Dear Awards Committee,

During the Fall 2012 semester, I had the privilege of observing Molly Daniel’s ENC 1145: Writing about Gossip and Gender. Although I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of Molly’s class, I was especially impressed with the ways in which she incorporated popular culture and social networking technologies to teach complex theoretical concepts such as gender performativity, critical race theory, and genre theory. Even more impressive is Molly’s authentic engagement with the technologies she asks students to engage. Molly’s authenticity and openness as an instructor make her classroom a relaxed, and enjoyable learning environment.

Molly’s authentic engagement with technology and class concepts in clear in the way she uses Twitter alongside her students. Twitter is integral to the course material and Molly participates in the space as fully as she asks her students to. She uses the social media platform to remind students of due dates, answer questions and build a presence in the students’ online lives. What’s more is that Molly genuinely engages in the medium; she posts sporadic thoughts and random notions that made the social networking platform so popular. In doing so, Molly is able to model the behavior for students while keeping in close and easy contact with students. Perhaps just as importantly, Molly is able to create an affable professional online persona that helps her connect with her students when discussing difficult or pressing topics such as gender.

Molly invites her students to collaborate with her and each other in order to parse through class reading and assignments. This is especially evident in Molly’s co-authorship of the class blog, which functions as a hub for the course, where she authors and invites students to author content. As a result of this collaboration, Molly is able to facilitated rich and insightful class discussion; Molly herself enters the conversation as a participant, rather than a leader, as the students take charge of the subject matter. Too, Molly is able to make student texts the focus of her classroom by using student blog posts as discussion catalysts. In doing this, Molly gives her students time and a space to wrestle with complex theories and material privately, and then invites them to engage in the messy process of meaning making together.

During the same semester, Molly mentored me through my first semester in the FSU FYC program. I have found Molly to be deeply invested in developing her pedagogy and fostering learning communities in and around FYC. She is truly a dedicated instructor who works diligently to continue improving her own practice and continually makes herself available to help others improve theirs as well. Molly is truly a valuable resource to her students and to the instructor community here at FSU.

Sincerely,

Heather Lang