Department of English

Congratulations to Cindy Damm McPeters (PhD Candidate) for receiving the 2020-2021 Hephzibah Roskelly Award for Pedagogical Innovation. This award honors our beloved Hephzibah Roskelly, who retired from UNCG in 2016, and recognizes outstanding and inventive pedagogical practice in an undergraduate academic writing course.

The College Writing Program Committee (Nancy Myers, Heather Brook Adams, Matt Carter, Steve Yarbrough, Jennifer Whitaker, and Risa Applegarth) selected Cindy’s work for recognition from among a pool of impressive nominees.

The award recognizes Cindy’s inventive efforts to teach research to first-year students through her partnership with the libraries and especially with the Women Veterans Historical Project. As explained in her rationale, Cindy’s assignment sequence involves students in research that sparks their curiosity, as they work collaboratively to construct genres such as chronological narratives, metadata, biographical sketches, and public presentations to share original research about the women veterans whose scrapbooks are held by the Women Veterans Historical Project at UNCG Libraries. Tasked with researching non-famous individuals who can’t be readily Googled, Cindy’s students comment that they “feel a bit like a detective” as they dig through archival documents to construct credible and useful introductions to veterans’ scrapbooks. In addition to motivating students’ lively engagement, Cindy’s assignment sequence also helps novice writers (in English 101 and FMS 115) develop their capacities for critical reading, information literacies, and metacognition, supporting their ongoing development as writers.