Michelle LaFrance
Assistant Professor
Director of First Year English

Education
Ph.D. University of Washington, Seattle
M.A. University of Washington, Seattle
B.A. Antioch University, Yellow Springs, OH

Specializations
Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing in the Disciplines, Composition Pedagogy (and Writing Centers), Qualitative Research (and Assessment), and Sociolinguistics 

Contact Information
Office: LARTS 339
Phone: 508.910.6421
email: mlafrance@umassd.edu

Michelle LaFrance received her Ph.D. in English (with a concentration in Writing Studies) from the University of Washington.

As a qualitative research-scholar, Michelle’s work explores the ways that language and identity compel and inform one another in a variety of different contexts. Her work often asks: How does writing reflect the values of a community of scholars? How do our ideas about language organize us, give shape to, and order our belongings? Her interests include understanding how students join academic communities as writers, pedagogy, writing centers, language resuscitation activism, and socio-linguistic community building. In recent years, she has begun to explore new media (in particular, documentary filmmaking) and looking into writing centers and classrooms as locations that may support multiple modalities of expression and communication.

See a trailer for Michelle’s Documentary film (co-directed with Harry Miller) here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10ITUGlfzGg&feature=player_embedded#!%29

Michelle has published on e-research, e-portfolios, writing center pedagogy, and independent comics, and is co-author of the forthcoming collection Peer Pressure, Peer Power: Collaborative Peer Review and Response in the Writing Classroom (Fountainhead Press 2011).

In her free time, she hangs out with a ball-crazy black lab and a fat Chihuahua.