Professor G. Lynn Nelson Retires

Many thanks to Professor G. Lynn Nelson, whose smiling face and calm demeanor will be greatly missed in the Department.  Reprinted here is what one of his former students, Kyle Grant Wilson, wrote about him for the spring 2008 issue of “Accents on English.” 

G. Lynn Nelson’s Peaceable Classroom

Associate Professor G. Lynn Nelson received his PhD in American Literature and his MA in English at University of Nebraska, and his BA in Education at Kearney State College. He began teaching at Arizona State University in 1973. Nelson’s primary academic focus is linked to a kind of writing that Linda Hogan refers to as a search for “a language of that different yield . . . a yield that returns us to our own sacredness, to a self-love and respect that will carry out to others.”

   This journey led to the publishing of Writing and Being: Taking Back Our Lives Through the Power of Language in 1994, which was revised and reprinted in 2004 and translated into Japanese in 2007. Nelson has published in journals nationwide; his article “Warriors with Words: Toward a Post-Columbine Writing Curriculum” won the English Journal’s Edwin M. Hopkins Award for Outstanding Article in 2000.

   In addition to his writing, Nelson believes in serving Arizona’s diverse communities. He has mentored countless teachers as the director of the Greater Phoenix Area Writing Project, a regional enrichment program of the National Writing Project for English teachers. From this project spawned his creation of the Young Adult Writing Project (1995); Native Images (1993); and the Rainbow Sections of English Composition (1984). The programs have flourished, offering writing classes to Arizona’s youth and mentorship to its teachers. Because of these many initiatives, Nelson received the 2007 Arizona English Teacher Association (AETA) Distinguished Service Award. Nelson’s work sets a precedent for many scholars’ research efforts and teaching aesthetics; in this manner, his effort to teach a peaceable classroom presses on. Enjoying retirement, Nelson and his wife Laurie live in Tempe and frequent his cabin at Mormon Lake near Flagstaff, Arizona.

—KYLE GRANT WILSON

Additional News from the English Education Department

Obviously no single person can replace Lynn, but we are happy to announce that we have three new faculty members who will be helping us fill the void.  Coming with a brand new Ph.D. from Stanford is Django Paris, coming from a position as Chair of the Education Department at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina will be Laura Turchi, while coming from our own Ph.D. Linguistics program will be Lupco Spavoski.  Django and Laura will be getting acquainted with the local schools through helping to supervise student teachers.  Django will also be teaching a section of ENG 482/506: Methods of Teaching English Language on T/TH, while Lupco will teach an undergraduate section (ENG 482) of the same course on Monday evenings.  Laura will be teaching ENG 494/598 Information Matters: Media Teaching and Tools in the Secondary English Classroom on Thursdays at 4:40pm.

If you are interested in enrolling in any of the English Education courses please feel free to stop by our office or view the course descriptions online at
http://www.asu.edu/clas/english/courses/index.html

ASU Department of English/

English Education Office

Language & Literature Building Rm. 215

P.O. Box 870302
Tempe, Arizona 85287-0302
(480) 965-3224
Fax: 480-965-0605