MICHAEL R. NEAL
Associate Professor of English Florida State University
Current Book Project — Digital Dilemmas
My research agenda revolves around questions of how writing and the teaching of writing evolves due to technological and social changes. I position myself less as an advocate or critic of technological change and more as a reflective practitioner, to borrow George Hillocks' phrase. I am invested in student engagement in authentic writing practices and processes and am invested in the Editing, Writing, and Media English major track at Florida State University. I also write and conduct research on mentored undergraduate research, digital archives, and digital writing.
Writing Assessment and the Revolution in Digital Texts and Technologies
Written for a secondary and postsecondary audience of English language arts and writing teachers, this book provides frameworks for thinking about technologies as well as assessing new media writing.
Teachers College Press (2010)
“Grounding his inquiry in stories and humor, Michael Neal presents a lucid exploration of how technologies and assessments illuminate and shape each other. Remarkably, Neal blends a robust command of relevant theories with a deep reverence for the nuanced complexities of actual students and teachers working in specific learning contexts.”
—Bob Broad, professor of English, Illinois State University
The FSU Card Archive is produced and curated by students and faculty in the Rhetoric and Composition Program at Florida State University. Housing over 5000 postcards and over 150 exhibits student-curated exhibits, visitors to the site can see and read about a wide array of postcards spanning over a century.
FSU Card Archive
Targeted primarily to teachers and administrators in college writing programs, this book provides arguments and insights into four dilemmas we face when deciding if and how much to invest specifically in digital, multimedia writing. To what extent is a focus on the digital important in meeting writing outcomes?
In process
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Composition Creep: the ever expanding outcomes, skills, and knowledge expected from writing classes,
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Accessibility: the need for multimodal composition to respond to best practices in composing for audiences with various physical and learning (dis)abilities,
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Intellectual Property: the evolving laws and policies that guide students’ use of existing media in their own composition,
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Assessment: the challenge for writing teachers to provide meaningful feedback and to evaluate multimodal texts.
Working closely with Stephen McElroy and Katherine Bridgman, we have collaborated on scholarship and have received recognition for our archival work:
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"Meaning-Making at the Intersections: Developing a Digital Archive for Multimodal Research," Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. 17.3 (2013).
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"Many Happy Returns: Student Archivists as Curators of Public Memory" (forthcoming 2015) Pedagogies of Public Memory: Teaching Writing and Rhetoric at Museums, Archives, and Memorials. Eds. Laurie Grobman and Jane Greer. Routledge Press.
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2013 Computers and Composition Michelle Kendrick Outstanding Digital Production/Scholarship Award for "Meaning Making at the Intersections" webtext.
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2013 Ralph Stair Prize for Innovative Education (FSU University Teaching Award) for work with undergraduate students on the archive.
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Directed 100s of graduate & undergraduate students entering card metadata and developing researched exhibits,
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Directed over 75 Editing, Writing, and Media student internship working in the archive, and
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Mentored 8 students in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) developing inquiry-based research projects.
Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters
"Digital Portraits: Engaging Students in Personal Essay Writing through Video Composition." In Laura A Gray-Rosendale (Ed.), Getting Personal: Teaching Personal Writing in the Digital Age. SUNY. In press.
Mentored Undergraduate Research: A Multi-Institutional Investigation of Students' Perceptions of Identity Shifts within this Learning Sphere." In Maureen Vandermass-Peeler, Paul C. Miller, and Jessie Moore (Ed.), Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Forthcoming.
"The Perils of Standing Alone: Reflective Writing in Relationship to Other Texts." In Yancey, K.B. (Ed.), The Rhetoric of Reflection. Utah State UP. 2016.
"'Many Happy Returns': Student Archivists as Curators of Public Memory." In Grobman, L., & Greer, J. (Eds.), Pedagogies of Public Memory: Teaching Writing and Rhetoric at Museums, Archives, and Memorials (pp. 117-131). Routledge Press. 2016.
"Mentoring, Undergraduate Research and Identity Development: An Integrative Conceptual Review and Research Agenda." Mentoring and Teaching: Partnership in Learning, 17. 2015.