My most recent courses have links to their web sites, but note that some links within those sites may no longer be active (for example, old forum postings have been archived). Current courses are linked above. All courses are undergraduate unless otherwise noted.
Information Architecture (graduate)
Rowan University
(Spring 2009)
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Web Design (graduate)
Rowan University
(Summer 2008)
In this course we will learn how to design Web pages, starting with HTML coding and building to more complex layouts, using cascading style sheets and intricate graphic designs. But it is not just a course in coding and graphic design. We will be thinking critically about the important issue of the day: designing aesthetically intricate, usable, accessible pages according to Web Standards.
Creative Hypertext (graduate)
Rowan University
(Summer 2008)
In this course we will learn about the fascinating genres of hypertext fiction and poetry—creative texts that are designed and composed specifically for the web. We will read important theory on hypertext and electronic literature—theory that will help us see how hypertext fiction and poetry challenge our print-based understanding of plot, narrative, grammar, rhetoric, and so forth. The course is going to ask us to read and think in new ways and to consider how medium effects structure and comprehension.
Writing for Electronic Communities (graduate)
Rowan University
(Spring 2008)
In this course we will be considering the relationship among writing, electronic environments, and communities, as well as their multiple interpretations, particularly in terms of new media technologies. It is significant to note that though we will be looking at technology, not all technologies—past and present—exist among electronic environments. Rather, the electronic environments we will consider will be on and off line, and will cover range of spaces: books, web sites, movies, advertising, to name a few. We will explore how writing has impacted and has been impacted by these electronic environments, and how communities have emerged from and within them as a result.
Writing, Research, and Technology
Rowan University
(Fall 2006, 2008; Spring 2007, 2008, 2009)
In fall 2008 I began the process of rethinking the nature of this course by considering how Rowan students might be able to handle various web design and video editing technologies. I composed two different courses—one, in Fall 2008, focused on web design, the other, in Spring 2009, focused on video composition—both of which asked students to rethink the nature and composition of writing in the Internet age.
Prior to Fall 2008, the course had the following description. In this course we will look at what Jay David Bolter calls writing spaces—those online and in-print areas where texts are written, read, and manipulated. We will consider how the latest technologies are blurring the distinction between writer and reader, author and subject, and text and image. Indeed, much of our time will be spent thinking about the language of images and how one reads images on the page and on the screen. Ultimately our discussions will ask us to question what, in our technologized and visual world, writing is, and how images have been and are being used as evidence to both support and supplant it.
Technologies and the Future of Writing
Rowan University
(Fall 2007, 2008; Spring 2008, 2009; Summer 2009)
Technologies and the Future of Writing is one of three, four-week modules that make up the course, Introduction to Writing Arts. Introduction to Writing Arts introduces students to important concepts in writing and to the Writing Arts major at Rowan University. The course provides a framework for understanding and connecting material throughout students’ coursework. It is divided into three modules: History and Materiality of Writing (taughtby Sandy Tweedie); Issues in Writing (taught by Jennifer Courtney); and Technologies and the Future of Writing. In this module we consider the relationships among technology, writing, and the construction of electronic spaces through four 1-week units: Origins, Writing Spaces, Ownership & Identity, and The Future of Writing.
Sophomore Engineering Clinic
Rowan University
(Fall 2006, 2007, 2008)
This course, a continuation of the Engineering Clinic series, provides expanded treatment of the practice of engineering through applications drawn from various engineering disciplines and industry. Project work includes a variety of technical communication topics, analytic and computer-based tools, including the design process, engineering ethics, safety and teamwork. The composition component presents critical thinking, reading, writing, research and argumentation. The course is taught collaboratively by 8 faculty–3 from Writing Arts, 5 from Engineering. Website designed with Pbwiki.com.
Introduction to Web Development
University of Texas at Austin
(Fall 2002, 2004, 2005; Spring 2004, 2005, 2006)
In this course students learn how to design Web pages, starting with HTML coding and building to more complex layouts, using cascading style sheets and intricate graphic designs. But it is not just a course in coding and graphic design. Students think critically about the important issue of the day: designing aesthetically intricate, usable, accessible pages according to Web Standards.
Students design Web pages with the user, not the designer, in mind, which will force us to ask difficult questions: Who is our intended user? Our accidental user? How will they be coming to the page in similar ways? In different ways? Is there ever a way to create a Web page that can be usable for all people, regardless of physical or mental disability? What if the user is blind? What is the importance of Web page usability? What are the characteristics of a usable, accessible Web page? How can we be sure people using versions of Netscape, for example, that are four years old can still view the Web page? How does the fact that Web technology is constantly evolving inform the way we think about Web design?
The Rhetoric of War
Rowan Universty
(College Composition 2: Spring 2007)
The University of Texas at Austin
(Rhetoric 309K: Fall 2001, Spring 2002)
In this course students analyze the rhetoric of war by looking at how people employ language to make arguments about why they fight, what they gain by it, and how they interpret past conflicts. By using a variety of sources – historical texts, government documents, news reports, web sites – students look critically at not only depictions of atrocities, but at how war is presented, reported, interpreted, and dramatized. Class discussions lead us to ask important questions about the rhetoric of war: Is declaring war ever justified? What exactly is ethnic cleansing? Who sets the line between a war crime and a “legitimate” act of war? How do the media and the Internet manipulate the way the general public perceives war? Is the United States really as altruistic as it imagines?
courses without web sites
Rhetoric 306, “Rhetoric and Composition” (Fall 2000, Spring 2001)
Full-time Instructor, Rutgers, The State University of NJ
Writing Program, Department of English (all classes Fall 1997 – Spring 2000)
Expository Writing II, “Holocaust” (2 sections)
Expository Writing II, “War & Ethics” (3 sections)
Expository Writing (7 sections)
Basic Composition (1 section)
Adjunct Professor, DeVry University, North Brunswick, NJ
Advanced Composition (1 section, Fall 1997)
Teaching Assistant, The University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
Department of English (all classes Fall 1996 – Spring 1997)
Freshman English 101, 102, and 103 (1 section each)
