Department Activities in June

Presentations

Mike Cadden, professor of English, presented the paper “The Need for Distance in Children’s Literature” at the Children’s Literature Association Conference, Columbia, SC.

Publications

Michael Charlton, associate professor of English, published a chapter entitled "A Clash of Words: Challenging the Medieval Rhetorical Tradition of the Moral Speaker in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire" in the anthology George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and the Medieval Literary Tradition (University of Warsaw Press).

Miguel Rivera-Taupier, assistant professor of Spanish, published “Pessimism and Detection in Vargas Llosa’s Who Killed Palomino Molero?” in Critical Insights. Mario Vargas Llosa. Ed. Juan de Castro (Ipswich: Salem Press).

Student/Community Involvement/Successes

On June 2-3, twenty-two teachers and administrators from schools participating in the  i3 College Ready Writing Program (Braymer, Breckenridge, and Hamilton) came to MWSU for professional development work with twelve PLWP Teacher Consultants.  District groups assessed sample student writing and practised strategies for teaching argument writing, research, and essential questions.

PLWP held its annual Professional Writing Retreat on June 6-8 at Conception Abbey, where twelve area teacher-writers worked with PLWP Teachers Consultants Amanda Moyers (SJSD) and Tom Pankiewicz (MWSU) as well as with guest editor and former Oklahoma State University Writing Project Director Britton Guildersleeve. 

Conference/Seminars/Committees

Ten members of the PLWP College Ready Writing Program attended the National Writing Project’s i3 CRWP Summer Partnership Meeting in St. Louis on June 23-26 to plan professional development programs and teaching units for the 2014-2015 school year.  Members of the partnership team included PLWP Principal Investigator Jane Frick (MWSU, retired), Director Susan Martens (MWSU), and Teacher Consultants Janet Jelavich (Maryville, retired) and Amy Miller (SJSD) as well as CRWP district representatives Terrance Sanders (Braymer), Mitch Barnes (Braymer), Allison Ford (Hamilton), Traci Scheiber (Hamilton), Lauren Wingate (Breckenridge), and Linda Gaines (Breckenridge).

Susie Hennessy, professor of French, attended the ADE/ADFL Summer Seminar West in Seattle, a meeting for department chairs, sponsored by the Association of Departments of English and Foreign Languages.