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| welcome |
| research |
| teaching |
| writing digital |
| vita |
WRITING STUDIES |
The information age has brought about the need to examine the intersection between digital technologies and the writing classroom. As students spend hours a day using digital technologies to email, text, and facebook friends, the importance of research about how students integrate their knowledge (or lack thereof) into college-writing situations is invaluable. I am currently working on a composition studies project Writing in the Web 2.0 World to learn more about digital literary to develop pedagogical strategies to enhance teaching composition with technology. |
COMPUTERS & COMPOSITION |
"Compositionists have attempted to move beyond a binary view of technology access in examining the digital divide and in doing so have raised important questions about the larger societal issues connected to issues of technological literacy and access. While much attention has been paid to students at risk of growing up without access to, and experience with, computers, attention also needs to be paid to students’ critical digital literacies. "
WRITING IN THE WEB 2.0 WORLD
check out the writing digital page |
What ties this all together?
I am intrigued by the power of language to do things in everyday life
--such as--
create meaning
convey values and beliefs
reproduce ideology
make sense of problems
and
empower, control and activate people to take action.
DISCOURSE STUDIES |
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Inspired by an interest in transformation and problems generated by the dynamic nature of language, technology, and societal ideological formations, I apply discourse analysis to a mental health website to shed light on how Americans respond to consumer-oriented messages about health and wellness. I am currently working on a book project, Selling Virtual Wellness, that provides a case study of an influential mental health website to understand how “wellness” is being marketed as an ideal to pursue and "disorder" is sold as the "normal" state of affairs. This project provides much needed research on how people are increasingly turning to blogs and discussion boards to “work on” the “project of the self” to make sense of self-identity in their everyday lives through telling stories.
CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS |
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“My approach to discourse analysis (a version of ‘critical discourse analysis’) is based upon the assumption that language is an irreducible part of social life, dialectically interconnected with other elements of social life, so that social analysis and research always has to take account of language. This means that one productive way of doing social research is through a focus on language, using some form of discourse analysis.” |
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NARRATIVE ANALYSIS |
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"Narrative is among the most important social resources for creating and maintaining personal identity. Narrative is a significant resource for creating our internal, private sense of self and is all the more a major resource for conveying that self to and negotiating that self with others." |
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