Crystal VanKooten
Personal information
- First name
- Crystal
- Middle Name
- L
- Last name
- VanKooten
- Job title
- PhD Candidate in English and Education
- Website
- http://sitemaker.umich.edu/vankootc
- Brief Bio
Hi! My name is Crystal VanKooten. I'm a teacher, writer, reader, musician, scholar, and student. I'm currently in my second year as a PhD student in the University of Michigan's Engish and Education program. My research interests at the present moment include how vlogging can be used in the writing classroom; composition in multiple of modes of expression such as the written word, image, sound, movement, and gesture; and the changing definitions of terms such as literacies and writing in today’s 21st century contexts.
- Full Bio
Crystal VanKooten is an instructor of English Composition and second year graduate student in the Joint Program of English and Education at the University of Michigan. Before she came to UM, Crystal was a high school English teacher for five years, where the students first introduced her to the idea of exploring the intersections between reading, writing, and technologies. Through blogging about literature, Crystal’s students wrote and interacted with one another in exciting and innovative ways, and their work pointed her to the research field of Computers and Writing.
In graduate school, Crystal has explored theories of New Media Writing, digital literacies, and multimodal composition through her coursework, seminar papers, and class presentations. Crystal’s First Year Exam, written in summer 2010, is entitled “A New Composition: Highlighting Musical Rhetoric. Expanding Terms and Choices in the 21st Century Classroom,” and explores in print and video formats how the field of English Composition must redefine what it means by composition for 21st century digital contexts, and in doing so, must highlight multiple modes of expression such as the rhetoric of music. Crystal’s continued research interests include how vlogging can be used in the writing classroom; composition in multiple of modes of expression such as the written word, image, sound, movement, and gesture; and the changing definitions of terms such as literacies and writing in today’s 21st century contexts.
Crystal also loves singing, volleyball and softball, Kate Chopin's short stories, and shopping for shoes.
History
- Member for
- 1 year 23 weeks
- Blog
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