WRD Speaker Series – Dr. Chris Thaiss

The department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse at DePaul University is pleased to welcome Dr. Chris Thaiss as the spring quarter WRD Speaker Series presenter. On Wednesday, April 16th, Dr. Thaiss will give his talk “Writing Programs Worldwide.”   Dr. Chris Thaiss is Clark Kerr Presidential Chair and Professor in the University Writing Program (UWP) of the University of California at Davis. A member of the Language, Literacy, and Culture Graduate Group at UCD, he also serves as Principal Investigator of the Area 3 Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project.

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WRD Offers China Teaching Program

Our latest newsletter profiled Professor Jason Schneider’s summer travels to Huaqiao University.  This teaching opportunity is a product of the connections that Schneider and WRD Chair Peter Vandenberg forged during those visits. For TESOL grads interested in teaching abroad, the connection between DePaul and Huaqiao makes the process much more accessible. Schneider stated that DePaul is “offering an opportunity to go abroad in which much of the leg work and administrative work has already been completed.”

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Narratives, Netflix, and Newsweek

Two of our articles this week focus on teaching writing.  In different ways, the pieces advocate for more complex and challenging goals as a teacher — problematizing the role of a writing teacher and refusing to settle for simple solutions.  We’ve also found a lighter read:  The Atlantic’s roundup of new apps that hope to become the “Netflix of reading”.  Enjoy!

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Greetings from Professor Vandenberg in China

Professor Vandenberg, WRD Department Chair, is in Quanzhou (Fujan Province) China this week at DePaul’s sister school, Huaqaio University. His visit follows one that WRD’s Visiting Professor and Coordinator of WRD’s Graduate TESOL Coordinator, Jason Schneider, made to Huaqiao this summer. Professor Vandenberg gave a talk on writing instruction in US universities on Monday and is meeting with administrators to explore possible connections between WRD and Huaqiao’s English department, including student and faculty exchanges and opportunities for WRD alumni to teach in China.

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Academic Writing in the Global Classroom

In celebration of International Education Week at DePaul, WRD is sponsoring a special discussion session featuring WRD instructors and multilingual students. Mark your calendars and don’t miss this great event! Becoming a successful college writer in a first language is hard. Becoming a successful college writer in a second (or third) language is exponentially harder. In this session, faculty from the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, & Discourse will talk about their experiences teaching multilingual writers in the WRD 103X and 104X classes, and international students will talk about their experiences as writers in these and other classes. 

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Bowden to Present Fall Teaching Commons Workshop

WRD professor Darsie Bowden will be presenting the following Fall 2013 Teaching Commons Workshop with English professor Lucy Rhinehart on Thursday, October 31st and Friday, November 1st. Reading Strategies: Helping Students Read Effectively This workshop is designed to help teachers learn more about the differences between a good reader and a poor reader, acquire tips and strategies for helping students get the most out of class reading assignments, and develop ideas for making reading an integral part of students’ experience and learning in your courses.

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WRD Alumnus Wins National Education Reporting Award

Ray Salazar’s education blog, The White Rhino: A Chicago Latino English Teacher, tied for second place in the Best Blog category of the Education Writers Association (EWA) contest: the 2012 National Awards for Education Reporting. A judge from the contest had this to say about White Rhino: “White Rhino offers an interesting point of view on Latino issues at a moment of their emergence as a political and cultural force. He also has an endearing approach of a crusader, asking hard questions of the union chief and criticizing the mayor.”

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Buckvold and Skolnik Receive QM Award

The DePaul Online Teaching Series recently awarded WRD faculty members John Buckvold and Christine Skolnik with the Quality Matters Star Award and Certificate. Buckvold’s WRD 202 and Skolnik’s WRD 204 each received a perfect 95 in the DePaul Internal QM Review. The QM Award recognizes DOTS-developed online and hybrid courses that meet course design standards of usability and quality.

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