As an intersection of my academic interest in rhetoric and my interests as a fan—a combination many undergraduate and graduate students are drawn too—I teach courses about popular culture seen through a rhetorical and cultural studies lens. ENG345: The Graphic Novel and Manga focuses on these popular forms of visual storytelling. Students explore theories of... Continue Reading →
I see my pedagogy shaped by two major streams: 1) my experience as an academic researcher, and 2) my involvement in interdisciplinary writing, deriving from my graduate-school experiences as assistant director of a Writing Across the Curriculum initiative and my current involvement in teaching Professional and Technical Writing for students in majors from across the... Continue Reading →
I use grade contracts as a way to help students focus on their learning and worry less about "writing for the teacher" in order to get good grades; the contract makes explicit what criteria students must meet to achieve their desired score. Since coming to EKU, I have admired the approach to grading used by... Continue Reading →
I vary the design and delivery of my courses to match the content and learning outcomes of each course. In writing courses, I emphasize the process of recursive prewriting, drafting, and revision; following the QEP emphasis on reading with a purpose, I also link strategies for close reading and information literacy to writing classes like... Continue Reading →
Intro to PTW emphasizes writing technical and professional communications for defined audiences, purposes, and situations. The course introduces students to genre analysis strategies and fast prototyping as ways of matching writing and documents to contextual and audience needs. Students put document design principles and strategies into action as they work on both individual and group projects.... Continue Reading →
In Spring 2018 my colleague Margaret Frozena and I reimagined our ENG102: Research, Rhetoric, and Writing courses to revolve around an ePortfolio, supported by a grade contract. Students composed several digital projects, including a running research bibliography, an audio essay, a curated image archive of original and Creative Commons images, and an informative webtext. We... Continue Reading →
Increasingly, New Media projects in writing courses are a way to teach critical skills and help students see themselves as producers of authentic texts, with meaningful ideas to share. However, New Media pedagogy has yet to be widely applied to Basic Writing courses—for populations that most feel they “don’t belong.” Problematically, these students often enter... Continue Reading →
Dominic J. Ashby, Ph.D. 