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A Return to the Writing Classroom

March 5, 2016, I returned to North Lake College to host a writing workshop for Mr. Guy Melton’s Upward Bound students.  It was a wonderful Saturday filled with discussion, drafts, sharing, play with color, and photos from the 21 countries I’ve visited.

During the workshop, students were asked to

  1. Portray their view of the writing process through a visual
  2. Develop a rough draft using the following prompt:  The Value of Travel
  3. Tour my photo gallery and develop a list of insightful words that come to mind during the tour
  4. Develop a revised essay
  5. Read each member’s essay and select the strongest revision

Since my return from Africa, this was my first time back in the U.S. classroom, and I loved it.  My international teaching experience over a period of three and a half years breathed renewal into my teaching and into my professional growth.

Evidently, the students enjoyed the experience as well, for they have requested my return.

This is an honor for an educator but an even greater honor is to showcase the work of one of the student attendees

An Essay by Oscar Zambrano

Oscar Zambrano, Essay on Traveling

By Avis Winifred Rupert, Ph.D.

Dr. Rupert has a 20-year teaching/leadership track-record in education. She is a native of Texas but has relocated to the East Coast where she is the Associate Dean of Arts & Humanities at Bristol Community College. Her background includes both teaching and administrative positions in the university and community college, international contexts, and secondary and dual credit experience in both the rural and urban high school setting. Rupert has traveled to 21 countries to-date, partnered with populations from diverse ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds; and achieved an 8-year management career complemented by four levels of management with the largest retailer in the world. Dr. Rupert’s education is complementary to her professional and personal growth and interests. She has a BBA in Business Administration with a minor in Marketing, an MA in Composition Studies, an MA in Organizational Management with an International Focus, a PhD in Rhetoric and Writing, and she is presently working on an MA in Biblical Studies and Theology. Rupert’s profile gives her a unique way of at looking at opportunities in education and beyond that often escape others. She contributes her success to self-awareness, an unparalleled drive to grow and develop in varying ways, and a tenacity for leadership. Finally, her dissertation which required the exploration of ethnography requires mention, for it too has added to her unique perspectives and accomplishments.

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