At this site, you will find links to materials for Professor Morgan's courses at Austin Community College. You'll also find a link to the Stone Soup Writers page, where service-learning students share their writing and the work they are doing in the community. Links to our community partners are here, as well. Courses I Teach Literature Courses  Engl 2342 Introduction to Literature Engl 2327 American Literature: Beginnings to Civil War Engl 2328 American Literature: Civil War to the Present Engl 2322 British Literature: Anglo Saxon Through Eighteenth Century Engl 2323 British Literature: Eighteenth Century to the Present Engl 2323 British Literature, UK and Ireland Study Abroad Engl 2332 World Literature: Beginnings to the Present Engl 2333 World Literature: Eighteenth Century to the Present Composition Courses Engl 1301 Composition I Engl 1302 Composition II Engl 1301 and 1302 with Ascender Program Service Learning Composition Courses 1301 Composition I: Service Learning and Community-Based Writing 1302 Composition II:  Analyzing Stories in the Community Honors Courses Engl 2342 Introduction to Literature:  Native American Fiction Engl 1302 Composition II:  Writing About Horror Fiction

Kazel Morgan has been teaching literature and composition courses in the Composition and Literary Studies Department at Austin Community College since 2002.  She holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in English from the University of Houston at Clear Lake.  Professor Morgan is currently a member of the CLS Curriculum Committee and the Liberal Arts Gateway Program.  She has been a faculty leader with the ACC Study Abroad Program (British Literature, UK and Ireland Study Abroad), and a teaching faculty member in the Ascender Program.  She is currently Assistant Department Chair for Faculty Evaluations. Professor Morgan and her service learning students have worked with Student Life and the ACC Office of Sustainability as well as with many community partners, including Art from the Streets, Austin Youth River Watch, Austin's Neighborhood Partnering Program, Cherry Creek Community Garden, BioIntegrity, and many others.   Curriculum Vita

A Note to My Students 

Hello!  If you are a student enrolled in one of my courses or considering enrolling, here you can get some idea of the kind of professor I am. First, you should know that I respect and admire you for doing the hard work that it takes to go to school and improve your life. Like you, I also began my academic journey at a community college:  College of the Mainland, just south of Houston.  From my experience, both as a student and as an instructor, I have come to recognize the community college as a valuable gift of democracy and equality, a public institution that transforms lives and lifts people up.  I know it did that for me.  But it's not easy; students often face a myriad of obstacles to be here.  I am inspired by the strength and determination I see in so many of you every day, and I have faith in what you can accomplish.  No matter what your reading and writing skills are, I know that you have valuable ideas to express and contributions to make.  Secondly, I want you to find my classes intellectually challenging, fun, and rewarding.  I want you to see how literature and poetry can expand our lives and teach us to know the world, and ourselves, in a fuller way. And I want you to learn that writing papers doesn't require some secret magic formula or amazing writing skills.  Instead, writing is mostly about knowing some straightforward logical and rhetorical moves that with practice and hard work you can master.  Above all, I want you to learn how to learn and how to think on your own.  I hope that my classes will help you realize that your voice counts, and that you have the power to truly make a difference in the world. 

If you are interested, check out my  Student Commentary section to read some of what students have said about our classes over the years.

Watch the videos below for more on the striking difference that having a growth mindset can make: “Growing your mind” by Khan Academy (3:04).  “Neuroplasticity” by Sentis (2:03)

“You shall no longer take things at second or third hand…You shall not look through my eyes either, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.”   --Walt Whitman   

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Links to Useful Resources on All Things                     Writing and Reading and Thinking Daily Writing Tips                                                                                                  Et Plagieringseventyr (Don’t plagiarize anywhere, especially not in Norway) Study: Reading novels makes us better thinkers "A trio of University of Toronto scholars, led by psychologist Maja Djikic, report that people who have just read a short story have less need for what psychologists call “cognitive closure.” Compared with peers who have just read an essay, they expressed more comfort with disorder and uncertainty—attitudes that allow for both sophisticated thinking and greater creativity." Can Reading Make You Smarter? "In October, the journal Science published an extraordinary study showing that reading literary fiction can improve people's theory of mind (ToM) – their ability to understand others' mental states. David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano, both of the New School for Social Research in New York, enlisted hundreds of participants online to read examples of either non-fiction, popular fiction or literary fiction, and then to take tests measuring the accuracy of their ToM. In five experiments, they showed that reading literary fiction led to better performance on tests of both emotional and cognitive ToM compared with reading non-fiction, popular fiction or nothing at all."

link to  Student Commentary Sample the comments students have made about my classes.

British Literature Study Abroad Scholars, Summer 2019, Edinburgh