About Me

My name is Roberto Leon and I am an assistant professor of writing studies at Georgia College and State University, Georgia's public liberal arts university.  My PhD is from the Language, Writing, and Rhetoric program at the University of Maryland College Park. I 

RESEARCH

My research interests include histories and theories of rhetoric and composition, comparative rhetoric, professional/technical writing, second language writing, and writing program administration. I publish both scholarly articles and theory-informed teaching materials.  I have recently presented on stasis theory, two-semester composition course sequences, and integrating AI in the composition classroom.  Recent publications include:

“Matteo Ricci, S.J.’s Tianzhu Shiyi: A Case for Including Dialectic in Comparative Rhetorics.”  In Sophie Conte, Bartosz Awianowicz, John Brereton, Cinthia Gannett, Manfred Krauss, and Elizabethada Wright, eds. Jesuit Rhetorics Across Space and Time: Local and Global Perspectives. Brill, 2026, pp. 427-447.

“The Influence of Structural Invention on Erasmus’s De copia rerum Commentarius secundus.”  Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, vol. 43, no. 4, 2025, pp. 384-417.

“I ka ʻŌlelo nō ke Ola (In Words there is Life): An Introduction to Hawaiian Rhetoric.” Expanding the History of Rhetoric Pedagogy Initiative.  American Society for the History of Rhetoric, November 2025.

Review of Global Rhetorical Traditions, edited by Tarez Samra Graban and Hui Wu. Journal for the History of Rhetoric, vol. 27, no. 3, 2024, pp. 412-416. 

I also have forthcoming textbook chapters on stasis theory and the history of Writing Studies.

TEACHING

I teach first-year composition and graduate composition pedagogy at Georgia College.  I have also piloted Georgia College's first Introduction to Technical and Professional Writing course.  I have previously taught in Maryland, Hawai’i, and Utah, and have regularly taught online courses since 2013. Besides teaching first year composition, I have also designed and taught courses in rhetorical theory, technical writing, grammar, basic writing, L2 oral fluency, and tutoring oral fluency.  In all my teaching, I encourage metacognition as a way of recognizing and developing flexible approaches to form and agency.

SERVICE

I currently serve as Teaching Fellows Coordinator, focused on professional development for graduate student instructors, including teaching a graduate-level writing pedagogy course, organizing and giving workshops, and conducting class observations. With my colleagues, I also contribute to curriculum and faculty development.  Previously, I have served as an Administrative Fellow for the University of Maryland's Writing Center and serve on the board of Interpolations: A Journal of Academic Writing at the University of Maryland. Previously, I have also served as an Administrative Fellow with our Academic Writing Program, a summer Administrative Fellow for the University of Maryland Writing Center, as a Mentor-in-Teaching with the English Department, and as a member of the Digital Presence committee of the Writing Program Administrators Graduate Organization (WPA-GO). I also served on the University of Maryland English Department's Writing Committee as a graduate student representative and co-chaired our 2020 graduate student conference, "Radical Visions: Abolition as Praxis in Literature, Rhetoric, and Culture."