Dr. Mary French

For Faculty

Assistant Professor
College of Liberal Arts

UT Arlington Faculty

Dr. French received her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Professional Communication from New Mexico State University, an M.A. in English-Professional Writing and Rhetoric Option from University of Texas at El Paso, and a BA from University of Texas at El Paso in Psychology. In addition to teaching at UT Arlington, Dr. French has taught at New Mexico State University, University of Texas at El Paso, and El Paso Community College. Dr. French began teaching at UT Arlington in the Fall of 2004, where she has taught graduate courses in argumentation theory, research methods in composition, technical writing, and composition pedagogy and has taught undergraduate courses in technical writing, FYE expository and argumentative writing, advanced exposition, and special topics literature-animals in literature.

Service Learning Class

ENGL 3373: Technical Writing is an advanced, undergraduate writing course emphasizing the processes of researching, drafting, editing, revising, and designing technical reports, proposals, manuals, resumes, correspondence, and other types of professional documents.

Academic Outcomes

Students will learn how to or be able to…

Communicate, verbally and visually, scientific and technical information effectively to a variety of audiences.
Apply rhetorically sound analyses in order to evaluate a technical document for effectiveness.
Identify and use proper technical editing skills, including the conventions of standard written English.
Develop effective document design, production, and management plans, including usability tests
Apply a range of computer technologies and software beyond simple word processing in written, oral and visual communication.
Demonstrate and evaluate strategies for working collaboratively and empathizing with others as well as appreciating and being ethically and socially responsible to others (reflective writing component).
Demonstrate intentional, proactive, and well-reasoned writing strategies through critical analysis of their own writing practices (reflective writing component).
Appreciate the nature and role of communication within an academic context and in terms of the nature of academia as a type of enterprise (reflective writing component).

Service Learning Project

Students Supporting Students & Faculty in the Academic Enterprise

The selected non-profit agency, in this case, was actually the University of Texas at Arlington. The intent behind this project was to involve students in their own academic community, to help them better understand the nature and role of communication in the academic enterprise, and to extend their understanding of a “collaborative writing community of practice” by having them work not only with one another in their technical writing class, but also with other students and teachers outside of their classroom. Student projects involved working with graduate students in my graduate technical writing class (ENGL 5389) to develop the Best Practices Committee’s Faculty Resources Web Page on the English Department Web Site, to develop promotional materials for the State-Farm/UTA-TCC Service-Learning Collaborative summer institute, and to develop a “Literacy Livewires” Web Site that showcases the work of Dr. Kathleen Tice’s UTA students’ evaluations and recommendations of children’s literature for actual use by K-12 school teachers. Another group of my ENGL 3373 students developed promotional materials for the Spring Service-Learning Lecture Series. Finally, a group of my ENGL 3373 students petitioned to do their service-learning project in other academic settings: Wood Elementary in Arlington and Gideon Elementary in Mansfield in which they prepared supplemental instructional materials (such as charts that could be posted in classrooms on correct writing methods and on increasing mathematical understanding about addition, subtraction, division and multiplication) and informational materials (such as an informative newsletter on healthy lifestyles and charts displaying the nutrition pyramid and proper handwashing techniques).

* Essential elements of Service Learning are academic rigor, civic engagement, and personal development.