RESEARCH
My research interests lie at the crossroads of trauma theory, game studies, and cultural rhetorics. My rhetoric background and previous work on digital game trauma narratives help me to utilize interdisciplinary frameworks and concepts to analyze digital spaces for cultural storytelling. I've furthered my understanding of these spaces through studies of oral history, digital archives, Chicana/Latina feminisms, and racial rhetoric.
Currently, I am beginning a research study through oral history interviews with mixed Chicanas to eventually create a digital, public archive of oral histories of Mixed Chicanas.
TEACHING
As a Mixed Chicana from an underprivileged background, I’m aware of the obstacles that students face in traditional academic spaces, which can be isolating and intimidating. As an instructor, I want to create equitable and collaborative environments where students are valued and are part of a community and that focuses on alternative writing spaces.
For example, I designed a themed first-year composition (FYC) course based on game design to build equitability among students by encouraging them to work together from a similar starting point by engaging a composition genre and discourse that exists within an alternative professional writing spaces outside of traditional ones.
I have also designed a themed FYC course based on cultural storytelling spaces to encourage students to explore their embodied literacies beyond reading and writing, oral history interviews to engaged with community, and digital testimonios to speak their truth in personal and communal stories and through multimodal ways.
I also use a labor-based grading system in my present composition courses based on Asao Inoue's model and continue to refine my assessment practices in order to authentically reflect my teaching philosophy that acknowledges alternative and 'othered' ways of being, writing, and knowing.
Image description: Headshot of mixed Chicana Lia Schuermann smiling and wearing a blue and white plaid scarf and grey sweater inside her home.
My research interests lie at the crossroads of trauma theory, game studies, and cultural rhetorics. My rhetoric background and previous work on digital game trauma narratives help me to utilize interdisciplinary frameworks and concepts to analyze digital spaces for cultural storytelling. I've furthered my understanding of these spaces through studies of oral history, digital archives, Chicana/Latina feminisms, and racial rhetoric.
Currently, I am beginning a research study through oral history interviews with mixed Chicanas to eventually create a digital, public archive of oral histories of Mixed Chicanas.
TEACHING
As a Mixed Chicana from an underprivileged background, I’m aware of the obstacles that students face in traditional academic spaces, which can be isolating and intimidating. As an instructor, I want to create equitable and collaborative environments where students are valued and are part of a community and that focuses on alternative writing spaces.
For example, I designed a themed first-year composition (FYC) course based on game design to build equitability among students by encouraging them to work together from a similar starting point by engaging a composition genre and discourse that exists within an alternative professional writing spaces outside of traditional ones.
I have also designed a themed FYC course based on cultural storytelling spaces to encourage students to explore their embodied literacies beyond reading and writing, oral history interviews to engaged with community, and digital testimonios to speak their truth in personal and communal stories and through multimodal ways.
I also use a labor-based grading system in my present composition courses based on Asao Inoue's model and continue to refine my assessment practices in order to authentically reflect my teaching philosophy that acknowledges alternative and 'othered' ways of being, writing, and knowing.
Image description: Headshot of mixed Chicana Lia Schuermann smiling and wearing a blue and white plaid scarf and grey sweater inside her home.