Les Perelman

Email
Office: 12-119

WAC Director

Les Perelman is Director of Writing Across the Curriculum in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has also served as an Associate Dean in the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Education.  He was Project Director and co-Principal Investigator for a grant to MIT from the National Science Foundation to develop a model Communication-Intensive Undergraduate Program in Science and Engineering.  He served as Principal Investigator for the development of the iCampus / MIT Online Assessment Tool (iMOAT) funded by the MIT / Microsoft iCampus Alliance.  He currently serves as Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the Consortium for Research and Evaluation of Writing, a non-profit corporation that oversees the use and ongoing development of the iMOAT Online Essay Evaluation Service by the ten member colleges and universities in the iMOAT Consortium.  Before coming to MIT, he directed writing programs at the University of Southern California and Tulane University. 

Dr. Perelman has been a consultant on computers and writing for the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education of the U. S. Department of Education and for the Modern Language Association.  He has also worked with other colleges and universities in developing models for integrating instruction in writing and speaking into technical and scientific undergraduate programs.

Dr. Perelman is primary author of the first hypertext technical writing handbook, The Mayfield Guide to Technical and Scientific Writing, and has published articles on technical communication, computers and writing, the history of rhetoric, sociolinguistic theory, and medieval literature.  He has also written both end-user and technical computer documentation.  Recently, Dr. Perelman has become a well-known critic of the Writing Section of the new SAT.

Mya Poe

Email
Office: 14N-229B

Director of Technical Communication

Selected Classes:

- 6.021J: Quantitative Physiology
- 6.033: Computer System Engineering
- 20.380: Biological Engineering Design
- HST 500: Frontiers in (bio)Medical Engineering and Physics
- 21W.747: Rhetoric of Science

Interests:

- Genre Systems
- Racial Stereotypes in Writing Testing Discourse
- Visual Representation in Scientific Argument
- Writing Across the Curriculum 

Education:

- Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- MA, English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- B.A. English, University of Cincinnati (Cum laude with High Honors in English Literature) Minor in Technical and Professional Writing

Experience:

Medical/technical writer and consultant for AT&T, Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, and University of South Carolina Historical Society

Selected Publications:

- Poe, M. (forthcoming). Genre, Testing Systems, and the Constructed Realities of Student Achievement, College Composition and Communication. (solicited manuscript)

- Poe, M., Craig, J, & Lerner, N. (forthcoming, Sept. 2008). Three Case Studies in Teaching Science and Engineering Communication Across the Curriculum, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

- Poe, M. & Garfinkel, S. (in press). Security and Privacy in the Wireless Composition Classroom, Going Wireless: A Critical Exploration of Wireless & Mobile Technologies for Composition Teachers and Scholars. In A. C. Kimme Hea (Ed.). Hampton Press.

- Poe, M. (2007). Writing Beyond Disciplinary Discourse: Power and Politics in the Teaching of Scientific Writing, Sustaining excellence in ‘communicating across the curriculum’: Cross-institutional experiences and best practices. In A. Elshimi & N. Kassabgy (Eds.). London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

- Poe, M. (2007). Uptake and Racial Stereotypes in Writing Assessments, 4 Simposio Internaticional De Estudies de Generos Textuas, (4th International Symposium on Genre Studies).

- Poe, M. & Freeman, D. (2004). Integrating Technical Writing into a Large Lecture Course, American Society of Engineering Education Conference Proceedings.

- Currently conducting research for Writing and Speaking in Science and Engineering: Case Studies from MIT, which will be published on MIT Press.

Other:

School of Humanities and Social Sciences Infinite Mile Award, MIT, 2007

Invited speaker at numerous domestic and international conferences, including Cuba, China, and Belgium

Neal Lerner

Email
Office: 14N-229C

Director of Training

Selected Classes:

4.605/Introduction to the History and Theory of Architecture
6.111/Introductory Digital Systems Laboratory
7.02/Introduction to Experimental Biology and Communication
7.17/Experimental Molecular Biology (Project Lab)
15.301/Managerial Psychology Laboratory
17.869/Political Science Scope and Methods
20.109/Laboratory Fundamentals in Biological Engineering
21w.732/Introduction to Technical Communication

Interests:

Professional interests: Writing centers, writing across the curriculum/writing in the disciplines, situated learning, research methods in composition/rhetoric, history of educational reform

Personal interests: vintage bicycles, my family (wife, Tania, and two kids, Hannah and Clay), the Red Sox, woodworking, running, biking, hiking

Education:

Ed.D., Language, Literacy, and Cultural Studies, Boston University School of Education
MA, English/Creative Writing, San Jose State University
Secondary Ed. Credential in English, San Jose State University
BA American Literature, SUNY Purchase

Experience:

English faculty member and Writing Programs Coordinator, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, Boston

Selected Publications:

The Longman Guide to Peer Tutoring, 2nd ed. (with Paula Gillespie) Boston: Longman, 2008.

“Rejecting the Remedial Brand: The Rise and Fall of the Dartmouth Writing Clinic.” College Composition and Communication 59.1 (2007): 9-31.

“Laboratory Lessons for Writing and Science.” Written Communication 24.3 (2007): 191-222.

“Drawing to Learn Science: Legacies of Agassiz.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 37.4 (2007): 379-94.

“’Laboring Together the Common Good’: The Writing Laboratory at the University of Minnesota General College, circa 1932.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 33.3 (2006): 249-59.

“Situated Learning in the Writing Center.” Marginal Words, Marginal Work? Tutoring the Academy in the Work of Writing Centers. Ed. William J. Macauley and Nicholas Mauriello. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2007. 53-73.

“Time Warp: Historical Representations of Writing Center Directors.” The Writing Center Director’s Resource Book. Ed. Christina Murphy and Byron L. Stay. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006. 3-11.

“The Teacher-Student Writing Conference and the Desire for Intimacy.” College English 68.2 (2005): 186-208.

“Internal Outsourcing of Academic Support: The Lessons of Supervised Study.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 28.1/2 (2005): 81-95.

Other:

Some thoughts on teaching writing: 

Since I started my teaching career, I have taught in many contexts to many different kinds of students: to Ford Automotive technicians, to 18-year olds fresh out of high school and to returning adults, in rural and urban community colleges and universities, on military bases and in nuclear power plants, in pharmacy and health care curriculums, and, now, in a science and engineering-focused university.

Early on my goals as a writing teacher were to do for my students what writing had largely done for me—act as a vehicle of personal understanding, as a way of exploring who I was and who I wanted to be. However, as I spent more and more time in these different kinds of classrooms, teaching many different kinds of students, my goals shifted, and I started to see the importance of writing—or of communication, more broadly—as way for students to connect with others in powerful ways. In other words, writing a personal essay  or a literary analysis was one kind of power, but writing a laboratory report or a patient chart or an engineering design report offered a different kind of power, one that allowed connection into a world of knowledge and ideas that, largely, was shaped by these very types of communications. The opportunities available to students if they are skilled communicators are many and speak back to the very purpose of higher education.

My current work at MIT, my consultations with universities nationwide, and my research on the history of teaching writing and on contemporary practice all attempt to move toward realizing these potentials for student communication.

Suzanne Lane

Email
Office: 12-118

WAC Associate Director

Selected Classes:

21L.003: Reading Fiction
21W.730: Writing on Contemporary Issues: Race, Politics, and Representation

Interests:

-Writing in the Disciplines/Writing across the Curriculum
-Student Writing Development

-Narrative Theory
-American and African-American Literature & Cultural Studies
-Poetry

Education:

Ph.D. English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
M.A. English, University of Colorado
S. B. Chemical Engineering, MIT

Experience:

Asst. Professor, English, California State University, San Bernardino

Head Preceptor, Expository Writing Program, Harvard University

Researcher, Harvard Study of Undergraduate Writing

“Invention and Arrangement: Engineering an Essay” at Conference on College Composition and Communication, April 2008.

“Conjuring,” The Feminist Encyclopedia of African-American Literature, Ed. Elizabeth Beaulieu.  New York: Greenwood Press, 2005.

“Reading Early Slave Narratives as Oral Narratives,” Narrative Society Conference, April 2004.

“Arna Bontemps and the Creation of Conjure Readers,” College Language Association, April 2003.

“Black Thunder’s Call for a Conjure Response to American Negro Slavery,” African-American Review. Volume 37, Number 4, December 2003. 583-598.

Chelsey Norman

Email
Office: 12-117

Administrative Assistant II

Interests:

- Yucatec Mayan language and linguistics
- Yucatecan culture (and especially food!), Mayan culture, Mexican culture (and food!), Latin American culture
- Linguistics, Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (it is mind boggling!), language and culture, language and thought, language and identity
- I am a tiny bit of a francophile
- weimar cinema

Education:

A.B. Linguistics, University of Chicago

Experience:

-ESL Conversation Tutor, Somerville Public Library
-ESL Writing Tutor, SCALE program, Somerville, MA