September 2011
VOL. 3 ISSUE 1
English Department
Duck or Grouse
This odd phrase is often found on signs above low doors in old English pubs. Like the phrase, this newsletter will alert its readers to important information. You’ll know when to duck and, with luck, your grousing will be kept to a minimum!
Kairos
—from the Chair, Beth Williams
Welcome to Fall 2011 and the English Department!
I have a couple of reminders for you: Your email and voicemail are the most effective
ways for students, faculty, and staff to get in touch with you, so please remember to
check both your school email address and your voicemail messages on a regular basis.
We complete the class scheduling and send regular notifications about the department
and schedule updates through email, and students rely on voicemail if they miss class
or have questions. Instructions for accessing voicemail can be found in the Help Desk
tab on mystarkstate.
If you have to cancel a class, please contact Edie Richeson (via email or ext. 4444),
Continued on page 5
Congratulations, Dr. Melissa Selby!
In May at Kent State University, Melissa Selby successfully defended her doctoral dissertation,
Expanding the Definition of Multimodality: Identifying Key Concepts in Students’ Designing.
Melissa explains her topic:
My dissertation, under the direction of Professor Raymond Craig, takes a problem-solving, task-based approach
Continued on page 2
Send your newsletter
contributions to
“Language is the tool of my trade,
and I use them all—all the Englishes
I grew up with.”
—Amy Tan
Catherine Rock, Editor
[email protected] x4797
Next deadline: October 14, 2011
English Department
“In general, every country has the language
it deserves.” —Jorge Luis Borges, writer
2
The jubilant Melissa Selby was unavailable for a
photograph. Fortunately, the same cannot be said
for her office.
We’re Back!
Continued from page 1, “Congratulations”
to explaining the salient aspects of designing. I
argue that previous descriptions of designs led to
limiting, deconstructive, gestalt understandings of
text creation that recreated an image/word binary.
As such, I pursue an understanding of meaningmaking from a problem-solving approach using a
protocol analysis of an in-situ task. I use Hayes
and Flower’s protocol of the writing process as a
model for the organization of the designing process, expanding it to include material constraints
and affordances. From the protocol transcripts a
clearer picture of meaning-making emerges that
encourages writing instructors to focus not only
on the rhetorical dimensions of a text, but also on
the affordances provided by the tools.
***
D
uck or Grouse needs you! Submit your adventures in
the classroom, teaching tips, poetry, announcements, grammar police contributions, etc. When you present a paper,
attend a conference, publish an article, poem, novella, or the great American novel, submit your information. This means ALL of you—adjunct
instructors, writing assistants, full-time faculty—we are ALL in this together, and it’s good for us to know what everyone else is doing.
Contributions may be emailed to the Editor at
[email protected]
or put in my mailbox. You can also contact me by telephone at extension
4797, or stop in my office, E224.
Catherine Rock
Catherine Rock, Editor
***
“It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in a language
which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
—Thomas Hardy
“The first duty of love is to listen”
—Paul Tillich
3
English Department
Updates
from Writing Director
Marie Stokes
Mentoring Program
By now, you should have heard from your
mentor in the department. The mentoring program provides a full-time faculty member contact for you so that should questions arise, you
have a connection with other faculty teaching
the same courses. You may also have contact
through observations and follow-up conferences. The opportunity to share ideas is one
major benefit of this departmental relationship.
If you have not received an email or phone
message from your mentor, email me so that I
can connect the two of you.
The Writing Center is continuing to improve our asynchronous website
Writing Center Online (www.starkstate.edu/writing center). Our homepage now has a short introductory video, thanks to senior writing assistants
Jenny Smith and Jessica Holley. We’d love some feedback, so please
check it out and let me know what you think! Also available is information on brainstorming, critical analysis, and audience. All of our informational pamphlets and links to other online writing centers are also
available.
Dual Credit Program
This semester, 11 dual credit instructors
(including Early College High School) are
teaching 21 sections of College Composition,
three sections of College Comp II, and one
section of British Literature. A very successContinued on page 4
If your students are looking for more individualized help, the Writing
Center is continuing to offer online tutoring on ANGEL! Please direct
your students to angel.starkstate.edu. They will have to register themselves for our group page. If you’d like a pamphlet describing how to
register, please email me ([email protected]), and I can forward
that to you.
Continued on page 5
Writing Center Writables
—Leah Schell-Barber
“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both
go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.”
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine
marriage and a career.”
—Gloria Steinem, feminist
English Department
4
Kudos
This summer Marie Cox published a novella, a poem, and a short story, and she received the attention of the White House—
yes, THAT White House! The Course of
True Love Never Did Run Smooth is her
second novella. It is available as a Kindle
book through Amazon.com. Her poem ―The
Bastard‖ (published in the November, 2010,
issue of Duck or Grouse) and her short story
―Dearc Fearna‖ were published in the anthology Turning Leaves. At the latter’s book
launch on June 26 in downtown Canton, she
signed copies of the book. In August, Marie posted a question/video to President
Obama online on CNN iReport. Since Wolf
Blitzer didn’t get to her question in his oneon-one interview with the President, Marie’s
question/video was forwarded to the White
House, and the video response was posted by
CNN. Finally, Marie’s response to the
White House was posted. The series of three
videos is available at: http://ireport.cnn.com/
topics/652699/featured.
In May, Catherine Rock presented ―The
Short Metrical Chronicle: One Meticulous
Scribe‖ at the 46th International Congress on
Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan.
While there, she was also elected to a threeyear term as Councillor of the Medieval Association of the Midwest, a scholarly organization for whose journal she also serves as a
peer reviewer. In July she attended the Campus Pride Summer
Leadership Camp in Nashville, Tennessee. Finally, she had an article published:
Rock, Catherine. ―Acting Out.‖ Bi Women 29.4. (2011): 6-7. Web.
Continued from page 3, “Updates”
ful Dual Credit Workshop was conducted last May by Marie Cox and
Tricia Kincaid. We look forward to suggestions from our dual credit
instructors for topics for the upcoming workshop on December 16.
W3 College Composition II
Development of College Composition II as a W3, totally online course is
underway. Jen Cunningham is developing this course with the help of
Mary Beth Messner from eStarkState. Composition online is challenging, but with the benefit of the work done by Melissa Selby with W3
College Comp, we anticipate that the course will run smoothly. Both
Melissa and Jen are developing Master Courses for each of these classes.
***
Special thanks for this issue go to:
Duane Dodson, Proofreader Extraordinaire;
Tom O’Brien, for being the unwitting victim of the Editor’s twisted sense of humor; and Marie Stokes,
Beth Williams, and Leah Schell-Barber for their contributions.
Merci bien!
5
Continued from page 3, “Writing”
Our online hours are Monday-Thursday (4 p.m.-11 p.m.), Saturday (11
a.m.-2pm), and Sunday (6 p.m.-10 p.m.).
In addition to increased activity online, Stark Raving Writers, Stark State’s
creative writing group, is now up to 25 student members. As members of
this group, students are invited to write, share, enjoy refreshments, and
participate in community service activities. Members are also encouraged
to submit their work to local and national writing contests and publications, including Circinus, Stark State’s literary journal. For more information about Stark Raving Writers and Circinus, please contact Daniel
Beall at [email protected]. Stark Raving Writers can also be followed on Facebook! Find us by typing ―Stark Raving Writers‖ into your
search bar.
Finally, I’d like to introduce a few new members of our Writing Center
team.
Nathan Floom joins the Writing Center from Bowling Green State University where he earned a B.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with a minor
in Philosophy.
Emilia Kandl has a B.A. degree in Psychology with minors in English
and Art from Walsh University.
Aurora McAfee earned her B.A. degree in Secondary Education, Integrated Language Arts, from The University of Akron.
Andrew Rihn earned his B.A. in English from Kent State University –
Stark Campus and has recently presented at the IWCA Conference in Baltimore.
Tara Stallman has an M.Ed. degree, Integrated Language Arts, from The
University of Akron. She also worked as a high school English teacher for
10 years.
Nadia Zamin has an M.A. in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and
Composition from Kent State University.
Tom O’Brien and Duane Dodson
enjoying Jen Cunningham’s
phenomenal biscotti.
P. S. Don’t tell Tom’s wife, Ebru, who works in
Chemistry, or he’ll be in trouble. BIG trouble.
Continued from page 1, “Kairos”
Kathy Ball (email or ext. 4694), and me (email or ext.
4148) and complete the Instructor Absence Form. If
you have a 7:30 a.m. class, you can contact Edie since
she arrives at 7:30 a.m., but if you cannot reach her, you
can contact Security (ext. 4367) to let them know. For
those of you teaching College Writing I or College Writing II, Writing Center assistants cannot substitute for
you if you miss a class; follow the absence process if
you must miss during a Studio Session time.
Have a lovely fall semester! Let me know if you have
any questions or concerns.
***