About Dr. M

Although I was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, I’ve become a “DC Girl” by virtue of education and career. I earned my PhD in American literature from The George Washington University in 2005, and have been teaching introductory and advanced composition and literature at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia (Go Patriots!) since 2002. I became assistant director of the Composition Program in 2006.

My current research interests include rhetoric/composition, distance learning pedagogies, and genre literature.

From 1999 to 2001, I served as a program assistant to the EDSITEment project, the educational website of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was at NEH that I became intrigued by the way in which educators could use digital media to enhance classroom instruction.

I have presented papers at the Modern Language Association Convention, the Thomas R. Watson Conference, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and the Western Literature Association.

RECENT COURSES TAUGHT

2010 – 2011: “Net Neutrality” (ENGL 302B: one f2f section; Four distance learning sections); “Why Women Read Romance” (ENGL 202: one section of 40 students): “Analyzing Texts” (ENGL 302H: two summer distance learning sections; one hybrid section)

•2008 – 2009: ENGL 101 “How Flat Is George Mason?” General Education Mason Seminar (GEMS) Pilot; ENGL 302H “Can the Humanities Save Us?”; ENGL 302B “Writing in the Global Marketplace”; ENGL 302B & ENGL 302H “The Humanities and the Presidential Election”; ENGL 302B “Writing About Money”; ENGL 302H “Humanities & Interdisciplinarity” (Hybrid & Distance Learning Version)

•2006-2007: ENGL 101 “Privacy in the Digital Age” ENGL 302B;  “Writing in the Global Marketplace”; ENGL 302H “Being Human in the 21st Century”

PAPERS PRESENTED

“Using New Tools to Respond to Student Writing”: Presented with David Beach, Twila Johnson, and Joyce Johnston at the Innovations in Teaching and Learning Conference, George Mason University, October 2010

“Classroom in an iPod: creating a course in Mason’s iTunes University.” Presented as part of a panel with Rick Reo and Shawn Miller of Learning Support Services. Innovations in Teaching and Learning Conference, George Mason University. Fall 2009.

“When Authors Won’t Die: Reasserting Authorial Interpretation Through Online Forums.” Presented at the Modern Language Association Convention, December 2008.

“It Takes a Village to Go Multimodal in the Composition Classroom.” To be presented as part of a panel, “Faculty 2.0:  Preparing Writing Instructors for New Media and Online Pedagogies”? with Shelley Reid and David Beach at the Seventh Biennial Thomas R. Watson Conference, University of Louisville, October 2008

“Teaching Podcasting in the College Composition Course: The Tech Behind the Text.” Computer Connection at the College Composition and Convention. New York, March 2007.

“Podcasting: The Tech Behind the Text.” Center for Teaching Excellence. George Mason University, March 2007.

“’Dear Father’: Using the Letters of Luther Standing Bear to Teach My People the Sioux,” to be presented, Modern Language Association Conference, December 2006

“Rendering Melville Online.” Presentation on behalf of the National Endowment for the Humanities to the “Melville and Multiculturalism” Summer Institute for Teachers, Dr. Laurie Robertson-Lorant, Director, New Bedford, MA, July 2001.

“Now That We’ve Wired the Classroom, How Do We Turn on the Kids?” presented, Southeastern Conference of Community Colleges, Miami, FL, October 2000

“Herman Melville’s ‘Benito Cereno’ and Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game: Using Error to Teach Us the Error of Our Ways,” presented, Midwestern Conference on Film, Language and Literature, March 1999, and American Literature Association Conference, May 1999

“Conquering the Carlisle Way: Frances Campbell Sparhawk’s A Chronicle of Conquest,” presented, Western Literature Association Conference, October 1998

“Storyteller Lit: Teaching the American Short Story from the Native American Perspective,” presented, 12th Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States (MELUS), March, 1998

“Cogewea’s Other ‘Half’: Assessing Whiteness in Mourning Dove’sCogewea, The Half-Blood,” presented, Western Literature Association Conference, October 1997 and American Women Writers of Color Conference, Salisbury State Univ., October 1997

“Kill the Indian and Save the Man?: Zitkala-Sa and the Boarding School Experience,” presented, Western Literature Conference and American Women Writers of Color Conference, October, 1996