Profile

After a career as a book and magazine editor, I earned my MA in TESOL at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, studying with Donaldo Macedo and Vivian Zamel. I then taught English language and composition in Boston, Costa Rica, and Madison, WI, to immigrant adults, international students, and non-traditional students at UMass/Boston. Although my specialty within TESOL is academic writing, I have also taught reading, grammar, and pronunciation skills. I have consistently been interested in the social context of language learning and the role that it plays in affording or constricting access to societal institutions and resources.

My Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies working with Michael Apple, James Paul Gee, and Deborah Brandt at the University of Wisconsin enabled me to place these interests within a broader framework of critical curriculum theory, discourse studies, and New Literacy Studies. My dissertation research examined the experiences of ESL students in a basic writing course in a community college. As a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Language Communications at the Open University, I developed two new projects (see Research) and followed key students in my Ph.D. study as I developed publications from it (see Publications).

At the Warner School, I am the director of the master’s program in foreign language and English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) and advise doctoral students in the fields of second language acquisition, intercultural communication, second language and academic literacy and academic support.

Developing from my interest in academic literacy, I have been working to support academic writing at the Warner School. In the fall 2004 semester we launched the Writing Support Services, which offers writing consultants by appointment Monday-Saturday. I also offered writing workshops on critical reading, academic argumentation; these and new workshops will be offered again in 2005-2006. Learn more about the Writing Support Services.

Contact Details:
The Warner School
University of Rochester
Dewey Hall
PO Box 270425
Rochester, NY 14627-0425
Phone: (585) 273-5934
mjcurry@ITS.Rochester.edu