Courses

Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York Fall 2012- (Assistant, Associate Professor) 

1. Theories in Composition (WRT613)—course developed, yet to teach. This course explores the relationship between reading and writing skills, the differences between speech production and writing production, and the relationship between literacy, culture, and language politics.
2. Advanced Research Writing: Theories, Methods, Practice (WRT 380): This course is designed to teach upper-division (mostly Writing Minor) students the fundamentals of academic research and apply that learning to practice/ develop skills through research and writing assignments. Building on substantial readings on “writing in the disciplines,” they also learn to reflect on their own experience and growth as writers in their respective disciplines/majors, while exchanging support as peer reviewers. Students write about topics of their other disciplinary interests as they engage in tasks like library and internet search, annotated bibliography, literature review, research proposal, planning and development of a research paper, and presentation of findings
3. World Rhetorics: Special Topic in Writing and Rhetoric (WRT 614/EGL 614). This course is designed to help students in the “Graduate Writing Certificate” program survey major rhetorical traditions (including Middle Eastern, South Asian, East Asian, African, and Western), studying representative texts along three axes: historical/temporal, geopolitical/spatial, and ideational/thematic. Themes include education and teaching, privacy and sharing, media and mediation, trust/conflict and negotiation. Implementing the idea of “community as curriculum” developed by David Cormier, who Skyped in to class, students in past classes have blogged for a broad audience, also discussing works of other authors (by Skype). At the end of the semester, students presented teaching- and research- focused projects to a group of my department colleagues. 
4. Graduate Level Writing (WRT 621). This advanced writing in the disciplines (WID) course is designed to situate the teaching of “remedial” writing skills in the context of advanced academic writing. Drawing on the latest developments in WID studies and ongoing conversations with WID scholars (as part of my own research), I engage students in vigorous intellectual discussions (prompted by some challenging readings) about writing in the academic disciplines. Then students do practical writing exercises, including in different genres related to the job search and the publication process. They also conduct rigorous peer review and reflections, do interviews with experts in their fields, present analysis of text genres, and submit final papers by taking a prior work through the writing process. 
5. Writing For Your Professions (WRT 304). This upper division course is designed to help students prepare to enter the workforce or apply for graduate school. Building on a framework created by a colleague, and using the concept of “intellectual entrepreneurship,” I assign readings on professional communication, helping students develop job search portfolios, write “professional autobiographies,” interview “inspiring figures” in their anticipated professions, analyze genres of writing in those fields, and share their findings in class. Students finally create and present their professional profiles online, expanding on paper resumes and showcasing multiple media and dimensions of their academic and professional experiences/caliber. As with all undergraduate courses, students must meet with me at least five times during the semester. All classes have worked from a course site at: http://you.stonybrook.edu/wrt304/home/about/ 
6. Writing Across Cultures and Contexts (WRT 302). This upper-division undergraduate course is designed to help students explore issues about writing/communication across cultures. Using the concept of “reflective encounters” (LuMing Mao), “community as curriculum” (David Cormier), and “context as analytical lens” (Shyam Sharma), students research and write about greeting & socialization, food as a means of cross-cultural relationship, conflict & negotiation, education & teaching/learning, technology in education, etc. After conducting extensive library research for writing a traditional research paper, students also interview fellow students and their professors in a few countries each—via email, Skype, or phone. After having their research and data analysis reviewed by their informants abroad, students further add reflection sections to their papers and use the reflection to present their major experiences/learning at the end of the semester. 
7. Intermediate Writing Workshop (WRT 102). I teach this course with a focus on global issues and perspectives, genre-focused textual analysis, and reflective writing. Students do extensive readings, writing skills exercises, and smaller assignments to gradually build reading and writing skills. They engage in cross-cultural/translingual conversations by deliberately working with peers from different backgrounds. Using rubrics and Google Docs (esp. its sharing, reviewing, and commenting features), they engage in multiple rounds of peer review, as well as multiple rounds of comments and follow-up one-o-one conferences with me. For some details related to the online version, please see “New Media” section at the end of this document. 
8. Perspectives for Global Citizenship (GLS 102). This course was designed to help students examine how ideas are shaped and conveyed in different contexts and cultures around the world, especially examining how “argumentation” (and even logic) is understood and approached differently in the process of communication—both written and oral. It also helped them enhance the ability to understand, discuss, and write about complex and globally significant issues by considering different perspectives and understanding how contexts and cultures shape rhetoric, writing, and communication as a means of enhancing your sense of “global citizenship,” while also learning about this concept. 
9. Communicating Science to the Public (JRN 502). As a guest instructor for the Department of Journalism, I designed this course to help students from various backgrounds (engineering, medicine, natural sciences) use rhetorical and writing skills for communicating their research to public and mixed audiences. This one-credit graduate course focused on five key elements of writing: audience, genre, process, style, and voice. Working in a computer lab, students first “translated” their scientific/academic writing into a letter to the community, describing and establishing the significance of their research project; then they chose a third genre (of their choice) to reach a broader audience. 
10. Communicating Science to the Public (JRN 506). Building on the foundation of JRN 502, this course focused on teaching more advanced rhetorical skills for using new media. Students started by reading about the challenges and prospects of scientists communicating their knowledge with the public. Then they wrote a set of assignments including a letter to the editor of a chosen media outlet, asking the recipient to cover the issue of their specialty as one of public interest. Finally, they chose social media platforms that fit their interests and wrote for the public with styles and voices fitting their respective platforms and purposes. 
11. Honors Business Thesis (WRT 301). Designed for upper division honors students, this course served the dual purpose of helping students write their honors business thesis and learn a range of academic research skills. Students started by creating their own project schedules for the process of their research, writing, revision, and submission of the thesis. That process also involved practicing and writing the thesis statement and outline, annotated bibliography, and research proposal, followed by rigorous peer review and collaboration in and outside class (including meeting with me at least 6 times). 
12. Basic Writing (WRT 101). Designed to teach basic writing skills to nonnative English speaking students and domestic basic writers, this course focused on critical reading, analyzing academic texts, and practicing the writing process. In addition to writing “academic transition narratives” and practicing sentence and paragraphing skills, students also conducted basic academic research in order to build some foundation for WRT 102. 

INDEPENDENT STUDY PROJECTS, TA/GA MENTORSHIP Stony Brook University  

• Priya Persaud (Spring 2024), supervised an independent study project, assisting her to convert a class essay into a journal article. 
• Jayarama Das Krovvidi (2023-24)—worked with him as Graduate School & PWR Graduate Assistant, supervising him as he helped sustain and grow writing support for graduate students across campus, including the Graduate Student Dissertation/Thesis Writing Boot Camp, the Graduate Student Writing Group, and Graduate Student Writing Workshop series (in collaboration with the MIC and the Writing Center).
• Mithuna Kumar (Spring 2023)—supervised her independent study project, assisting her to convert a research paper from WRT380 that she took with me the previous semester into a journal article.
• Vinod Kripalani (Fall 2023)—worked with him as an undergraduate TA, as part of the department’s TA program. 
• Peter Gillespie (Fall 2022)—helped him with his Honors College independent study project in which he developed his research paper from WRT102 and further work done while shadowing doctors in the Medical School into a journal article.
• Claire Surkis (Spring 2019)—helped her further developed a research paper written in WRT304, for undergraduate independent study, focusing on healthcare equity. 
• Alijan Ozkirel (Spring 2018)—supported the graduate student writing support initiatives that I facilitated, helping to design merch, promote program, and implement the initiatives. This was a graduate independent study.  
• Shreeya Tuladhar (Fall 2015)—helped her further develop a community initiative on body image eating disorders that she had started with Dr. Cynthia Davidson and has emerged into an internship program in the Writing Program.  
• Sara Santos (Fall 2014)—helped Sara tutor students in an upper-division course, observe class, and research and write about writing pedagogy in a graduate course (World Rhetorics). Sara went on to teach in the Program, as well as serving as Associate Director for the University Writing Center while pursuing the doctoral degree in the English Department.  
• Morgan Harrington (Spring 2014)—developed a business plan to tackle “job loss” as a problem underlying homelessness among veterans, building on work from a previous course. I helped Morgan with research and writing/revision and provided feedback on web design and marketing strategies from a rhetorical perspective. 
• Natalie Crnosija (Spring 2014)—she shadowed my teaching and wrote a paper proposing effective approaches for dealing with the dynamics of age/authority, disciplinary knowledge, and perceptions among writing tutors and STEM graduate students. Also helped her run a focus group discussion among Writing Center tutors. 
• Stephanie Abuso, Tuya Yokoyama—sought advice for their internship at the College of Arts and Sciences and International Student Orientation Program. Stephanie had taken WRT304 with me. 

University of Louisville, 2006-2011 (Graduate Teaching Assistant) 

• Business Writing (Engl 306), Summer 2008, Summer 2009-II & III, Spring 2011. Designed for upper division undergraduate students, this course started with principles and practices of business writing. Students learned a range of business communication skills, with attention to emerging information technologies in the workplace. Using concepts of “team writing” (Wolfe, 2009), use of wiki groups, and concepts from Paul and Elder’s model of Critical Thinking, students collaboratively developed and presented business proposals and multimodal marketing pitches at the end of semester. 
• Advanced Composition (Engl 105), Fall 2010. This course was designed to allow honors students to read, discuss, research, and respond to issues of globalization, applying critical thinking and academic writing skills with a particular focus on exploring multiple perspectives. Students also analyzed texts in “emerging media” and worked collaboratively to develop and present multimedia projects that demonstrated different perspectives on topics related to readings and discussions in class. 
• British Literature (Engl 302), Summer 2010. This survey was designed to help students learn to read British literary texts from the 19th century to the present, mainly using historicist critical perspectives. The course focused on close reading and application of a fairly simple set of critical theory perspectives through analysis of texts in daily and weekly blog posts, class activities, and individual and group assignments. 
• Intermediate College Composition (Engl 102), Spring 2008. This course was designed to help students learn, step by step, the fundamentals of research-based academic papers. Students read and annotated texts, summarized and paraphrased the readings, and then learned how to draw on and synthesize multiple sources into their own framework of ideas.
• Introduction to College Composition (Engl 101), Fall 2007. Building on the metaphor of “joining the conversation” in academic writing, this course helped students with analytical reading and engaging in the writing process. Discussing explicit and implicit conventions about writing in different academic genres and disciplines, they wrote a narrative essay and a research paper.

 

TRIBHUVAN UNIVERSITY, NEPAL (2001-2006)

CENTRAL DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, KATHMANDU

• Survey of British and American Poetry (graduate course). This survey of mainly British and some American poetry covered a broad range of poetry, from Beowulf to Cynthia Zarin’s “Song” (1993).  I taught different periods over the course of five years, teaching some periods multiple times and repeating some (like British Romantic poetry) several times. Poetry can be exceptionally difficult for English as a foreign language students, and part of being an effective teacher involves infusing the confidence in students to read and analyze poetic texts whose social and cultural contexts they know little about.
• Linguistics and Stylistics (graduate course). This course consisted of fundamentals of linguistics—phonetics and phonology, morphology and lexicon, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics—which were the first half of each section, the second of which were applications of those linguistics concepts to literary analysis. A range of additional readings on the history, theories, and debates in linguistics also supplemented students’ understanding of complex linguistic issues that could influence stylistic applications.
• Literary Criticism and Theory (graduate course). This course, also called “Foundations of Literary Criticism and Theory,” consisted mainly of readings from Hazard Adam’s comprehensive collection Critical Theory Since Plato. The course, as designed by the university, was highly challenging to students due to the sheer amount and complexity of content. I helped students tackle that challenge by not just teaching the content but also skills for reading, analyzing and writing about the texts.
• Intellectual History (graduate course). Intellectual History, or more precisely the intellectual history of the Western world, was a course that included readings on the development of the most influential philosophies, scientific advancements, and political thoughts in the West. I covered modern and postmodern periods.

CAMPION, KATHMANDU MODEL, & RR COLLEGES (2001-06)

• Foundation of English Studies (lower division course). The foundation of English Studies, also called Introduction to English literature, was a unique course that consisted of three types of readings: a collection of critical, literary, philosophical, and scientific essays that gave students the sense that English studies was no longer limited to “literature”; a collection of ancient myths that are commonly used as allusions in Western literature; and a manual for critical analysis of literary texts. Teaching this course to freshmen in a private college with students largely from affluent families of the capital city was challenging; but I took the challenge as an opportunity and developed ways to make learning foreign literature and intellectual concepts relevant and interesting.
• Survey of Poetry (upper division course). This was a survey of British and American poetry, following elements of poetry: modes of poetic expression, rhetorical figures, and figures of sound. This was a course in the third year, so students were much more focused and motivated because by this time most of them looked forward to the professional world or further studies, often abroad. And yet, students were afraid of poetry, and that too from distant times and places. I happened to be someone who enjoyed English poetry since my days in a “mission school” in India, so my challenge was to carefully translate my own enjoyment of English poetry, both demonstrating and convincing students that they too can understand and enjoy it. One of the teaching strategies that I adopted in courses like this is to start simple. For example, when teaching John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” I used to draw the image of an urn on the board, along with a young man who seemed to be pondering the meanings of the patterns on the urn. This made the abstract and foreign socio-cultural context look like what happens when students encounter artistic object themselves. Often, I used real objects, an approach that most literature teachers would consier too silly for this level. I also used my experience of reciting poetry in order to bring out the tone and voice in the poems.
• Critical and Creative Thinking (upper division course). Critical and Creative Thinking is a unique course in TU’s undergraduate English major curriculum. The “critical” section included readings on basic concepts of classical logic and more modern frameworks of critical thinking; the “creative” portion of the course contained problem-solving as well as conceptual reading based on art and literature. Teaching this course posed a different kind of challenge: students read about critical and creative thinking primarily for the sake of taking exams. So, in order to be efficient and cover the course within the available time, the teacher may need to curb his or her urge to involve students in practical activities! I learned while teaching this course that that such a situation doesn’t have to be a double bind: when I departed from the regular course of giving lectures and involved students in critical or creative problem-solving exercises, students more motivated and more able to understand the subject matter. This course reminded me of the Chinese saying: Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, but involve me and I will learn.
• Business English (lower division courses for Bachelor of Business Administration students). The Bachelor of Business Administrator program was new at Campion as well as in the parent university at the time. This required course, also called English for Business and Economics, included principles of business communication, practice in genres of business writing, readings on related subjects ranging from economics and financial markets to international business, and English grammar and composition sections. I taught this course when the BBA program was first established in the university, but was able to draw on the content knowledge from my own dual majors in English and Economics, my technological savvy that teaching in this program demanded, and extensive prior experiences in teaching English. I optimally used the computer lab–which had a full range of hardward and software as well as technical support–when academic technology was still a rare phenomenon in the country. The experience of teaching a series of Business Writing for several years in this college formed the basis of my interest and expertise in teaching with technology, as well as teaching business and professional writing.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING (1994-2000)

• GEMS (High School English Teacher), Lalitpur, Kathmandu, 1998-2000. I taught at GEMS (popular acronym for “Graded English Medium School”), one of Kathmandu’s best private schools, while studying my master’s degree in Tribhuvan University. Teaching at GEMS provided me not only continue to hone my teaching and mentoring skills as a high school teacher, it also gave me tremendously added new opportunities and resources with which to support students grow intellectually, socially, and in various other ways. GEMS had a wide range of resources for academic and co-curricular development of students, and it also had some of the best teachers/experts and therefore students in secondary school level sports, art, music, and activities of various types. I actively contributed to both the academic and co-curricular activities, including taking students from the drama club to contests on the national level. Upon graduating from Tribhuvan University as the gold medalist of the MA batch of 1997-99, I decided to leave GEMS in 2000 and moved on to higher education, which was my long term albeit conflicting goal vis-a-vis teaching in high school. But the passion for teaching which, in all honesty, GEMS instilled in my then 5th-6th years of teaching career has remained to this day, more than a decade after leaving this wonderful school which in Kathmandu.
• New Pinewood School (Elementary School English Teacher), Butwal, Nepal, 1994-97. I started my teaching career at New Pinewood, a small private school in Butwal, during my undergraduate years. After teaching at the elementary level for some time, I taught in the middle school section. At Pinewood, I was involved in every aspect of the lives of students because in that little town in western Nepal, the culture did not make much spatial or temporal distinction between public and private, personal and professional domains of life and profession. I remember experiences ranging from litho-printing questions for final examinations overnight at the old school building, to being a music coach for students competing at a district level music competition, to substituting math and science teachers–and being asked by third-graders to continue teaching them math.