Randy Gonzales




We must rest here, for this is where the teacher comes. On his desk stands a vase of tears.
    John Ashbery from “And You Know”

University Writing Courses Taught
 
HSR 200: College Writing U.A.E. University
Description: This course takes the ideas from World of Ideas and uses them as a basis for considered, researched, and purposeful expository writing in a realistic academic study situation.
Texts: World of Ideas
Semesters Taught: Fall 2009, Spring 2010
Teaching Focus:
  • Emphasis on bringing the texts from World of Ideas into a local context, taking the ideas presented and finding relevance for life in the United Arab Emirates.
  • Writing tasks focus on the ability to carefully analyze a text and/or situation and to present this analysis in an appropriate discourse mode.
  • Overt teaching of discourse modes to provide students with scaffolding to better focus on idea generation and accurate mechanics.

ENG 310: Writing 1 U.A.E. University
Description: This course gives students a solid background in the writing process by focusing on the conventions of academic discourse and genre. 
Texts: Introduction to Academic Writing, Great Essays
Semesters Taught: Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010
Course coordinator for Writing 1 Spring 2009 to Spring 2010.
Teaching Focus:
  • Emphasis on the role of writing as a means to discovering and organizing ideas.
  • Giving students, particularly female students, a voice or sense of personal authority i.e. helping students to understand the importance of their own experiences as anecdotal evidence and as a step to creating generalizations about human experience.
  • Critical thinking skills, particularly moving students from an L2 focus on mechanical correctness to an understanding that what you write is just as important as how you write it.

ENG 312: Writing 2 U.A.E. University
Description: This course builds on the concerns of Writing 1 with increasingly sophisticated readings and assignments. 
Texts: Academic Writing
Semesters Taught: Fall 2007
Teaching Focus:
  • Emphasis on writing essays in a variety of discourse modes in response to the theme of "Change in the United Arab Emirates."

ENG 319: Advanced Composition U.A.E. University
Description: The course will focus on idea development and the creation of clear, well-reasoned arguments. Students will be expected to produce essays that contain original ideas and that follow academic conventions of style, cohesion and mechanical correctness.
Texts: The Norton Reader
Semesters Taught: Spring 2008, Fall 2008
Teaching Focus:
  • Students read essays in a variety of rhetorical modes on the themes of place, religion and education. Students wrote essays on the themes with the goal of relating the text to the local culture, or using the texts as inspiration for exploring similar ideas in the local culture.
  • Emphasis on the motivation for writing. Analyzed text, including texts by Fatima Mernissi, Frederick Douglass, and Langston Hughes, for personal motivation in putting down their stories. Students were asked to identify their own motivations for writing and for taking an advanced writing class as an elective.

ENG 460: Creative Non-Fiction U.A.E. University
Description: This course combines the writing techniques of the journalist and the creative writer. Students are encouraged to develop their own voice and to delve deeply into a topic that interest them.
Texts: Teacher provided. View online sources.
Semesters Taught: Fall 2007
Teaching Focus:
  • Emphasis on teaching a variety of discourse modes(reportage, interviews, research, narrative, and memoir) and incorporating them into a semester long writing project focused on a topic of the writer's choice.

ENG 463: Advanced Writing U.A.E. University
Description: This course introduces non-literature Humanities majors to the methods to analyze and write about literature.
Texts: A Short Guide to Writing about Literature
Semesters Taught: Fall 2007
Teaching Focus:
  • Developing students critical functions when understanding literary works. Used many local texts to take the emphasis off of simple comprehension, allowing the students to go beyond language difficulties and to think clearly about the works.
  • Introduced students to the form of a literary work and had them analyze a local cartoon, Freej, for plot, character and elements of comedy. View the assignment.

ENGL 103: Introductory Writing Jacksonville University
Description: This course focuses on the development of skills necessary for writing across disciplines: reading analytically and writing clear, accurate and coherent expository prose. It also introduces students to basic research skills, library resources and documentation systems.
Semesters Taught: Fall 1994, Spring 1995
Teaching Focus:
  • Emphasized peer editing, topical readings and required students to write a portfolio containing essays of different types on the question What does it mean to be an American?

ENC 1101: English Composition 1 Florida Community College at Jacksonville
Description: This course embodies the fundamentals of effective expression with emphasis on the various forms of expository writing, logical and imaginative thinking, and reading for understanding.
Semesters Taught: Spring 1995
Teaching Focus:
  • Taught students a range of discourse modes, including persuasion and narrative.

ENG 101: Rhetoric and Composition University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Description: A course designed for freshmen of average proficiency, with emphasis on expository writing based on readings of non-fiction.
Semesters Taught: Fall 1992, Spring 1993, Fall 1993
Teaching Focus:
  • Emphasis on responding to issues presented in the standard reader and writing essays in a variety of discourse modes.

ENG 102: Composition and Literature University of Louisiana Lafayette
Description: A course designed for freshmen of average proficiency, with emphasis on expository writing based on readings of fiction, poetry, and drama.
Semesters Taught: Spring 1994
Teaching Focus:
  • Reading and responding to a novel, John Kennedy Tooles A Confederacy of Dunces. Students wrote essays on character, plot and symbolism.