Teach what you know. Learn from others.
That's my teaching philosophy in a nutshell. In addition to my academic research, I've taught all manner of writing/composition classes from the undergraduate to graduate levels, specializing in professional, technical, and scientific communication, and I have a college teaching certificate from Portland State University and have been an honored instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Course listings
Below are links to my online writing courses and other instructor materials.
TECHNICAL & SCIENCE WRITING: 8-, 11-, to 15-WEEK COURSE
Course status
The hyperlinks below only work if you have been given permission to access the folder/files:
- Active/Inactive
The hyperlinks below only work if you have been given permission to access the folder/files:
- Link to syllabus: Active/Inactive
- Link to assignments: Active/Inactive
- Link to course material: Active/Inactive
- Link to university website: Active/Inactive
- This course is designed around students of professional and technical communications (TC), as well as science writing (SW). Current coursework provides practical experience in the many forms TC/SW take, emphasizing basic organization and presentation of technical information, focusing on strategies for analyzing the audience and its information needs. Course uses free open education online resources (OER). Materials provided with each class can include lectures, slide-deck presentations, in-class exercises, laboratories, and more.
- Below is a basic timeline of events by week as the pertain to the projects and subject matter.
Week # |
Project # & Title |
Subject |
Week 1 |
Introduction to projects 1, 2 & 3 |
Introductions & TC/SW theories |
Week 2 |
Project 1: Technical Reports |
Tech report research methods |
Week 3 |
Project 1: Technical Reports |
Tech report content development |
Week 4 |
Project 1: Technical Reports |
Tech report visualization methods |
Week 5 |
Project 1: Technical Reports |
Tech report genre/formatting conventions |
Week 6 |
Project 1: Technical Reports |
Tech report revising and editing workshops |
Week 7 |
Project 2: User Guides |
Structured content for user assistance |
Week 8 |
Project 2: User Guides |
Defining, describing, explaining content |
Week 9 |
Project 2: User Guides |
Usability testing / quality assurance |
Week 10 |
Project 2: User Guides |
TC/SW ethics |
Week 11 |
Project 3: Lessons Learned Report |
Reflective reporting on past projects |
Research Writing: 11- to 15-Week Course
This course designed around students of research writing.
- Link to sample syllabus: Active/Inactive
- Link to sample assignments: Active/Inactive
- Link to sample course material: Active/Inactive
- Link to university website: Active/Inactive
Business & Professional Writing: 11- to 15-Week Course
This course designed around students of research writing.
- Link to sample syllabus: Active/Inactive
- Link to sample assignments: Active/Inactive
- Link to sample course material: Active/Inactive
- Link to university website: Active/Inactive
ACADEMIC WRITING: 11- to 15-WEEK COURSE
This course designed around students of academic writing.
- Link to sample syllabus: Active/Inactive
- Link to sample assignments: Active/Inactive
- Link to sample course material: Active/Inactive
- Link to university website: Active/Inactive
Technical Report Writing
See the link that has been emailed to you.
Syllabus materials
Teaching Philosophy
Learn what you can. Teach what you know. That’s my philosophy after 15 years of writing instruction.
Ask anyone whose been around me, especially my writing students, and they’ll tell you: if given the chance to nerd-out on any aspect related to composition/communication, I will—whether it’s hopping up the whiteboard during a group conversation to diagram a genre move structure or gesticulating widely during one of my slide deck presentations. But I also try to bring to writing is a sense of realism and applicability. Words are not purely abstract in their execution; they have indirect tangibility. People wield words in ways that can feed, clothe, and shelter themselves. It’s just figuring out what to write and how, and to what audience.
For me, it’s taken me A LOT of mistakes and living through a share of hellish editorial experiences—which I love to talk tangentially about—but in time, I’ve learned to adapt to readers and textual settings. Along the way, I try to pass along tools and tricks I’ve picked up to keep from falling prey to the linguistic traps that criticism sometimes sets and pushes against creativity. To my writing students and edited authors alike, I try to teach about giving and receiving constructive editorial feedback, as well as keeping a keen sense for who they’re giving their feedback to and how, what it’s for, and why they’re giving it, what’s back their claims.
Ask anyone whose been around me, especially my writing students, and they’ll tell you: if given the chance to nerd-out on any aspect related to composition/communication, I will—whether it’s hopping up the whiteboard during a group conversation to diagram a genre move structure or gesticulating widely during one of my slide deck presentations. But I also try to bring to writing is a sense of realism and applicability. Words are not purely abstract in their execution; they have indirect tangibility. People wield words in ways that can feed, clothe, and shelter themselves. It’s just figuring out what to write and how, and to what audience.
For me, it’s taken me A LOT of mistakes and living through a share of hellish editorial experiences—which I love to talk tangentially about—but in time, I’ve learned to adapt to readers and textual settings. Along the way, I try to pass along tools and tricks I’ve picked up to keep from falling prey to the linguistic traps that criticism sometimes sets and pushes against creativity. To my writing students and edited authors alike, I try to teach about giving and receiving constructive editorial feedback, as well as keeping a keen sense for who they’re giving their feedback to and how, what it’s for, and why they’re giving it, what’s back their claims.
Philosophy of Equity & Inclusion
Diversity and inclusion foster mutual respect and full participation in thought, word, and action. Their foils, monoculture and exclusion foster oppression, illness, pathology, etc. Instruction and course design have historically fallen prey to exclusion and other barriers in the classroom. It is vital we create environments together that are equitable, usable, inclusive, and welcoming. There is wisdom in giving inalienable rights to all regarding access, inclusion, diversity, and equity. We are indeed purposely protected from discrimination on the basis of age, disability, national origin, race, color, marital status, veteran status, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and genetic information. Furthermore, if you feel like you have been discriminated against, you have rights regarding reporting and other types of responses. Why? Because choosing value and diversity grows and enriches people, places, things, and ideas; their foils deplete such efforts.
Teaching Bibliography
Words are power, and I love teaching their magic. Before joining the faculty at PSU in 2017, then moving to UW-Madison in 2022, I had trained and worked as an English instructor for Smarthinking/Pearson Education.
- Writing Instructor, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2022–): Currently teaching writing courses at UW-Madison
- Writing Instructor, Portland State University (2017–2021): For two intensive years, I trained as a writing instructor of record at PSU, teaching students to write across and in their disciplines:
- Completed two years of training in Advanced College Teaching, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (CLAS)
- Obtained a Certificate of Innovation in College Teaching (CICT), Office of Academic Innovation (OAI)
- Workshop Instructor, IPRC Certificate Program (2014): Taught composition and editing classes at IPRC for its Certification Program. User PowerPoint and props to teach basic book-building concepts.
- Guest Speaker, PSU Publishing Program (2013): Guest lecturer on differences between working in a publishing house vs. freelancing.
- Workshop Presenter / Panel Speaker, “Get Lit” Literary Festival (2011): Guest workshop presenter and panel speaker on book production for Spokane’s “Get Lit” Literary Festival.
- Writing Instructor, Pearson Education / Smarthinking (2009 - 2012): Taught composition and rhetoric to high school and college/university students online throughout the USA and Australia.
Writing Retention Assessments and Evaluations
As we work together on your writing, there are many traditional and nontraditional ways that we can assess and evaluate progress. Educators tend to separate assessments and evaluations into two primary groups chronologically, formative (beginning), iterative (during), and summative (end):
- Formative assessments and evaluations are inquiries typically done early in the creative process/cycle to discover insights and shape the creative/design direction. This will normally involve some type of inspection of the work in nascent to rough form. In my classrooms, this could involve in-class work, out-of-class work, group work, assignments, papers, projects, and tests for grades.
- Iterative assessments and evaluations are inquires during (throughout) the creative development process. I’ll be honest with you right now that I’m a fan of immediate feedback, and often use a method called “Questions of the Day,” in which I ask a writer short answer questions for data/information and/or essay-length responses. Ink-shedding and sharing journal entries is also another way to quickly read meta-cognition material about writing projects’ processes, deliverables, identities, audiences, and intended actions.
- Summative assessments and evaluations are inquiries typically done toward the end of the creative process/cycle with high-fidelity drafts or the actual final version to evaluate against a set of metrics and other dimensions. This could involve testing the usability of text/document.
Writing Instruction Assessments and Evaluations
As we work on your writing, know that the assessment and evaluation exercise is a two-way street, and I actively pursue assessments of my own work with you, should we work together, as well as observations from colleagues, senior faculty, and program managers and administrators. (All instructors should, IMO.) Again, as all things, assessments come in a variety of ways that will be largely defined by our relationship, the nature of your writing situation, and so on. Some student, peer, and faculty observation and feedback during and after terms of writing service include the following:
- During classes and workshops, I often survey writing learners on a number of items but often use this as my opportunity to also see who I’m doing. I call these my "Questions of the Day."
- I have videoed teaching consultations (VTCs), which were followed by Teaching Improvement Plans (TIPs) consultations.
- At the ends of every term of writing engagement, in addition to the regular evaluation form provided by the department, I have an "unofficial exit survey" on how things went.
Additional instructor materials
Active Innovation in Writing Instruction
While we work on your writing, know that I am also an active participant in several writing communities, collaborating to make a bigger change in higher education. Recent work includes designing open educational resource (OER) e-textbooks, and this summer/fall 2019, I will be a researcher on a grant-funded OER textbook project sponsored by PSU Library (more links to come). Other higher-ed focuses include writing center research focused around anti-use and non-visitation, as well using network theory and rhetorical genre analysis frameworks to understand writing center user experience outside writing centers.
Academic Professional Development
As an instructor, researcher, theorists, and practicing editor of writing, I'm obliged to remain aware of and engaged/participating in new developments in composition instruction on behalf of anyone whose writing I read and comment on. I also believe that you ask this of all those who consult with you on your writing, whether they’re a teacher of composition or an editor at a large publisher. This includes some of the following professional development activities:
- 2023 Conference on College Composition & Communication
- 2022 Conference of the Society for the Communication of Complex Information
- 2021 ACM-SIGDOC
- 2019 ACM-SIGDOC
Future Of Writing Instruction
Buckle up, the future of writing instruction is in for a wild ride, I’m all in, hope you are too. I’ll set you up with a quote from Christina Murphy and Lory Hawkes, wrote in 2001, barely past the turn of the century:
The paradigmatic and historical transition to multiple semiotic modes will require new models of tutor training as tutors become ‘digital content specialists’ within the e-world of contemporary communication. In this reconfiguration, tutors are not just consultants who help others produce but rather producers who create sophisticated tools to support students working on both digital and nondigital projects. Peer tutors are reconfigured as ‘digital content specialists” who “use the principles of e-literacies, cognitive theory, and composition pedagogy’ to design multimodal learning environments customized to the needs of individual learners” (361).
Granted, it’s been years since Murphy and Hawkes called for a new historical discourse to enable writing centers of the modern era to understand their relationship to their history as a “repetitive texture of change.” But in many ways, while some of the above might ring true today, there is still much of it that is yet coming to pass, and still other aspects to technology that will fundamentally change how we not only write but think.
The paradigmatic and historical transition to multiple semiotic modes will require new models of tutor training as tutors become ‘digital content specialists’ within the e-world of contemporary communication. In this reconfiguration, tutors are not just consultants who help others produce but rather producers who create sophisticated tools to support students working on both digital and nondigital projects. Peer tutors are reconfigured as ‘digital content specialists” who “use the principles of e-literacies, cognitive theory, and composition pedagogy’ to design multimodal learning environments customized to the needs of individual learners” (361).
Granted, it’s been years since Murphy and Hawkes called for a new historical discourse to enable writing centers of the modern era to understand their relationship to their history as a “repetitive texture of change.” But in many ways, while some of the above might ring true today, there is still much of it that is yet coming to pass, and still other aspects to technology that will fundamentally change how we not only write but think.