Like many of us, I started down the "English Major" path long ago, but was quickly disillusioned with the whole enterprise of creative writing in the university. I’ve always wanted to teach writing at the college level (secondary schools, public or private, have always had a distasteful ISA-ey flavor about them) but was disappointed with how creative writing instruction was being carried out. So, not knowing what to do and figuring it would be good for me anyway I got a Masters in literature. It was a lucky thing too, because while the other MA and MFA folks were slogging through their required assistantships in composition, I was taking to it like a pig in…well, you know.

My primary interest is in writing, exigency and motivation in classroom contexts. As Dave mentioned in class "exigency" as unconditionally determinant was "destroyed" by Vatz back in the 70s, but I think there are remnants of this idea, updated to account for developments in rhetorical epistemology of course, that can be useful to the practice of composition instruction. I do believe our teaching (my own included) is often not very "rhetorical," that we often misunderstand or frankly disregard our students’ "exigencies." Unfortunately, I know very little about Burke, but I do know he was very interested in the concept of motivation. I will (hopefully) be writing my prospectus soon, and anticipate that Burke may add some insight to the theory I am starting to build.