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Mary Hallet
Academic Specialties & Research Interests
As a Master's student, I became interested in how undergraduates
wrote about trauma. When writing about this topic, I noticed
that students often drew from the rhetoric of television news,
memorial services, and high school assemblies. Later, as a
PhD student, I read the work of trauma theorists Cathy Caruth
and Shoshana Feldman. At this time, I also received papers
from students about traumatic incidents they had experienced.
One of these papers told the story of a woman who—when
the student writer was in the third grade—had entered
his small town elementary school and randomly shot teachers
and his classmate. My reading of this paper coincided with
the Columbine High shootings. As a result, I began to see
such student papers as proper and rich material for research.
I felt that an in-depth study of them produced pedagogical
approaches that would not only help students become better
writers, but would also help them negotiate loss. This became
the subject of my dissertation, Grief (W)rites: Composing
Loss in the Composition Classroom.
Presently, while I still focus on issues of trauma and loss,
I am also interested in the use of documentaries in the writing
classroom, and how students read these visual texts. How,
in other words, can we use these texts to promote inquiry
and research, and also to encourage discussions about objectivity
and subjectivity, fact and fiction, in writing of all kinds?
A third strand of research in which I am currently engaged
concerns how socioeconomic class and writing "disabilities"
affect placement of students in composition and other university
courses, and how such placement limits or opens up spaces
for learning.
List of Publications and Conference Presenatations
Publications
"A Case Study of a Student Writer." In Murray, Donald.
The Craft of Revision, 7th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt
Brace College, 2000.
Writing Activities and End-of-Chapter Questions and Answers.
Murray, Donald. Write to Learn, 6th ed., Fort Worth:
Harcourt Brace College, 1999.
"Grief, Loss, and Pedagogies of Writing." Journal
of Curriculum Theorizing. Vol. 15, No. 2, Summer 1999,
191-208.
Publications Forthcoming
"She Toiled for a Living: Writing Lives and Identities
of Older Female Students." Article in Composing Identities,
a collection of essays to be published in 2006 by Utah University
State Press.
Publications Submitted for Consideration
"Composing Grief: When Students Write about Death and
Trauma." Under Submission by College English
Conference Presentations
"Truths, Lies, and Literacy: Decoding the Documentary."
Conference on College Composition and Communication. To be
presented in Chicago, March 2006.
"'Are You Being Served?': Race, Representation, and Literacy."
Writing Conference. University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH,
Fall 2004.
"Composition Meets Street: Writing Alliances at the Heart
of the City." Thomas R. Watson Conference. University
of Louisville. Louisville, KY. 8 October 2004.
"Michael and Me: Using Documentaries to Teach Writing
and Research." Workshop. Conference on College Composition
and Communication. New York, NY. 19 March 2003.
"She Toiled for a Living: Writing Working Lives and Identities."
Thomas R. Watson Conference. University of Louisville. Louisville,
KY. 1 October 2002.
"(Dis)Composing Communities: When Students Write about
Death." Conference on College Composition and Communication.
Chicago, IL. 20 March 2002.
"Building Bridges: A New Use for Research Papers."
The convention of the National Council of Teachers of English
(NCTE). Btitleimore, MD. 15 November 2001.
"Personal Effects: Student Constructions of Loss and
Media Discourse." The Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture
Association Annual Conference. Silver Spring, MD. 2 November
2001.
"Composing Grief." Second Annual North Country Conference
On the Teaching of Writing. Bethlehem, NH. 5 May 2001.
"If You Steal from One Person, It's...: Theorizing and
Redefining Plagiarism." Panel Chairperson.
Conference on College Composition and Communication. Denver,
CO. 15 March 2001.
"Working and Writing the Dissertation" (Graduate
Special Interest Group). Conference on College Composition
and Communication. Minneapolis, MN. 2000.
"The Familial Gaze: Photographs, Family and the Composition
of Memory." Writing Conference. University of New Hampshire.
Durham, NH. Fall 1999.
"Trauma and Memory: Teaching as Trauma and Text."
Graduate/Faculty Colloquium. University of New Hampshire.
Fall 1999.
"Freud and Emma Eckstein's Bloody Nose: Subjected Female
or Female Subjectivity?" Graduate/Faculty Colloquium.
University of New Hampshire. Durham, NH. Spring 1998.
"Previous Lives: True Stories of Research (Il)Literacy."
Conference on College Composition and Communication. Chicago,
IL. Spring 1997.
"Picture This: Revealing Popular Culture in the Composition
Classroom." Writing Conference. University of New Hampshire.
Durham, NH. Fall 1996.
"Out of Bounds: Defining New Spaces for the Student Sports
Narrative." Conference on College Composition and Communication.
Milwaukee, WI. Spring 1996.
"Writing and Reading Gender: Women's Athletic Experiences."
Women in Sports Conference. Boston College. Chestnut Hill,
MA. Spring 1996.
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