Kristen Wheaton, new lecturer in the English Department, has been very busy during her first few months at USU. Before spring break, she co-facilitated a hybrid Watson Workshop called Aca(DIY)mia: Making Zines, Remaking Worlds. They made mini-zines, talked about pedagogical applications of zines in first year writing and beyond, and co-crafted a collaborative zine with more than 15 participants that they will be printing and distributing after the semester ends; English Department faculty Mary Ellen Greenwood was one of the participants. Kristen led a session specifically about accessibility and remediating zines across mediums and modes. In her English 3040 class, which is focused on anti-rape protest and resistance rhetorics, she had her students craft a mini one-page zine exploring a subject of their choice as part of a week about feminist activist zines.

For the February Professional Development Workshop, hosted by the composition program, Kristen presented on the use of stasis theory for framing difficult conversations and controversies in the first-year writing classroom. She uses stasis theory in her 2010 courses wherein students choose public issues they are invested in to explore and craft unique arguments designed to persuade specific stakeholders. Students are tasked with listening to those stakeholders carefully before attempting to persuade.

Kristen states, “At its core, my teaching philosophy is student-focused. I aim to position my students as agents of their own learning, recognizing the validity of their own knowledges and processes while demonstrating how the skills and concepts they encounter in my courses relate to their work as students, as well as to their very real concerns and needs beyond the university.”