Our guest on this episode is UCF Assistant Professor Dr. Kara Taczak. Dr. Taczak is currently co-editor of  College Composition and Communication, and her award winning research examines composition theory and pedagogy, with a focus on teaching for transfer and reflection. Her work has appeared in numerous edited collections as well as in CCC, Writing Spaces, International Journal of Work Integrated Learning, the WAC Journal, Composition Forum, Teaching English in a Two-Year College, and Across the Disciplines.  This episode also features our Assistant Producer, and DWR Podcast Intern, Madelyn Alvarez joining in the conversation.  

In this episode we are joined by Heather Vazquez, a lecturer here at the University of Central Florida in our Department of Writing and Rhetoric. Heather is the Education Coordinator and an instructor with the Florida Prison Education Project, or FPEP, working with incarcerated Central Floridians to achieve an undergraduate degree. Additionally, Heather is one of our designated UCF Global instructors, teaching student populations of international students. Beyond FPEP and UCF Global, her teaching and interests include first-year composition, multilingual writing, language diversity, translingualism, and World Englishes. 

In this episode we are joined by colleague Megan Lambert. Professor Lambert is currently an Associate Instructor for the Department of Writing & Rhetoric, where she teaches composition courses 1101 and 1102, , Professional Writing (ENC 3250), and Professional Editing (ENC 4212). She is the new Internship Coordinator for the Department of Writing and Rhetoric here at UCF. She has also been the editor of our first-year writing journal Stylus for four years.

Rebecca Watkins is a Lecturer in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at UCF. She holds a PhD in English from Florida State University, an MA in English from Indiana-University-Purdue-University-Indianapolis (IUPUI), and a BS in Secondary English Education from Indiana University, Bloomington. Her work has appeared in Stoneboat, Touchstone, Pangyrus, and elsewhere. Her essay “Blonde Sugar” was nominated for Best of the Net Anthology. Professor Watkins’ pedagogical interests include visual and material rhetoric, and the interconnection of composition and creative writing. 

For this episode, we are going to switch things up a little- to our very first episode sharing  live recordings of students on a campus event at  UCF. On Monday April 28th 2024 UCF hosted the Not So Total Eclipse event, organized by the Florida Space Institute, Department of Physics, and UCF Libraries in partnership with Office of Research. It was basically an eclipse watch party at the reflecting pond on our main campus.  Attendees could get safe Eclipse viewing eyewear and participate in a community oriented opportunity to, if not celebrate, at least witness this celestial event.  For our part, in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric, we hosted a table for the College of Arts and Humanities Total Eclipse of the Arts. This included writing prompts related to the event created and executed by members of our Writing Center for participants to and share their thoughts and experiences with the eclipse and as well as live interviews capturing the thoughts and feelings in the moment.

Transcript: Episode 16 In this episode we talk with Dr. Shane Wood, our current Writing Program Administrator (WPA) and Director of First-Year Composition here at UCF. He is also the host of Pedagogue, a podcast about teachers talking writing featuring established and emerging scholars in rhetoric and composition. Dr. Wood’s podcast Pedagogue won the 2021 Kairos John Lovas Award along with the Computers and Composition Outstanding Digital Production Award in 2019. Dr. Wood is also the author of Teachers Talking Writing: Perspectives on Places, Pedagogies, and Programs, published in 2023. He has authored and co-authored more than a dozen articles and book chapters.

At UCF, the Department of Writing and Rhetoric holds an annual event called Knights Write Showcase to celebrate the work of student writers. This event began in 2010 as a place to highlight and share the research and writing occurring in the first-year writing program, and has since become a multi-day event that encompasses work in composition courses, writing across the curriculum, our three departmental publications Stylus, Convergence, and Imprint, and also The University Writing Center, undergraduate, and graduate student work. In this episode, we talk with the following students who participated in the event: (0.00-15:24) Rosalind Rohrbaugh “Stephen King Is Right: We’re All a Little Nuts, and That’s Okay” (15:25-32:49) Erick Rodriquez “How Course Requirements are Communicated to Students” / Imani Rodriguez “Online Identification of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Creators” (32:50-52:59) Evonne Simpron “Beta Incels vs. The World” / Jenna Sutphin “Online Book Communities” (53:00-1:11:45) Kaitlyn Pottinger “The Fool’s Journey to Enlightenment: How Tarot Cards Work” / Mikayla Crawford “Graphic Pathography” / Tasha Rentas “Graphic Journalism: The Stanton Energy Center”   (1:11:46-1:31:59) Bella Love “Scrapbooking as Narrative” Thank you to all the wonderful students who shared their experiences with us!  

Joining us for this episode is Natalie Madruga, Instructor in writing and Rhetoric at the University of Central Florida.  Natalie’s research interests include eulogistic rhetoric, public memory and memorialization, critical race theory, cultural rhetorics, and writing pedagogy, with a pedagogical philosophy centered on a foundation in testimonio. Natalie was published in 2023 in Writers:Craft and Context with the article “ What it’s like to lose Papi: A counterstory on Grief''. Natalie was chosen for HSI Faculty Fellowship through the Office for Hispanic Serving Institution Initiatives for the 23-24 academic year, working with the Title 5 POTENCIAL grant to design and implement the faculty development component of Project POTENCIAL.

We are joined today by Associate Professor in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum in the Center for Writing Excellence both at the University of Central Florida, Dr. Laurie A. Pinkert.  In addition to these positions, Dr. Pinkert also coordinates an interdisciplinary fellowship-writing initiative that is supported by the College of Graduate Studies.  Dr. Pinkert's research aims to better understand relationships between writing and identity and to develop approaches to writing program design, development, and administration that can support writerly identity development.  Most recently Dr Pinkert has been at the forefront of developing an AI undergraduate certificate program within the College of Arts and Humanities in addition to coursework surrounding AI and the teaching of writing.

UCF Department of Writing and Rhetoric faculty members Blake Scott and Nathan Holic discuss their project "Strengthening Hospital Nurses’ Mental Health Resilience Through a Peer Support Training Program Using Comic Testimonials" which focused on introducing comic therapy to healthcare professionals. This won the 2021 Pabst Steinmetz Foundation Arts and Innovation Award. 

At UCF, the Department of Writing and Rhetoric holds an annual event called Knights Write Showcase to celebrate the work of student writers. In this special episode we talk with several participants from the poster and panel presentations. The students and work featured in this episode are: Jamie Salter “Learning to Keep Up” (0:00-19:04) Megan Dever “Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Theatrical Literacies” and Parker Bowles “Who to Trust? Building Authority in Rhetoric” (19:06-36:53) Madison Fernandes “The Marketplace of Ideas” (36:54-51:27) Arielle Fedee, Mark McCleskey, and Mekenzie McElroy – University Writing Center Panel (51:30-1:13:20) Natasha Odom “Main Suspect: Crime Dramas” and Riah Smith “The Exigence of Paradigms” (1:13:22-1:32:50) Brendan Kelly “Rhetoric and Tragedy: An Exploration of Identification and Narrative in Sending Letters” (1:32:52-1:48:20)

Anthony Lince is a Latinx educator and scholar, and is currently a lecturer at University of California San Diego and other local institutions, teaching rhetoric and writing studies courses. His current work is focused on equitable assessment practices in higher education, which is the praxis in his courses where he utilizes labor-based grading. Anthony has published the journals California English and WPA Writing Program Administration, and has an upcoming chapter released in Effective Alternative Assessment Practices in Higher Education. 

Dr. Jeremy Carnes is a Postdoctoral Scholar here at UCF specializing in Indigenous rhetorics, particularly visual and material rhetorics. He is working on his first book on comics by Indigenous creators and the rhetorical affordances of comics as a visual medium for considering land-based practices by Indigenous communities. In addition to indigenous rhetorics, Dr Carnes’ research interests include: Comics Studies, Media Studies, Fan Culture Studies, Translingualism, and the Digital Humanities. He is also currently working with Dr. Jamila Kareem, a past guest of ours on this podcast, on a grant funded by the Sam and Virginia Patz Foundation in partnership with the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

In this episode we talk with Jaclyn Gardiakos and Jessica Walters, who work in the field of professional writing and are both UCF Alumni. Jaclyn Gardiakos is the communications and public relations manager for Universal Engineering Sciences, the fastest-growing AEC firm in the US, and previously worked for Tupperware as a communications manager. Jessica Walters is a Content Strategist for Deloitte US, and similarly held a position with Tupperware as a content strategist. Our conversation touches on writing in professional environments, what it was like to be a part of the first DWR cohort of UCF, and the types of careers possible with a degree in writing. 

We are joined by Dr. Martha Brenckle, a full professor and the interim-first year writing director here at UCF. Dr Brenckle teaches FYW and Rhetorical Theory.  Our conversation touches on course construction, in particular her class “Queer Rhetorics and Queering Writing”, theory, working with students, the writing process, and representation in the classroom. You can see a full listing of her substantial publications and accolades in her profile on the departmental website:   

In this episode we talk to Olivia Solomon, a junior at the University of Central Florida and a double major in Writing and Rhetoric and Political Science. Olivia has demonstrated a passion for political activism as a collaborating member of March For Our Lives, as well as several published op-eds in both the Orlando Sentinel and the Tallahassee Democrat, integrating her writing skills to effect change. We discuss how writing allows a voice in arguments we are passionate about, as well as delving into her process from inspiration to publication. Olivia also shares impactful writing experiences from ENC 4353 – Writing for Social Change (with Professor Melissa Pompos Mansfield) and ENC 4354 - Writing with Communities and Nonprofits (with Professor Vanessa Calkins).

Transcript Episode 5 Gaining insight from Sebastian Garcia, a senior undergraduate at UCF completing a double major in History and Biomedical Sciences, we explore what it takes to tackle research in ENC 1102. It can be difficult to find a way to transfer high school writing skills to the new challenges placed by college classes, but we cover everything you may need to know beginning with the very first step of finding passion and inspiration. Sebastian was selected as a panelist for UCF’s Knights Write Showcase in Spring of 2021 with his article “Is the Advanced Placement (AP) Program Really ‘Advanced”? A Critical Textual Analysis of an AP United States History Textbook” and was also published in the Spring 2022 issue of Stylus: A Journal of First-Year Writing. To learn more about crafting a college-level research paper, join us in this exploration of one student’s journey. Time Stamps:  Introduction – 00:00:07  Meeting our Guest – 00:00:45 Research Inspiration and Motivation  – 00:01:40 Methodology and Analysis – 00:09:15 Passion is Paramount!  – 00:17:27 Finding and Reading Literature – 00:20:30 Presenting Research  – 00:22:55 The Post-Graduation Future – 00:28:11 Finding Topics and Questioning Everything – 00:31:10 Transitioning from High School to College Writing – 00:36:44 Finding Gaps in the Research  – 00:42:58 Letting Context Inform Research  – 00:46:53 Looking Forward and Looking Back  – 00:50:47 Stylus Publication  – 00:53:08

Today we take a peek inside the lives of peer tutors Mekenzie McElroy and Lindsey Wright, both undergraduates at UCF, who work in the University Writing Center. They also recently presented on a panel at the Southeastern Writing Center Association Conference. This conversation offers us a student oriented perspective of what brought them into their roles and what it means to be a contributing member of the UWC, in their tutoring sessions as well as their research.  #UCF #UCFUWC #SWCA2022 #WritingAndRhetoric

This conversation features Dr. Angela R Rounsaville, Associate Professor and Director of First-Year Composition here at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Rounsaville’s research works at the intersection of transnational literacy studies, rhetorical genre studies, and writing related transfer. In this episode we discuss the evolving needs of the composition classroom, and how we as professors are striving to support and empower our students to develop as writers. We also discuss the writing about writing pedagogy in college composition, and why mulitliteracies and linguistic diversity should be recognized and supported in first-year writing. The collaborative development of course outcomes in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric's ENC1101 and ENC1102 are also discussed.  

We talk to the editors of the student-run publication IMPRINT, Kealani Smith and Jarrett Webster, about topics related to their latest issue. We are also joined by UCF Department of Writing and Rhetoric Professors Dr. Sonia Arellano and Dr. Jamila Kareem to discuss their work and collaboration.