Michelle Conklin-Kusel

Michelle Conklin-Kusel

Michelle Conklin-Kusel

Graduate Teaching Assistant

Writing and Rhetoric: Academic, baseline, civic, and information literacies; news media's role in the public sphere; propaganda and fake news; first-year composition; writing program administration; applying Stasis Theory to teaching research and writing; critical thinking and logical fallacies; Kenneth Burke's theory on identification and division in relation to political power and influence.

Although I was born in northern Indiana, I grew up in the Detroit suburbs. I began my professional life as a weekly newspaper reporter in rural parts of Florida and Michigan and finished at a weekly newspaper chain based in Detroit's northeastern suburbs. I have served as a secondary teacher of English and social studies for about eight years in both suburban and urban schools. For seven years, I was an adjunct English professor at Harford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland, where I taught freshman composition and research writing.

Current Research

The intersection of academic, baseline, civic, and information literacies in first-year composition as well as public discourse; information pollution in the public sphere and its consequences (with a current focus on the COVID-19 pandemic), the rhetorical practices and agency of the Bonus Army; and academic labor issues (particularly contingent faculty).

Courses Taught

ENGH 101, ENGH 302

Education

  • Master of Arts in English: Writing and Teaching Criticism Track, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
  • Secondary Teaching Endorsement: Journalism, Michigan State University
  • Master of Arts in Teaching: Secondary English, Wayne State University (with additional Secondary Teaching Endorsements in Social Studies and Political Science)
  • Bachelor of Arts with Dual Major: English with an Emphasis in Community Journalism and Political Science, Western Michigan University

Recent Presentations

  • 2016 Biennial Conference of the Rhetoric Society of America, Atlanta, Georgia: Presented conference paper, "Occupational Hazards: Protest and Rhetorical Commonalities between the Bonus Army and Occupy Wall Street."
  • 2022 Biennial Conference of the Rhetoric Society of America, Baltimore, Maryland: Presented conference paper, "Naming the Tools: Teaching about Rhetoric and Information Literacy through YouTube."