Dear English 100/A Students

I am very excited at the opportunity to work with you this semester and help you on your way to becoming a competent, confident academic writer.

As a writer, I place great value on clear, understandable language, audience awareness and effective persuasion. When I tell you my writing history, you'll understand why.

Youthful Writing

It seems like I have been writing all my life, stories at first, then Star Trek episodes before the word "fan fiction" had been coined, then several unfinished novels, all before I graduated high school.

I started keeping a journal at age 16 to hold all the secrets of my teen years and have kept a journal more-or-less continuously all the years since then.

From Private to Public Writing

When my children were small, I published a quarterly newsletter for other moms in my community.

When the kids were old enough for school, I got a job as a reporter for the local newspaper, the Redwood Record, and began an internship with the editor of another newspaper, the Beacon. At the same time, I started taking college classes at night, including classes that required me to write, and I became the editor of the College of the Redwoods newspaper, the Voice.

The best writing instruction I had in those early years was a Composition and Critical Thinking class at CR. The professor was very strict, helped me finally to develop some discipline in my writing, and introduced me to the wonderful world of critical thinking.

When the newspaper in my town closed, I organized a team of talented people and started a new newspaper in town, the Independent. By the time I sold it to its present owners, I was an experienced news reporter and editor, but I was still lacking a college degree. It was time to get serious about college.

Academia

I majored in English Literary Studies and minored in Linguistics at Humboldt State University. That means I have read and analyzed plenty of literature and had a lot of practice writing essays for college. And a minor study in Linguistics means I am well-versed in the history and structure of the language.

My graduate program is the Master's in Teaching Writing (MATW) program here at HSU. I am writing my thesis this semester. A thesis is a 50-80 page paper containing original research that contributes to the field, in this case the field of composition instruction. If you have any questions about my thesis or about theses in general, feel free to ask me.

The Art of Reading

So that is a sketch of me as a writer and as a scholar; all that remains is to tell you about me as a reader.

I love to read fiction best of all --when I have time. My favorite authors are Alice Hoffman, Margaret Atwood and Arundhati Roy. Right now I am reading Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Over the summer, I taught Advanced Reading to ESL students, and as I was teaching, I learned a lot about how to read more effectively for college. These are skills I hope to make available to you even as I am helping you build your writing skills.