Current Work & Selected Publications

Projects & Research

I am currently working on research the role of peer writing mentors in student revision processes. In 2020-2021, I collected data at the College of the Holy Cross from a dozen classes with course-embedded writing fellows. This included surveys with three constituencies: faculty, fellows, and students; interviews with nearly all the faculty and fellows and with some students; and culling the various session notes that were produced. I attended the 2021 Writing Research Seminar at Dartmouth College to begin coding data and analyzing statistics. I hope to produce two articles from this work: one on the role of writing fellows and student writing practices, and one on writing fellows and faculty teaching of writing. I aim to continue my work researching peer-to-peer writing support here at Amherst.

I also currently have several co-authored projects in various stages of development and submission: an article, with Lauren Capostosto (Holy Cross), on disciplinary literacy and tutoring practices; an article, with Genie Giaimo (Middlebury), on directed self-placement; and an edited collection, with Gretchen Busl (Texas Woman's University) and Courtney Ferriter (University of North Georgia), on new directions for the dissertation process on an advance contract with the MLA.

Selected Publications

  • Forthcoming. "Percentages, Averages, and Exclamation Points: Parsing Assessment, Evaluation and Research in the Writing Center." Writing Assessment at Small Liberal Arts Colleges, edited by Megan O'Neill and Genie Giaimo.
  • 2024. "Zooming Past Institutional Boundaries to Tutor in the Community."  WLN: A Writing Center Journal. Co-authored with Ryan Madan and Christina Santana.
  • 2023. "Paragraph Scramble." Dynamic Activities for First-Year Composition: 96 Ways to Immerse, Inspire and Captivate Students (NCTE), edited by Michal Reznizki and David T. Coad, pp. 83-85.
  • 2022. "Crafting a Writing Response Community Through Contract Grading." Journal of Response to Writing. Co-authored with Sarah Klotz.
  • 2022. "'Somewhat of an Abstract Concept to Grasp:' Exploring Potential Future Educators' Understanding of Disciplinary Litearcy." Journal of Education for Teaching. Co-authored with Lauren Capostosto.
  • 2020. "News as Text: A Pedagogy for Connecting News Reading and Newswriting." Critical Reading and Writing in the Era of Fake News (Peter Lang), edited by Ellen Carillo and Alice Horning, pp. 161-175.
  • 2020. "Perceptions of Fairness in Summer Bridge Classrooms with Contract Grades." Co-authored with undergraduate writing fellow Vanessa Guardado-Menjivar. Journal of Writing Assessment, vol. 13, no. 2.
  • 2019. "Unmasking the Balkan Wars." Slovene Studies, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 55-78. Winner of the Society for Slovene Studies Rado Lencek Prize.
  • 2016. "Summing up the Session: A Study of Student, Faculty, and Tutor Attitudes Toward Tutor Notes." Co-authored with Melissa Bugdal and Tom Deans. Writing Center Journal, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 17-40. Finalist for the IWCA Outstanding Article Award.
  • 2016. "Finding a Room of Their Own: Programming Time and Space for Grad Student Writing at the University of Connecticut Writing Center." Co-authored with Tom Deans and Cheryl Maykel. WLN: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 40, no. 1-2, pp. 10-17. 

Occasional Public/Journalistic Contributions, including: work on writing fellows for WLN, work on adapting writing center practices in teaching for the MLA, interviews and features on history and local issues for Worcester Magazine and Rhode Island Monthly, among others.

Occasional Fiction and Essays in the Foundling Review, The Adirondack Review, the Montreal Review, among others.