Research & Projects

Project 1

Gossiping About Sources

Gossiping About Sources turns to the queer art of gossip to reframe synthesis as an active, conversational practice. Instead of treating sources as isolated authorities, students “gossip” about them. This includes informally mapping who is responding to whom, who is forwarding an idea, and who is countering it. Drawing on Joseph Harris’s language of forwarding and countering, this approach helps students see research as an unfolding dialogue rather than a collection of summaries.

By tracing these relationships, students begin to understand not just what a source says, but the conversation it enters and the positions it takes. This practice builds toward more sophisticated synthesis, where writing emerges from recognizing patterns of agreement, tension, and development across texts. In doing so, students learn to situate their own voice within an ongoing exchange—joining, extending, or challenging the ideas already in motion.

Enacted in WRT 100 & WRT 101 at American University.

Project 2

The Citational Poem

The Citational Poem treats early-stage research as an act of composition and arrangement. Students craft a “poem” from fragments (citations, phrases, and partial insights) placing their voice in conversation with other academics before stabilizing it into argument. This approach reframes the draft not as incomplete, but as generative: a space where ideas can accumulate, resonate, and take shape.

The assignment also draws on a form I have long worked in and care deeply about preserving: the citational or documentary poem, where meaning emerges through arrangement, juxtaposition, and voice-in-relation. By bringing this form into the writing classroom, students engage research not as extraction but as composition. It is an ethical and creative practice of positioning their voice among others. In this way, The Citational Poem supports a more intentional transition from draft to essay, grounded in attention, structure, and the ongoing shaping of ideas.

Enacted in various courses.

The AI Integrity Compact: Co-Creating Intellectual Reckoning for Classroom AI Use

The AI Integrity Compact reimagines AI policy as a performance of trust, treating the classroom as a rehearsal space for ethical imagination. Through collaboratively authored compacts, students perform and negotiate their relationships to authorship, privacy, and technological mediation, cultivating integrity as an ongoing, collective practice.

Sample Syllabus Language:

This course uses an AI Integrity Compact, a student-developed agreement that defines appropriate AI use. Rather than relying on fixed rules, we will collaboratively establish expectations around authorship, privacy, and responsible assistance. Students are expected to use AI in ways that align with the compact and to reflect on how these tools influence their work. Relevant AI prompts or interactions should be shared privately with the instructor for feedback on process. This approach prioritizes trust, accountability, and active engagement with emerging technologies.

Sample Learning-centric Sample Instructions for Students

To develop your AI Integrity Compact, begin by reflecting on your own learning goals and how AI tools might support (or perhaps limit) your ability to think, write, and create. As a class, you will discuss key questions about authorship, privacy, and responsible assistance, using examples from different types of assignments. As you draft your compact, aim to create guidelines that are clear, flexible, and meaningful to your own learning process rather than simply restrictive. You will be encouraged to test and revise these guidelines over time, paying attention to how AI use shapes your work and your voice. The goal is not to arrive at perfect rules, but to develop a thoughtful, evolving framework that helps you engage AI critically, ethically, and in ways that support your growth as a writer and thinker.

Presented at the American University Inaugural AI Teaching Conference

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