Primary Instructor Courses

APRD 3003/Strategic Communications Research Methods: APRD 3003 – Syllabus

Course description: Public relations professionals and advertisers must consistently study, adapt, and apply new communication strategies; to do so, they must be informed and require research which provides both interpretation and description of audience reactions, social and political influences, and other technological, economic, and psychological variables. These professionals rely on research to provide valid and reliable information that helps to identify select specific communication strategies, employ these strategies, and evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies and communication techniques.

This course provides an opportunity to use and master quantitative and qualitative research methods and for students to gain insight on how the research process can yield critical engagement with products and initiatives. Using these research methods, students will analyze organizations and media products and identify key messages within them as well as translate these messages to audiences. Thus, students will conduct in-class research as well as work directly with clients to help formulate potential communication strategies.

WRTG 3020/Comics Certificate Essential 3: Comics and the Graphic Novel (Summer 2016; Fall 2018; Spring 2019)

Course description: Graphic novels have been increasingly popular over the past several decades as the topics addressed reflect changing values in society, such as immigration, gender identity, war, mental illness and societal structure. This course examines the genre of graphic novels critically, while exposing students to various forms of writing. The course seeks to understand the media climate in which these novels are produced, circulated and interpreted, while also building skills such as digital literacy, visual rhetoric and critical analysis. Each graphic novel read will have accompanying scholarly work in order for students to practice reading skills as well as functioning to provide examples of academic writing. Thus, our discussion is not one of merely interpreting the texts but their secondary writing and subsequently global conversation about the key role these texts play in many people’s lives. Further students will have the opportunity to combine scholarly writing with creative projects.

WRTG 3020/TAM 3020: New Media and Civic Engagement (Summer 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016)

Course description: This course focuses on intersections between civic engagement and new media with topics such as: new media literacies, digital ethics, collective identity, digital tools for composition and research, civic participation, transparency of media, and authority in digital realms. In exploring these issues students generate both scholarly and digital-based creative work throughout three main projects, which include: a new media remix of a political text and a corresponding essay; data collection from online sources, a multimedia presentation and written analysis; and a curation of a digital archive and composition of a paper on the civic and political affects of this archival project.

Examples of student work include:

Investigative Digital Archives: On QWERTY and keyboards; On digital watches;

WRTG 1150: First Year Composition (Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Fall 2018)

Course description: This course is an introduction to college-level academic writing designed to acclimate students to the kinds of scholarly work that take place at a research university like CU. The course emphasizes thinking, reading and writing critically—that is, thinking, reading and writing that does more than absorb the content of a text but also carefully studies the structure and rhetoric of a text, as well as the cultural values that shape it and the surrounding discourse community. While the primary emphasis will be on reading and practicing academic writing, the class also examines texts that relate to digital media and the incumbent field. The course examines the rhetorical and academic value of both scholarly and pop cultural texts that engage with video games, comic books, Kindle files, word processing programs and Internet community forums. Assignments include producing digital zines, long form research essays, podcasts, and multimedia presentations.

Teaching Assistant Courses

COMM 1210: Perspectives on Human Communication (Spring 2018)

Surveys communication in a variety of contexts and applications. Topics include basic concepts and general models of communication, ethics, language and nonverbal communication, personal relationships, group decision making, organizational communication, and impact of technological developments on communication.

MDST 2002: Media and Communication History (Fall 2017)

Examines the historical development of communication forms, tools, technologies and institutions (orality, writing, printing, photography, film, radio, television, computers, internet); their influence on culture (forms of expression and social relationships); and their impact on social and individual experience. Applies knowledge of communication history to contemporary social issues and problems in media and society, domestically and internationally.

APRD 1000: Idea Industries (Spring 2017)

Course description: This class will explore the importance of creativity within our society. We will discuss the way a 21st century brand operates, the process of creating ideas, the role of strategic communication in business and the impact of rapidly changing technology. We will talk about business ethics and cultural responsibility. We will do all of this by looking at the weekly industry news, reading current topic books written by communication professionals and having working professionals as guest speaker.

ENGL 261 (Fall 2013)

Teaching Assistantship with Dr. Kevin Pask. Led 45 minute seminars on English Literature from 600AD to 1660 AD. Major works included Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Faerie Queen, Dr. Faustus, Twelfth Night. Authors taught included: Sir Thomas Wyatt, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Robert Herrick and John Milton.

ENGL 262 (Fall 2012, Spring 2013)

Teaching Assistantship with Dr. Emily Simmons. Led 45 minute seminars on English Literature from 1660 AD to 1900 AD. Major works included Moll Flanders, Frankenstein, and Paradise Lost. Authors taught included: Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, Robert Browning, Christina Rosetti and Lord Alfred Tennyson.

Teaching Assistantship with Dr. Jonathan Sachs. Led 45 minute seminars on English Literature from 1600 AD to 1900 AD. Major works included The Country Wife, Gulliver’s Travels, The Importance of Being Earnest. Authors taught included: John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Pepys, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Lord Alfred Tennyson and Oscar Wilde.

Tutoring

Worked as professional tutor for eight years teaching a variety of subjects including mathematics, physics, English, French, chemistry and biology.