Thursday, February 05, 2009
BIO:
I completed my BA in liberal arts at Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA), and MA in English at Portland State University (Portland, Oregon), and am currently a PhD candidate in rhetoric and composition at Wayne State University (Detroit, MI). Much of my research and teaching includes service learning, critical pedagogy, and globalization studies. I am currently writing my dissertation, “Thinking Globally, Writing Locally: Re-Visioning Critical and Service Learning Pedagogies with Globalization Theory,” which uses ethnographic and teacher-research methods to investigate how integrating globalization theory into a combined critical and service learning pedagogy affects student engagement and student resistance. My dissertation examines the scholarly debates on critical and service learning pedagogies and works to address the critiques that have arisen within the field. Scholars have clearly and effectively discussed the contradictions and limitations of these pedagogical approaches, but only a few have begun describing what alternative approaches might look like in practice. Therefore, my project is working to fill a gap in contemporary composition scholarship and will offer a significant contribution to composition studies.
Within my service learning courses, students either participate in a community literacy project working with elementary school students at Maybury Elementary School in Southwest Detroit, or with various projects at a local non-profit, Latino Family Services. For the past two semesters, I have asked students to design final projects in conjunction with their organization that serve a specific purpose or fulfill a need. The students have pursued a wide array of projects: developing a journal for the Hispanic community discussing local and national social and political issues; creating a documentary video with a group of Latino high school students; developing pamphlets with articles concerning health issues such as asthma and type two diabetes and detailing the places where people can go for low-cost health services; designing and implementing a book project with elementary school students detailing how to write a strong essay for the state Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) exam; and creating a summer literacy program with reading and writing activities for children at home while they are out of school. Some of my students’ projects have been printed and distributed within the community, and others are electronically available on the Internet.
Links to Sample Student Digital Projects Produced in my Classes:
http://tomdaguanno.com/reel/detroitdirt.html
http://detroitlfs.googlepages.com/
http://kidhealthdm.googlepages.com/
I completed my BA in liberal arts at Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA), and MA in English at Portland State University (Portland, Oregon), and am currently a PhD candidate in rhetoric and composition at Wayne State University (Detroit, MI). Much of my research and teaching includes service learning, critical pedagogy, and globalization studies. I am currently writing my dissertation, “Thinking Globally, Writing Locally: Re-Visioning Critical and Service Learning Pedagogies with Globalization Theory,” which uses ethnographic and teacher-research methods to investigate how integrating globalization theory into a combined critical and service learning pedagogy affects student engagement and student resistance. My dissertation examines the scholarly debates on critical and service learning pedagogies and works to address the critiques that have arisen within the field. Scholars have clearly and effectively discussed the contradictions and limitations of these pedagogical approaches, but only a few have begun describing what alternative approaches might look like in practice. Therefore, my project is working to fill a gap in contemporary composition scholarship and will offer a significant contribution to composition studies.
Within my service learning courses, students either participate in a community literacy project working with elementary school students at Maybury Elementary School in Southwest Detroit, or with various projects at a local non-profit, Latino Family Services. For the past two semesters, I have asked students to design final projects in conjunction with their organization that serve a specific purpose or fulfill a need. The students have pursued a wide array of projects: developing a journal for the Hispanic community discussing local and national social and political issues; creating a documentary video with a group of Latino high school students; developing pamphlets with articles concerning health issues such as asthma and type two diabetes and detailing the places where people can go for low-cost health services; designing and implementing a book project with elementary school students detailing how to write a strong essay for the state Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) exam; and creating a summer literacy program with reading and writing activities for children at home while they are out of school. Some of my students’ projects have been printed and distributed within the community, and others are electronically available on the Internet.
Links to Sample Student Digital Projects Produced in my Classes:
http://tomdaguanno.com/reel/detroitdirt.html
http://detroitlfs.googlepages.com/
http://kidhealthdm.googlepages.com/
REFEREED PUBLICATIONS
“Expanding Community Based Work While Maintaining the Edge.” Reflections. 7.3 (2008).
http://www.reflectionsjournal.org/catalog/toc.html
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
“From Aesthetic Negativity to Social Action: An Avant-Garde Service Learning Approach to Critical Pedagogy,” The Culture Industry Today, Conference Proceedings.
CONFERENCES
CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication), “Thinking Globally, Writing Locally,” Speaker, March 14, 2009, San Francisco, CA.
http://www.gannon.edu/faculty_staff/faculty/BOMBERGE001/workshop.html
CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication), “New Modals in the Fight Against Bullshit,” Chair, March 11, 2009, San Francisco, CA.
CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication), “Ethical Persuasion in Medical and Pharmaceutical Communication: A Rhetorical Discussion with Global Implications,” Panel Respondent, April 3, 2008, New Orleans, LA.
Y/X Youth Exchange Conference, “Local versus Global: The Battle on the Borderline,” March 30, 2007, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI.
The Culture Industry Today, “From Aesthetic Negativity to Social Action: An Avant-Garde Service Learning Approach to Critical Pedagogy,” Aug. 28 2006, Universidade Metodista de Piracicaba (UNIMEP), Brazil.
“Expanding Community Based Work While Maintaining the Edge.” Reflections. 7.3 (2008).
http://www.reflectionsjournal.org/catalog/toc.html
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
“From Aesthetic Negativity to Social Action: An Avant-Garde Service Learning Approach to Critical Pedagogy,” The Culture Industry Today, Conference Proceedings.
CONFERENCES
CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication), “Thinking Globally, Writing Locally,” Speaker, March 14, 2009, San Francisco, CA.
http://www.gannon.edu/faculty_staff/faculty/BOMBERGE001/workshop.html
CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication), “New Modals in the Fight Against Bullshit,” Chair, March 11, 2009, San Francisco, CA.
CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication), “Ethical Persuasion in Medical and Pharmaceutical Communication: A Rhetorical Discussion with Global Implications,” Panel Respondent, April 3, 2008, New Orleans, LA.
Y/X Youth Exchange Conference, “Local versus Global: The Battle on the Borderline,” March 30, 2007, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI.
The Culture Industry Today, “From Aesthetic Negativity to Social Action: An Avant-Garde Service Learning Approach to Critical Pedagogy,” Aug. 28 2006, Universidade Metodista de Piracicaba (UNIMEP), Brazil.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
ACADEMIC AND TEACHING AWARDS AND HONORS:
2009 Summer Dissertation Fellowship
2008-2009 DeRoy Doctoral Fellowship
2008 Garrett T. Heberlein Excellence in Teaching Award
2008 GEOC Award for Excellence in Teaching
2008 Michigan Campus Compact Outstanding Student Service Heart & Soul Award
2008 Graduate Professional Travel Award
2008-2009 Graduate Professional Scholarship (declined)
2007-2008 Graduate School Ph.D. Grant
2008 Honors Program Community Engagement Award
2007-2009 Doretta Burke Sheill Endowed Memorial Scholarship
2006 Global Teaching Fellowship
2005-2008 Graduate Teaching Assistantship
2009 Summer Dissertation Fellowship
2008-2009 DeRoy Doctoral Fellowship
2008 Garrett T. Heberlein Excellence in Teaching Award
2008 GEOC Award for Excellence in Teaching
2008 Michigan Campus Compact Outstanding Student Service Heart & Soul Award
2008 Graduate Professional Travel Award
2008-2009 Graduate Professional Scholarship (declined)
2007-2008 Graduate School Ph.D. Grant
2008 Honors Program Community Engagement Award
2007-2009 Doretta Burke Sheill Endowed Memorial Scholarship
2006 Global Teaching Fellowship
2005-2008 Graduate Teaching Assistantship
http://englishweb.clas.wayne.edu/composition/?p=19
http://www.clas.wayne.edu/unit-inner.asp?WebPageID=1604
http://www.micampuscompact.org/studentawards0708.asp
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
Honors 3010: Honors Intermediate Writing Service Learning (Winter 2008, Fall 2007)
English 3010: Intermediate Writing Service Learning (Winter 2007)
English 2200: Introduction to Shakespeare (Spring 2007, Spring 2006, Fall 2004, Spring/Summer 2008)
Honors 1050: Honors Global Composition (Fall 2006)
English 1020: Introduction to College Writing (Winter 2006)
English 1010: Basic Writing (Winter 2005)
Math Corps Creative Writing Instructor (Winter 2007, Winter 2006)
Writing Center Tutor (Fall 2005, Winter 2006)
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS (Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Summer 2006)
Academic Writing (graduate-level course) Special Section: Globalization and New Media
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Overview
My overall goal as an English instructor is to engage students in the learning process. By creating classroom environments where students are active agents in their own learning, choosing course materials that they can relate to, and offering opportunities for them to put the skills they are developing into practice, I hope to inspire students to become excited about their education. My teaching approach uses three key components – student-centered learning, personal and social relevance, and real-world applicability.
Student-Centered Learning
American classrooms are now filled with students from diverse class, ethnic, religious, and linguistic backgrounds, who enter colleges and universities with differing perceptions of and goals toward education. Numerous literacy and pedagogical studies reveal that students bring a range of literacy skills into the classroom that relate to their diverse upbringings and exposures to different types of literate practices. These studies suggest that pedagogical approaches drawing upon the variety of literacy skills that students already possess are often quite successful in helping expand their skill sets. In my teaching, I use a student-centered learning approach that incorporates the students’ existing knowledge and skills into the framework of the course. I enact student-centered learning through the use of methods such as having students develop and facilitate discussions and in-class writing activities, asking students to pose questions and build upon one another’s comments, having students participate in regular peer-review activities so that they can read and respond to one another’s writing, and developing small group activities and collaborative writing assignments. I use lectures when appropriate, but I try to make my lectures student-centered by presenting visual examples to support the material, and posing questions and evoking students’ responses about the examples. My aim is for students to view themselves as possessors and makers of knowledge, and to become comfortable voicing opinions about their specific educational needs and desires.
Personal and Social Relevance
Many students perceive education as being detached from their day-to-day realities, and I strive to introduce course materials and assignments that students find relevant to their lives and personally and socially meaningful. I choose contemporary themes that we explore throughout the semester, such as globalization or pop culture. In my intermediate composition classes, for example, students conduct academic inquiry into issues of globalization through theoretical texts, cultural texts such as literature, films, advertisements, etc., and large and small group discussions. I pose assignments that allow students to draw upon their personal interests, and relate those interests to the course materials. For instance, in one assignment, students are asked to discuss a local issue of their choice in relation to the larger issue of globalization. Many students choose to write about issues such as the layoffs in the automobile industries, the outsourcing of jobs overseas, and local health problems like obesity, in relation to larger global concerns. They often conduct interviews with family and friends and use the interview material to provide concrete examples to support their critical analysis of the theoretical texts. When I teach Shakespeare, I focus the course on the theme of Shakespeare in pop culture. After reading the traditional versions of the plays and conducting formal close-readings and discussing the plays’ historical contexts, we view clips of pop culture film adaptations and explore questions about whether Shakespeare’s story lines are able to retain their depth in the modern adaptations or whether the work has become so commercialized by postmodern culture that it has lost its literary value. By discussing the relevance of abstract terms like globalization, or of literature written in the 1500s, within contemporary society, the students often say that they connect with the materials on a personal level.
Real-World Applicability
One of my greatest goals as a teacher is for students to realize that the work they are doing in school can be applied to the “real world.” I aim for students to leave my class with an understanding that the writing and critical thinking skills they are developing have a practical application. For instance, in my intermediate writing courses, students participate in service learning activities within the local community, and they design projects in conjunction with the organization they are working with that involve writing and research. I encourage students to develop projects that relate to their fields of interest. Therefore, a student in nursing or pre-med might choose to develop a newsletter about health-related issues, a film student might compose a documentary video, and a student in education might develop and implement a literacy program. Additionally, it is increasingly important in today’s society to be digitally competent, and I work toward helping my students achieve digital literacy by incorporating new media into my courses. Throughout the semester, my students develop PowerPoint presentations and participate in numerous online activities. I encourage them to make their projects digitally available to a wider audience, and some of my students now have public work available on Web logs (blogs), YouTube, and personal Web sites. My hope is that involving students in a range of practical activities such as developing digital skills, making oral presentations, using the course assignments to expand their knowledge and abilities in their specific areas of interest, and creating projects that serve a useful purpose within the community, will allow them to recognize the real-world applicability of the work they are doing.
Overview
My overall goal as an English instructor is to engage students in the learning process. By creating classroom environments where students are active agents in their own learning, choosing course materials that they can relate to, and offering opportunities for them to put the skills they are developing into practice, I hope to inspire students to become excited about their education. My teaching approach uses three key components – student-centered learning, personal and social relevance, and real-world applicability.
Student-Centered Learning
American classrooms are now filled with students from diverse class, ethnic, religious, and linguistic backgrounds, who enter colleges and universities with differing perceptions of and goals toward education. Numerous literacy and pedagogical studies reveal that students bring a range of literacy skills into the classroom that relate to their diverse upbringings and exposures to different types of literate practices. These studies suggest that pedagogical approaches drawing upon the variety of literacy skills that students already possess are often quite successful in helping expand their skill sets. In my teaching, I use a student-centered learning approach that incorporates the students’ existing knowledge and skills into the framework of the course. I enact student-centered learning through the use of methods such as having students develop and facilitate discussions and in-class writing activities, asking students to pose questions and build upon one another’s comments, having students participate in regular peer-review activities so that they can read and respond to one another’s writing, and developing small group activities and collaborative writing assignments. I use lectures when appropriate, but I try to make my lectures student-centered by presenting visual examples to support the material, and posing questions and evoking students’ responses about the examples. My aim is for students to view themselves as possessors and makers of knowledge, and to become comfortable voicing opinions about their specific educational needs and desires.
Personal and Social Relevance
Many students perceive education as being detached from their day-to-day realities, and I strive to introduce course materials and assignments that students find relevant to their lives and personally and socially meaningful. I choose contemporary themes that we explore throughout the semester, such as globalization or pop culture. In my intermediate composition classes, for example, students conduct academic inquiry into issues of globalization through theoretical texts, cultural texts such as literature, films, advertisements, etc., and large and small group discussions. I pose assignments that allow students to draw upon their personal interests, and relate those interests to the course materials. For instance, in one assignment, students are asked to discuss a local issue of their choice in relation to the larger issue of globalization. Many students choose to write about issues such as the layoffs in the automobile industries, the outsourcing of jobs overseas, and local health problems like obesity, in relation to larger global concerns. They often conduct interviews with family and friends and use the interview material to provide concrete examples to support their critical analysis of the theoretical texts. When I teach Shakespeare, I focus the course on the theme of Shakespeare in pop culture. After reading the traditional versions of the plays and conducting formal close-readings and discussing the plays’ historical contexts, we view clips of pop culture film adaptations and explore questions about whether Shakespeare’s story lines are able to retain their depth in the modern adaptations or whether the work has become so commercialized by postmodern culture that it has lost its literary value. By discussing the relevance of abstract terms like globalization, or of literature written in the 1500s, within contemporary society, the students often say that they connect with the materials on a personal level.
Real-World Applicability
One of my greatest goals as a teacher is for students to realize that the work they are doing in school can be applied to the “real world.” I aim for students to leave my class with an understanding that the writing and critical thinking skills they are developing have a practical application. For instance, in my intermediate writing courses, students participate in service learning activities within the local community, and they design projects in conjunction with the organization they are working with that involve writing and research. I encourage students to develop projects that relate to their fields of interest. Therefore, a student in nursing or pre-med might choose to develop a newsletter about health-related issues, a film student might compose a documentary video, and a student in education might develop and implement a literacy program. Additionally, it is increasingly important in today’s society to be digitally competent, and I work toward helping my students achieve digital literacy by incorporating new media into my courses. Throughout the semester, my students develop PowerPoint presentations and participate in numerous online activities. I encourage them to make their projects digitally available to a wider audience, and some of my students now have public work available on Web logs (blogs), YouTube, and personal Web sites. My hope is that involving students in a range of practical activities such as developing digital skills, making oral presentations, using the course assignments to expand their knowledge and abilities in their specific areas of interest, and creating projects that serve a useful purpose within the community, will allow them to recognize the real-world applicability of the work they are doing.
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