I am an Assistant Professor of English Education in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University.  My scholarship focuses on student writing development over time, the connections between classroom interaction and learning to write, and teacher learning of dialogic practices to support writing development.  To date, I have focused on the teaching and learning of argumentative writing, and I am now beginning a project exploring the teaching and learning of a specific type of argument, a listening argument.

I am a former high school English teacher and middle school literacy coach and have degrees in English and Education from The Ohio State University, Grand Valley State University, and Calvin College.  My work has been published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, Written Communication, Research in the Teaching of English, Theory into Practice, and Linguistics and Education.

I serve as the Secretary of NCTEAR (National Council Teachers of English Assembly for Research) and as Subject Area Co-Leader of English Education in MSU’s Department of Teacher Education.