Professional Development Course Descriptions

You must be registered to enter the Online Courses. On successful completion of each course, you will be able to print a certificate for Continuing Professional Education credits earned. Texas teachers may use CPE credits toward certification renewal. (CPE Provider #501247)

Beyond Grammar: Teaching Style in Context (CPE Credit: 1 hour)

Valerie M. Balester, Ph.D., Texas A&M University

Courtney Wellmann, M.Ed., College Station ISD

Instructional Goals and Objectives

  • Review the research regarding teaching grammar in context
  • Develop teaching strategies for analyzing published writing for style
  • Develop teaching strategies for improving students' grammar and style within the context of their own writing

Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills (English IV) Objectives Addressed

  • Writing: 1 C,E; 2 C,D,E,H; 3 A,B,C; 5 A; 6 A,B
  • Reading: 7 F

About the Authors

Valerie Balester is an associate professor at Texas A&M University and executive director of the University Writing Center. She specializes in rhetoric and composition and has an interest in Discourse Studies. Dr. Balester has long been an advocate of writing centers and started one at Texas A&M in 1990 with English graduate students. She also served four years as the Director of Writing Programs, training and supervising writing teachers for first-year composition, technical writing, and writing about literature.

Courtney Wellmann teaches in the English Department at A&M Consolidated High School in College Station, Texas. Her current teaching assignments are English II Pre-AP, Journalism, and Advanced Journalism, including responsibility for the school newspaper, The Roar.

Multiple Texts for Multiple Contexts (CPE Credit: 3 hours)

Carrie Leverenz, Ph.D., Texas Christian University

Jennifer Richardson, Fort Worth Independent School District

Instructional Goals

  • Encouraging rhetorical flexibility through substantive revision
  • Presenting writing as a means of discovering, as well as expressing, ideas
  • Using rhetorical situation to guide revision
  • Analyzing college students' rhetorical revision essays

Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills (English IV) Objectives Addressed

  • Writing: 1 A,B; 2 B,E,H; 3 D,E; 4 A,B,C,G,H; 5 A,C,D; 6 A,B,C
  • Reading: 9 A; 11 D; 13 D,F

About the Authors

Carrie Leverenz is an associate professor at Texas Christian University. Her areas of expertise and interests are composition theory and pedagogy, writing program administration, magazine writing, and the effects of technologies on literate practices. Dr. Leverenz is co-editor of the journal Composition Studies and co-director of TCU's New Media Writing Studio.

Jennifer Richardson is a master teacher specialist for Ft. Worth ISD's English Department. Previously she was grant facilitator for the LEP Secondary School Success Initiative Grant for the Bilingual Department. Ms. Richardson has taught at the Language Centers of Ft. Worth's Amon Carter-Riverside H.S. and Western Hills H.S., where she was Team Leader.

Teaching Argument as Inquiry (CPE Credit: 1 hour)

James E. Warren, Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin

Instructional Goals

  • Develop strategies for teaching argument as a means for working toward agreement
  • Examine use of classical rhetorical tools to find arguable claims (the stases) and use reasoning to develop the claims into arguments (enthymemes)
  • Review use of evidence to support arguments
  • Identify a four-step process for dealing effectively with counterarguments
  • Analyze a college student’s argumentation essay

Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills (English IV) Objectives Addressed

  • Writing: 1 C,F; 2 A,H; 4 A,C,D,H; 5 A,D
  • Reading: 13 B,C,D,E,F

About the Author

James E. Warren teaches in the Division of Rhetoric and Writing at The University of Texas at Austin. He serves as lead instructor and program coordinator of SPURS (Students Partnering for Undergraduate Rhetoric Success), a college preparatory program pairing UT-Austin writing classes with 11th grade AP English classes from underrepresented high schools across the state.