Professor of English
Director of College Writing
Contact
Email: lebduska_lisa@wheatoncollege.edu
Phone: 508-286-5429
Website: https://wheatoncollege.edu/writing/
Education
Ph.D., M.A., University of Rhode Island
M.S., Long Island University
A.B., Duke University
About
My dream, passion and near-obsession is to cultivate further the long-standing and rich commitment to the teaching of writing here at Wheaton. As we develop our writing program, my interest is to enhance our notion of “composition” as a disciplinary field, produced by the intellect as well as the spirit, reproduced through scholarship as well as classroom practice, and thoroughly charged by the politics of the everyday.
Select Publications and Presentations
“Straighten Up.” Midway Journal. 15 October 2024.
“Swiped.” Vestal Review. Spring 2023.
“The Undertaker’s Wife.” Saturday Evening Post. January 2023.
“Doing Hope: Sharing Science Through Writing.” with Jani Benoit and Laura Muller. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Chicago 2023.
“Ablation.” Cleaver. 25 March 2022.
“Family Echo.” The Forge. 18 October 2021. Story of the Week.
“Refusing to Kill My Darlings.” Writers, Craft, Context. (October 2021).
“Confessions in Canyonlands.” (Hamilton Stone Review Spring 2021).
“Peer Review as Reflection in Print and Digital Composing.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. March 2021.
“The Things We Saved” Lunch Ticket (Antioch University) Fall 2016.
“Literacy Sponsorship and the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill.” Literacy in Composition Studies 2.2 (2014).
“Emoji, Emoji, What for Art Thou?” Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion. 12 (2014).
“Because They Do Know the Words.” Journal of Sustainability Education. June 2014.
“Composing in the Wake of War: The G.I. Bill and the Teaching of English.” Open Words. (Spring 2014).
“Exploring Visual Rhetoric in the Trayvon Martin Killing: When Pictures Alone Are Not Worth a Thousand Words.” Present Tense. Vol. 3.2. 2014.
“Finding the Metaphor.” College Composition and Communication. (2014).
“The Changing Ivory Consumer: A Truly American Brand.” Journal of Popular Culture. 48.2 (2015): 385-398.
“Poppies.” bioStories. (November 2013.) http://www.todaysbiostories.blogspot.com/.
“Profession of Letters.” College Composition and Communication. (Sept. 2013).
“Las Vegas, Nevada.” Narrative, Fall 2012. http://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/fall-2012/las-vegas-nevada.
“Fuzzy.”Animal Companions, Animal Lovers, Animal Doctors: Ontario Veterinary College 150th Anniversary. Ontario Veterinary College, February 2012.
“The Facebook Mirror.” Inside Higher Ed, 6/10/2011.
“Consortia as Sites of Inquiry: Steps toward a National Portrait of Writing Program Administration.” Journal of Writing Program Administration. (Spring 2009). With Jill Gladstein and Dara Rossman Regaignon.
“Sustainable Digital Ecologies and Considered Limits” in Technical Ecologies and Sustainability. Eds. Danielle Devoss, Heidi A. McKee, Dickie Selfe. Computers and Composition Digital Press. 2009.
“The Body Matters of Digitized Contexts” in Composition(s) in the Liberal Arts: New Directions. Eds. Joanna Castner and James Inman. Hampton Press (2009).
“Polylog: Are Writing Center Directors Writing Program Directors?” Composition Studies 34.2 (Fall 2006): 11-43. Co-Author with Melissa Ianetta, Linda Bergmann, Lauren Fitzgerald, Carol Peterson Haviland and Mary Wislocki.
“Classical Rhetoric and the Professional Peer Tutor.” Writing Lab Newsletter (April 2006).
“Imperative Vigilance.” Writing on the Edge (Winter 2005).
“Portfolios as Assessment and Learning Tools.” Conference on College Composition and Communication (Spring 2005).
Creative Works
“Jiminey.” Adelaide Literary Magazine. (February 2020).
“Waiting for Steven Spielberg.” Stories through the Ages. Living Springs Publishers (October 2017).
“Belle Ragazze.” The Tishman Review. 3.4 (October 2017).
“Elephant Dog.” The Gateway Review. 2.1 (Winter 2016).
“Mercy Mouse” Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine (November 2015)
“Cabin Fever.” 4’33” (Audio Essay) Feb. 2013
http://www.fourthirtythree.com/archivesSPRING13.html
Teaching Interests
Professional Writing
First-Year Writing
Rhetorical Theory
Technological Literacy
Other Interests
Environmental Cultural Studies
Student Projects
Independent major Ella Halpin and I are participating in an NEHC-sponsored Writing Programs Digital Archives Project (begun 2022 and ongoing).
I directed English major Chris Bennett’s Honors Thesis “Representations of American Identity and Political Expression in Popular Soccer Discourse” (2022-2023).
I served as an adviser to Ginger Ciaburri’s Honors Thesis “Understanding Emojis: Translating a Paralinguistic Device as an Adverb” (2019-2020).
I directed Andrew Schofield’s Honors Thesis “Playgrounds for the Self: Video Game Narratives’ Effect on Moral Identity” (2017-2018).
History major Sara Liu and I completed a 2016 survey of what students understand about writing in their majors, with the support of a Wheaton Research Partners grant. We will use these data to inform a proposal for an interdisciplinary minor in writing.
I directed Honors Thesis writer Evelyn Fisher (’15) as she researched and composed “The Perks of Writing Fan Fiction: The FanFiction.Net Community and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”
A Mellon Foundation summer research grant supported work with Hailey Heston (’17) researching photos of writing technologies as part of a born digital project on teaching writing in electronic environments.
A Writing Research Partners (WRP) grant allowed me to work with Mengyang (Vicky) Li (’14) producing short videos serving as the central image of a Voicethread inviting students to comment on the challenges of writing. I presented this project at the Writing Program Administrators conference in Albuquerque 2012.
Supported by a WRP grant, I worked with students Alexander Bandazian (’09) and Anna Lyczmanenko (’10) to research the ways in which veterans returning from World War II impacted college writing curricula. Sophie Howard (’14) continued that research with me. Three presentations and two articles resulted from this research. One of the articles has been published in the journal Open Words; a second article, focusing on the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, was published in Literacy in Composition Studies.
Research Interests
Writing Pedagogy and Rhetoric
Digital Rhetorics
Writing Centers; Peer Tutoring
Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)
Writing Assessment
Department(s)
Program(s)
Office
Meneely 309