Faculty

Faculty News

April 2008

Redfield co-authors textbook

Karen Redfield is the principal author on a student success textbook coming out this summer. Foundations of Learning, 4th edition, is based on the process education model and will be published by Pacific Crest. Redfield will continue on as the principal author for the 5th edition, which is expected to be published in the summer of 2009.

Bouman and Minett to be published in guidebook for writing tutors

Kurt Bouman and Amy Minett each have chapters forthcoming in the second edition of ESL Writers: A Guide For Writing Center Tutors, published by Heinemann Boynton Cook. Bouman's chapter focuses on “Raises Questions About Plagiarism”; Minett’s chapter is titled “Earth Aches By Midnight: Helping ESL Writers Clarify Their Intended Meaning." The first edition (which included versions of these chapters) won the 2004 International Writing Centers Association Outstanding Scholarship Award for Best Book.

Minett also presented a poster session on her dissertation research at the 30 th annual conference of the American Association of Applied Linguistics in Washington, D.C, held in late March. Her dissertation research explores the role of English Language Teaching in building democracies and open societies in Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Spiering poetry collection to be published by Skywater

Skywater Publications will publish David Spiering's full-length poetry collection, called Coming Deceptions, this fall. Spiering, a part-time English instructor, has had poems printed in the Chiron Review, Poetry East, Mudfish, The West Wind Review, Spillway, and The Mid-American Poetry Review, among others. He has published fiction in Licking River Review, 13th Moon Review, Backstreet Quarterly, the Clark Street Review and others. He has published three chapbooks of poetry: the most recent is Crooked Litanies, Snark Press, 2005. 

Syrnk co-chairs composition and rhetoric colloquim

Christopher Syrnyk, part-time English instructor, has been co-chairing the Composition and Rhetoric Colloquium series at UW/Madison. The topics include "What should First Year Composition Be?" and "What is the Place of Rhetoric in Composition?"

Syrnyk is also currently working on his “prelims” portfolio in Composition and Rhetoric in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin/Madison. He’s answering the following questions:
-- Reviewing voice as a long-standing and key concept in both rhetoric and composition, how does the field's regard for the “voiceless other” tend to favor the notion of “voice” and its embodied “presence” or “logic”?
-- Furthermore, how might the field formulate another way of conceiving “voicelessness” that does not rely on the additional implication of this antinomy between “voice” and “voicelessness,” which revolves around the precarious metaphysical fulcrum known as “body”?

Guenette's poetry book published in March

Matthew Guenette’s first book, Sudden Anthem, winner of the 2007 American Poetry Journal Book Prize, was published in March.  He has also been nominated for a 2008 Breadloaf Scholarship.  He has poems forthcoming in the next issue of the Southern Indiana Review.

Hansen travels to Norway to evaluate master's-level work

Larry D. Hansen will travel to Aas, Norway in the summer of 2008 to serve on two defense committees at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences . The defense committees will evaluate the work of two master’s level students at the university’s International Institute for Development and Environment, also known as Noragric. Hansen has been the advisor for both students, Benyam Tesham ( Ethiopia) and Sten Brand ( Norway), since 2007, when he spent seven months at Noragric as a guest researcher while he was on a sabbatical. While at Noragric, Hansen also facilitated a master’s-level course titled “Media and Democracy.” Hansen said that Tesham and Brand, both students of that course, asked him to be their advisor when the course ended. Both students, he added, have focused their master’s theses on media issues in the countries of Ethiopia and Nepal.

Ivanova published in regional TYCA publication

Rossitza Ivanova's article titled "Bridging the Gap Between Researched Information and Critical Thinking" was published in the fall 2007 issue of Midwest Messenger, a public of TYCA Midwest. The article discusses the use of spoof ads featured in the Adbusters Web site to encourage students' active engagement and critical thinking for a research project, said Ivanova, a part-time English instructor. The article gives examples of how spoof ads could be used to teach students how to narrow a topic and ask probing research questions.

Ivanova explained, "I wrote the article because I have often felt frustrated with how difficult it is to teach students how to narrow a topic and come up with possible meaningful directions for a research project. I found the spoof ads useful because they provide a visual context that all students can recognize and relate to. Because the spoof ads bring up familiar images and ideas, but challenge their accepted meaning, they prompt students to make connections, ask questions, draw comparisons and engage in discussions and critical thinking about the subject. I have had a positive experience using such discussions as a springboard for teaching students how to brainstorm a list of research questions and narrow a general topic."

The article is based on a presentation Ivanova gave at the TYCA 2006 conference.

Galligan publishes fourth novel

John Galligan, English instructor, expects his fourth novel, titled The Clinch Knot, to be published in September of 2008. The mystery novel with a fly fishing theme is a follow-up to his The Blood Knot (2005) and The Nail Knot (2003). Galligan believes The Clinch Knot, published by Bleak House Books, is his best work so far.

He said, "This book is the most thematically complex, and has the most challenging characters. And the plot moves like greased lightning."

Galligan gave a quick synopsis of his latest novel: "A trout-fishing bum, who is at the end of his rope, faces down Hollywood hobby ranchers, racist nativists, and the harsh and beautiful Montana landscape in order to rescue his fishing buddy from a murder charge."

The English instructor's first novel is Red Sky, Red Dragonfly (2000). He also co-authored the children's book titled Oh Brother Said the Mother of Tony Pepperoni and co-wrote the 1986 horror movie titled Blood Hook.