in the coming week.

The TAP approach, Bowden explained, “en-ables them, in a guided circumstance, to put theory into practice.” In addition to the resources Bowden provided directly—a pre-quarter teaching workshop, an annotated syllabus for the first several weeks of teaching, weekly TAP instructor meetings, her own extensive teaching

Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse

WRD Launches Teaching Apprenticeship ProgramAccording to recent MAWRD graduate Allison

Dowe, first-time teaching can be angst-rid-den. “Anyone who has ever taught can tell you how scary it is to walk into that classroom for the first time,” she said. “You think you understand rhetoric and discourse? Try explaining it. I found it to be harder than I thought it would be.” With the support of WRD’s new Teaching Apprentice-ship Program (TAP), however, Dowe was able to tap into a network of WRD resources as she taught a course in DePaul’s First-Year Writing (FYW) Program.

The 2012 Winter Quarter marked the launch of the program, which is a guided, first-year composition teaching experience for graduate

The Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse, in the

College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, is dedicated to studying the history and theory of literate ac-tivity and helping students excel as writers in a wide range of academic, professional, and public settings.

WRD oversees DePaul’s extensive First-Year Writing Program, writing courses required for Commerce and CDM undergraduates, a minor in Professional Writing, and the under-graduate major in WRD. The Master of Arts in WRD focuses on writing in professional and technical contexts, the preparation of postsecondary teacher-scholars in writing, and the study of language for writers.

The undergraduate and graduate curriculum in WRD come together in the Combined BA/MA program in WRD, an innovative program that allows undergraduates to begin taking graduate courses in the senior year.

The department also offers an MA in New Media Studies; this dynamic program prepares graduates to function as productive and respon-sible individuals in social contexts created by new media.

Finally, the Graduate Certificate in TESOL prepares students to teach English as a Second Language to adult learners in the United States and abroad.

Volume 3 Issue 3 Spring 2012

IN THIS ISSUE• WRD professors awarded paid research leaves, page 2• Annual graduate conference features original student work, page 3• DePaul alum puts Professional Writing minor to work, page 4

Photo Credit: Darsie BowdenTAP Instructors Allison Dowe, Liz Lane, and Nathaniel Nguyen review student work dur-ing a weekly meeting with other TAP instructors and WRD Professor Darsie Bowden. Cont’d on page 2

WRD Associate Professor Matthew Abraham and Assistant Professor

Lisa Dush have each been awarded paid research leaves for the 2012 Autumn Quarter to further their scholarly research projects and produce academic scholarship in their areas of interest and expertise. According to WRD Professor and Chair Peter Vanden-berg, leave time is a valuable opportunity for teacher-scholars to undertake substantial research projects and produce important scholarship.

“The University’s competitive leave program is a key support mechanism for faculty research, pre- and post-tenure,” Vandenberg explained. “In a department of active schol-ars who also take teaching very seriously, as Professors Abraham and Dush do, leaves can be key to enabling completion of a large or particularly challenging project. We’re pleased to see Matthew and Lisa receive this opportunity, and we’re excited to read the resulting work.”

Abraham’s leave project, “The Moment of Identification: Barack Obama and the American Racial Problematic,” will develop an understanding of how President Obama was successful in connecting with diverse sections of the U.S. electorate via the rhetori-cal concept of identification. The project will explore how President Obama “used his rhetorical skill during his presidential bid to effectively address the problematic of con-temporary race-relations in the United States in his 2008 ‘More Perfect Union’ speech and other interventions,” Abraham explained. “I will examine President Obama’s perfor-

mances, where he seemingly transcended his racial subjectivity for the purpose of connecting to audiences across racial and ethnic divisions.” During his leave, Abraham will research and draft two chapters of a book on how, during his bid for the Ameri-can presidency, President Obama used his bi-racial identity and a rhetoric of unity to address a history of racial division in the United States.

Dush will use her leave time to pursue a project titled “Using Digital Narratives to Prompt Strategic Social Action: Some Avail-able Metaphors.” This project will draw on a yearlong service-learning partnership with Chicago International Charter Schools (CICS) in which Dush and her students have

collaborated to produce and distribute digital, personal narratives. Dush will focus on the question of how digital narratives can be “contextualized and distributed to initiate social action.” To explore this question, she will develop a collection of metaphors for stories—as rally songs, invitations, or pools of data, for example—to describe the differ-ent ways organizations can prompt social action through stories. During her leave, Dush will produce both a scholarly article and a web text illustrating these metaphors. “I’ve been able to do some exciting new media service-learning projects with Chi-cago nonprofits since I arrived at DePaul,” she said. “I’m looking forward to this stretch of time to write about those projects.”

Abraham and Dush Awarded Autumn Quarter Research Leaves for Projects on Obama, Digital Narratives

2

experience—instructors were surrounded by a valuable support apparatus that included other FYW faculty members, DePaul’s Writing Center, and WRD graduate faculty members.

According to Bowden, TAP’s rich, supportive environment coupled with the real-life teach-ing skills instructors gain make the program an excellent “jumping off point” for MAWRD students to move into any type of teach-ing. “We do believe this gives our graduate students a leg up in getting jobs after gradu-ation,” she said. “The kinds of things you learn teaching first-year writing are directly applicable to many other areas of teaching.”

In addition to its role in developing strong teaching skills and portfolios for MAWRD students, the program also represents the

department’s investment in its FYW Program and commitment to cross-program integra-tion. “We do the best job we can, not just with our graduate students, but also with the students they teach,” Bowden explained. “These instructors were highly motivated and so invested in their students, and their own students sensed this commitment.”

TAP Instructor and recent MAWRD graduate Erin Garvey echoed Bowden’s emphasis on creating positive learning environments for FYW students. “In my class, I strove to teach them that writing matters because even if they never write another essay at DePaul, they will continue to write every single day, and everything you learn in WRD is applicable, contextual, and transferable,” she said. “This was a tremendous learning opportunity that came at exactly the right time in my WRD career.”

For Dowe, teaching through TAP both reinforced the pedagogical techniques she had learned through MAWRD courses and added new layers of theory, pedagogy, and classroom know-how. “The biggest thing I took away from this experience is that sometimes even the best plans will totally bomb in practice,” she said. “I quickly learned to roll with the punches and have Plans B, C, and D up my sleeve for when Plan A falls flat on its face.” Dowe added that developing a student-centered attitude was a key TAP lesson for her.

The commitment of instructors like Dowe and Garvey along with the benefits the program offers to both MAWRD and FYW students make TAP a valuable new compo-nent in WRD’s offerings. The department will continue the program with a second cohort in Autumn Quarter 2012.

TAP (cont’d from page 1)

Professor Lisa Dush Professor Matthew Abraham

Karen Carter (MAWRD 2010) presented “Alternative Gateways: Public Sphere Theory, Theater and the Reconstitution of an Ethnic Image” at the Conference on College Composition and Communication on March 22 in St. Louis, MO. She was also honored as a 2012 CCCC Scholar for the Dream.

Amanda Hobmeier (MAWRD 2010) present-ed “Mixed Modeling in L2 Writing Instruction: A Critical Analysis of Hybridized Genre and Process Pedagogies” at the Conference on College Composition and Communication on March 22 in St. Louis, MO.

Brenda Kilianski (TESOL Certificate 2010) co-presented “Summer in the City: Using Chicago as a Language Classroom” at the Illinois Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages - Bilingual Education (ITBE) Conference. Karen Kopelson (MAW 1997) won the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of Louis-ville, where she is an associate professor and director of graduate studies.

Alumni News

3

On Saturday, May 12, 2012, WRD hosted its annual Spread the WoRD Graduate

Student Conference at DePaul’s Schmitt Academic Center. The conference, now in its fourth year, provides an opportunity for stu-dents studying in writing-related disciplines to develop and share original research, gain experience presenting academic work, receive feedback from peers, and network with other graduate students and faculty. This year, more than 35 students, faculty members, and friends of WRD attended the conference to watch student presentations on topics ranging from the Occupy Chicago protests to user-generated content in Israeli online news.

Each year, the conference is organized and hosted by WRD’s graduate assistants. According to Associate Professor Christine

Tardy, Director of the MAWRD, “Many people don’t realize how much work is involved in bringing off this event, plan-ning for which began back in the fall. Our GAs, Kimberly Coon and Amy Hubbard, have done a really fantastic job this year.” This year’s conference was made possible with support from WRD faculty, staff, and students as well as the additional support of College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Dean Charles Suchar.

Conference organizers Coon and Hubbard wanted this year’s event to bring together a diverse group of presentations and students and stimulate conversions on how writing, rhetoric, and new media are converging in unexpected and provocative ways. “The Spread the WoRD Conference has always been a venue for celebrating student work,”

Coon said, “but the issues students presented on this year were especially relevant and intriguing for graduate students studying in a range of fields.”

This year, 10 students presented original research, in-progress work, and multimedia projects on topics including writing center theory, global Englishes, digital and analog bookmaking, adult learning, online communities, digital storytelling, identity, and memory.

Annual Graduate Conference Features Original Student Research

Photo Credit: Kimberly CoonFirst-year MAWRD student Joseph Klein presents “Occupation, Performance, and Place: A Rhetorical Analysis” at the 2012 WRD Graduate Student Conference.

WRD Hosts Marshall Lecture

Photo Credit: Kimberly CoonProfessor Ian Marshall discusses whiteness and institutional spaces at his DePaul lecture.

On April 17, 2012, WRD hosted scholar and author Ian Marshall as part of the

WRD Speaker Series. In his talk, “Whiteness and Institutional Space,” Marshall discussed how whiteness—the normative use of white, middle-class English and an impulse toward middle-class values—became naturalized in academic discourse generally and in com-position programs specifically. Through a prevailing pedagogy of whiteness, Marshall argued, other languages, discourses, and voices are being silenced in the academy. To illustrate his arguments both autobio-graphically and intellectually, Marshall read excerpts from his essays in Reading, Writing, and the Rhetorics of Whiteness, a book on the intersections between whiteness studies and composition studies that he co-authored with Dr. Wendy Ryden.

Marshall also argued that dialogue is one way that students, teachers, and administra-tors can address the issue of how white-ness functions institutionally and begin to recognize and encourage other voices and discourses. “I think one of the problems,” he explained, “is that we don’t do enough out-of-genre dialogue in academic settings. We’re too formulaic.” Instead, “serious, pro-bative dialogue” can open the institution and writing programs to other voices, he argued.

As a professor of English and director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, Marshall specializes in cultural rhetoric, modern American literature, and rhetoric and composition. Marshall is author of “Inter-rogating the Monologue: Making Whiteness Visible,” published in College Composition and Communication, and is currently writing a book on the racialized rhetoric of Ernest Hemingway’s short fiction.

the documentation according to our com-pany’s style specifications and receive feed-back from developers and SMEs, making the necessary changes before the documenta-tion is published on our company’s website.

How have your studies at DePaul influenced what you’re doing now?

From literary analysis to philosophical inquiries to human-computer interaction, my journey through DePaul’s academic cur-riculum was not in the least bit ordinary. As an English major and Professional Writing minor, I was able to strengthen my writing skills through a variety of lenses and to also learn how workplace writing differs from academic writing.

My Interactive Media minor taught me tech-nical skills, such as designing in Photoshop and coding in Flash Actionscript, and also how to design and improve websites for better user experience.

Through these disciplines, I have combined my interests in writing and technology, while also learning how these subjects can coexist in a professional setting. More than anything, however, my studies at DePaul help me think critically and analyze whatever I’m doing, whether it be a piece of text, an oral argument, a marketing strategy, or an everyday situation.

Aaron Samardzich graduated from DePaul in 2010 with a BA in English and minors in Interactive Media and Professional Writing. WRD’s Professional Writing minor allows stu-dents in any major to take courses in writing, editing, style, rhetoric, and more to prepare for writing in a range of professional settings. In May 2012, Aaron also earned an MS in Technical Communication and Information Design from Illinois Institute of Technology.

Since June 2009, Aaron has been working as a technical writing contractor for Thomson Reuters in Chicago. While completing his degrees, Aaron also worked as a tutor for DePaul and IIT’s Writing Centers. His latest project and passion is working to establish Aspire Brewing, a microbrewery he co-founded in 2011 with brewing partner Jon Reimer.

What is a typical day “on the job” for you?

As a technical writing contractor for Thom-son Reuters, I work in an office setting and complete projects that usually consist of writing, editing, formatting, and updating documentation for financial software applications.

Once I receive a task or project, I communi-cate with software developers and subject matter experts (SMEs) to confirm what needs to be created or changed. I then write or edit

What was the most helpful course that you took in the Professional Writing minor?

WRD 395: Writing Center Theory and Pedagogy taught me how to conduct writing tutorials and work with students across the curriculum. More importantly, this course showed me how writing can be interactive, not just personal. I encourage students to apply to work in DePaul’s University Center for Writing-based Learning. Not only will they put into practice the writing skills they have developed throughout their lives, but they will also help fellow students become better writers and show them how important effective writing strategies can be.

What advice would you give a WRD student who would like one day to do work similar to yours?

My advice for WRD students is to take a variety of courses. I spend most of my time researching, communicating with software developers and fellow writers, and thinking of strategies and ways to improve docu-mentation. Take courses that allow you to think critically about a variety of topics (like philosophy, religion, and politics) and to communicate verbally and through writing. This will help you not only professionally, but also in any task or problem you encounter throughout your life.

Alumni Spotlight

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCESDepartment of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse

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