Graduate assistant Lorelei Blackburn presented her paper, "Extreme Teaching: The practical realities of teaching former child-soldiers in Sub-Saharan Africa and how they relate to teaching traumatized populations in the U.S.," at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in New Orleans on April 5.

Lorelei Blackburn presented her paper, "Cinematic Sublimity: The Exclusion of Love in Contemporary Faith-Healing Media," at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference in San Francisco on March 19.

Lorelei Blackburn presented her paper, "Toward a Holistic Rhetoric: The recovery of scripture as a viable rhetorical appeal," at the University of New Hampshire 2008 Graduate Conference "Challenging Faith: Intersections of Belief and Doubt in Literature, Composition, and the Profession" in Durham, NH on March 8.

Lorelei Blackburn presented her paper, "Sublimity and the exclusion of love in modern-day Christian evangelization," at the MMLA conference in Cleveland in November.

Graduate Assistant Brooke Bailey has been hired as the copy editor for Conscious Choice, a magazine for which she also writes.

Peer consultant Sean Waldron, a double major in Digital Cinema and English, is interning with Big Shoulders Digital Video, an independent production house.

Congratulations to Director Peter Vandenberg and First-Year Writing Program Director Darsie Bowden on the release of their National Conversation on Writing (NCoW) film Who is a Writer? What Writers Tell Us. Click here for more information on the work and the Council of Writing Program Administrators' Network for Media Action.

Lorelei Blackburn spent her summer teaching former child soldiers at an orphanage in Palisa District, Uganda. She taught grammar and composition classes, in addition to poetry, conversation, and rhetoric. Lorelei will be sharing her teaching experiences as part of a panel led by Dr. Goffman at the TYCA conference in Chicago on October 5. Visit Lorelei's website to learn more.

After receiving his M.A. in English last June, Chris Woodyard has been accepted to student teach at Evanston Township High School during the spring quarter. He will be teaching freshman and junior honors English courses, which include material like The Great Gatsby, Death of a Salesman, and A Tale of Two Cities.

Nina Godlewski has been placed to begin student teaching at Glenbard North High School in the spring. In the interim she will serve as an America Reads Tutor and Team Leader.

Kristin Thomas has been awarded the Richard J. Meister Scholarship from DePaul's Steans Center. This award is in recognition of Kristin's commitment to service, social justice, and activism, as well as her academic performance and career goals.