The Department of Writing and Rhetoric welcomed new instructor Dr. Caleb James in Fall 2017. Dr. James received his Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing from Bowling Green State University in May 2017. His bachelors and masters are from the Professional and Technical Writing program at UA–Little Rock.
He returned to UA–Little Rock because “it’s a great collaborative community, and I was especially excited to work with such supportive, smart, thoughtful colleagues.”
As an undergraduate student, rhetoric and writing appealed to him because it was “fun” to practice and theorize communication.
“I enjoyed Rhetoric and Writing courses because they gave me a place to take on exercises/projects for trying writing and talking about it. I chose to study and teach rhetoric and writing as a career because the rhetoric and composition discipline makes me proud to be a part of it. Since our beginning as a discipline, we have been progressive in applying our research to inform our pedagogies and make big decisions about how writing is taught. But more than that, we also actively make ethics a part of our scholarship and pedagogies. So at the end of the day I’m proud of the department and discipline I’m a part of.”
Dr. James is teaching RHET 3326: Technical Writing and RHET 1312: Comp II, including online sections of the tech writing classes. He likes teaching these courses because they’re important for giving students foundational skills for academic and professional writing settings, and he tries to assign projects that will challenge students but contribute to their feelings of preparedness.
He hopes to continually refine his teaching practices and approaches to be responsive to students’ needs.
Dr. James is also working on publishing on transfer and resistance in graduate student education.
“The diversity of our student population is by far my favorite thing about UALR students,” Dr. James said. “I think that diversity-in every sense of the word-offers a unique and valuable educational atmosphere.”
