academic & research
Research:
Although both my undergraduate and graduate degrees are in literature, after teaching rhetoric and composition courses for the past seven years, I have developed a strong interest in the field and want rhetoric and language studies to be the focus of my future research and writing.
My research interests include composition, rhetoric, the history of rhetoric, rhetorical analysis, etymology, sociolinguistics, public understanding of and engagement with the humanities, the intersection of skepticism and rhetoric/composition pedagogy, and the relationship between clear and precise writing and the effective dissemination of knowledge.
Academic:
• My article ”School Voucher Programs are both ineffective and dangerous” was recently published (as “School Vouchers Violate the Separation of Church and State”) in Opposing Viewpoints: Church and State, a textbook from Greenhaven Press.
• M.A. Thesis: ’A woman like that is not a woman, quite’: reclamation of power for the private self in the poetry of Anne Sexton. MA thesis. Eastern Washington University, 2003. Print. worldcat.org/oclc/52764079
• “The Clarity Imperative” (unpublished paper) can be found here (.pdf available here). Abstract:
Rhetoricians and writing instructors who disparage clarity and science are encouraging their readers and students to see clear and understandable writing as both unsophisticated and suspect, and to perceive objective and quantitative research methods as ideologically motivated. Unfortunately, those who encourage these attitudes have been quite successful, and, as a consequence, have made it more difficult for science communicators to effectively increase the public understanding of science. Similarly, those writing instructors who prioritize their personal ideologies over clear communication deprive their students of the opportunity to appreciate and produce clear writing. This deprivation is grossly unfair to students. It is imperative that, as rhetoricians and writing instructors, we help our students to understand and appreciate the value of clarity and to replicate it in their own writing.
I’d like to expand on this paper, or to take up the topic again in another paper or article.
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I’m a member of:
The Modern Language Association (MLA)
The Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association (RMMLA)
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)
The American Society for the History of Rhetoric (ASHR)
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Elsewhere:
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Email:
mirandachale at gmail
