Mike Garcia
Director of Writing Programs
About
Education:Â PhD, English, 2010, University of New Hampshire. Dissertation: “Politics and Ethics of Student Self-Assessment in the Composition Classroom”; MA, English, 2004, Washington State University; BA, English, 2001, Western Oregon University
Mike Garcia is the Director of Writing Programs at Luther College. He supervises tutors in the Writing Center, leads Paideia staff workshops on the teaching of writing, and consults with faculty across campus as they develop writing assignments. He serves on campus committees related to student success and assessment.
Mike’s scholarly interests are rooted in teaching. He’s primarily an expert in the grading and assessment of writing. He’s also done work in Literacy Studies, Writing in Digital Environments, Contemporary Rhetoric, Professional and Technical Writing, and Writing Program Administration.
Depending on the semester, you’ll find Mike teaching Rhetoric and Persuasion, Professional and Technical Writing, American English, and other courses dealing with writing, rhetoric, and language. And he’s always teaching a section of the first-year Paideia course.
When the weather gets warm, you’ll see Mike around town with his wife Marie, their daughters Lucy and Annie, and their Golden Retrievers Toby and Max.
- PhD, English, 2010, University of New Hampshire. Dissertation: Politics and Ethics of Student Self-Assessment in the Composition Classroom
- MA, English, 2004, Washington State University
- BA, English, 2001, Western Oregon University
- AA, 1998, Clackamas Community College
ENG 211: Writing for Media
A comprehensive course in news writing, reporting, and writing for media. Focus on the issues and skills central to journalism and professional writing for various media. Readings and examples from newspapers, on-line and print magazines, and electronic journalism.
ENG 221: Rhetoric and Persuasion
Through a study of persuasive writings, speeches, and campaigns, students in this course will engage with the following questions: What persuades other people? What counts as evidence to different audiences-but also, what factors other than evidence influence their thinking? How do writers and speakers consider their audiences’ beliefs, values, biases, and ways of seeing the world as they attempt to persuade? In this course, students will learn fundamental concepts of rhetoric and persuasion and develop arguments of their own. The course includes practice in analytical and persuasive writing.
ENG 223: Professional and Technical Writing
This course introduces the concepts and strategies essential for the writing of professional correspondence, from instructions to proposals to business letters and more. Students will communicate complex subject matter to specific audiences, lay and technical, in print and digital formats. The course will examine the rapidly shifting technological and rhetorical demands of professional communication as messages move through networks of real people and organizations, each with different needs, priorities, and cultural values. By examining case studies of professional and technical writing in professional environments and applying what they learn to their own work, students will become more attentive to the audiences and environments of their writing.
ENG 341: American English
The course examines several of the major spoken and written dialects of American English. In the course, students will explore how English is learned through childhood language development, through exposure to languages, and through formal education. They will also learn how the various dialects of American English differ in terms of prestige as well as how speakers’ and writers’ dialects can have tangible effects on their social and economic success. By engaging with scholarship in rhetoric, linguistics, sociology, history, and communications, students will develop their understanding of how language can be a force of inclusion or exclusion.
I have presented and published on a variety of scholarly topics, including writing center and writing program administration, persuasive writing, and rhetoric and persuasion. I present often at the Conference on College Composition and Communication as well as smaller regional conferences. You’ll find my published work in edited collections, the most recent of which is Revising Moves: Writing Stories of (Re)Making (2024).
Though my graduate-school education was focused mostly on writing instruction and composition theory, at Luther I’ve expanded my work in rhetoric and am now working on a handful of projects related to rhetorical analysis and persuasive speechmaking.