Courses Taught

History of Writing: From Pen to Pixel (ENGL 116). Introduction to the variety of writing tools, practices, and traditions across cultures from ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform to contemporary emojis. Students participate in hands on lab activities to translate theories into experiments with writing practices from clay tablets to embroidered samplers.

Advanced Expository Writing, Interdisciplinary (ENGL 300i): Rhetoric and Writing in the Health Sciences. Students study rhetorical theory, usability concepts, and advanced editing techniques and apply those insights to health communication. Students prepare literature reviews, policy briefs, website materials, and more.  

Composition and Rhetoric: Writing in the Disciplines (ENGL 105). Required first year course on genres and conventions of writing in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Students in my sections write lab reports based on computational simulations, conduct focus group studies, and produce brochures, public service announcements, or websites for the UNC Student Health Center.

Composition and Rhetoric: Science Writing (ENGL 105i). Specialized first year course focused on writing in the natural sciences. Students in my sections write genres ranging from popular science articles to grant proposals and scientific policy reports.

Composition and Rhetoric: Writing in the Health Sciences (ENGL 105i). Specialized first year course focused on writing in the health sciences. Students in my sections conduct literature reviews on a health topic, propose a public health study or intervention, and prepare documents (such as brochures and websites) for public audiences.

Science Writing (ENGL 303). Advanced science writing course for upper-level undergraduates. In my sections, students analyze and critique conventions of scientific genres, write literature reviews, grant proposals, and popularizations of scientific articles, and work on service learning projects.

Rhetoric of Health and Medicine (Engl 610). 15 students/section. In this class, students draw on the themes of “controversy and catastrophe” to examine issues related to biotechnology, bioethics, and debates about medical knowledge in contemporary and historical contexts. Students prepare conference papers and posters that will be ready for submission to a local, national, or international conference.

Narrative, Literature, and Medicine (Engl 611). 20 students/section. In this class, students explore narratives of illness through a rhetorical perspective, focusing on genre, audience, and situation. Assignments include a genre “remix” assignment and individual research projects that include designing a game, developing a grant proposal, or developing a story-based awareness campaign.

Health Humanities: Intensive Research Practice (ENGL 695). In this course, students study research methods in the health humanities ranging from literary and rhetorical analysis to qualitative interviewing and ethnographic methods. Students work collaboratively or independently on a research project leading to a conference presentation, grant proposal, or scholarly article.

Rhetoric and Composition Practicum (ENGL 706).  This course offers students theoretical and practical training in rhetoric and composition, with a focus on teaching Engl 105 at UNC. Students learn about the ancient canons of rhetoric while focusing on the disciplinary and genre conventions of writing in contemporary academic disciplines.

Research Methods in Rhetoric and Composition (ENGL 801). This course guides students through a process of refining research methods and preparing publication-ready articles for rhetoric and composition and adjacent fields.

Studies in Rhetoric and Composition: Science and the Rhetoric of Invention (ENGL 805). Graduate course that uses the rhetorical canon of invention as a heuristic to consider the role rhetoric plays in scientific inventions and discoveries. Students consider how rhetoric serves an inventive function for scientists, but also how scientific discourse “invents” gendered subjectivities for scientists and for users of scientific inventions.

Studies in Rhetoric and Composition: Medical Rhetoric (ENGL 805). In this course, students examine key topics of interest to scholars in the rhetoric of health and medicine, such as issues of patient empowerment, compliance, and doctor-patient communication.

Studies in Rhetoric and Composition: Writing at Work (ENGL 805). This graduate course introduces students to the theory and pedagogy of technical and professional communication. Students compose technical document but also think pedagogically, designing assignments and syllabi to use in their own teaching.

Studies in Rhetoric and Composition: Making/Rhetoric (ENGL 805). Rhetoric has always been thought of as a techne, a “process of producing or bringing-forth” that encompasses knowledge, talent, and skill. Yet, scholars in rhetoric have yet to fully explore what it might mean to enact techne as a form of critical practice. This course examines what it means to practice rhetoric and writing as a techne and to enact that practice alongside other forms of making. We will focus, in particular, on how non-Western rhetorical practices offer alternative ways of understanding rhetoric as a techne. Investigations range from ancient Mesopotamian cylinder seals—pictographic objects used to “sign” one’s name on clay tablets—to Sumerian cuneiform writing, to Mesoamerican codices and Greco-Roman wax tablets. Our goal is to invigorate the study of rhetoric by considering its techne broadly and transculturally.