University of Toronto

Faculty, Writing and Rhetoric Program

Faculty

 

Cynthia Messenger

Program Director

cynthia.messenger@utoronto.ca

Cynthia Messenger spearheaded the Writing, Rhetoric, and Critical Analysis Program, of which she is the director. With the help and support of her colleagues, she mounted the program in 2003-2004. Cynthia brings to the Writing Program extensive experience as a writing instructor in a wide array of settings, including colleges, universities, and the professional workplace. In 2002, she was awarded the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal for her work as a writing consultant in the office of Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor (The Honourable Hilary Weston).

Cynthia’s undergraduate training focused on Canadian and American literature. She wrote an undergraduate honours thesis on Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Her graduate work was on Canadian poetry, in particular the poetry and visual art of P.K. Page. Her publications include refereed articles on Canadian poetry in journals such as Canadian Literature and Journal of Canadian Studies; essays and shorter entries in reference texts such as the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, Blackwell’s Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry, and Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada; and numerous reviews in scholarly journals. In 2003, Oxford University’s Dept. of English included her article titled “Ekphrasis and the Brazilian Poetry of P.K. Page and Elizabeth Bishop” in its reading list for Oxford’s undergraduate exam on Elizabeth Bishop.

Over the past decade, Cynthia has acquired expertise in three other academic fields: rhetoric, professional writing, and print media studies. She has developed courses in the Writing Program based on these fields of study. INI 301H1S, Contemporary Issues & Written Discourse: Rhetoric & the Print Media, teaches students to recognize how the print media shape social issues through rhetoric. This popular course has featured visits from journalists who write for Canada’s national newspapers. Cynthia’s experience as a writing consultant in two offices of the Ontario government—the office of the Lieutenant Governor and the Management Board Secretariat—has enhanced the course content she developed for INI 300H, Strategic Writing in Business and the Professions: Theory & Practice, a professional writing course she has taught since 1999-2000. Drawing on her journal publications on ekphrasis, Cynthia mounted INI 305H1S, Word and Image in Modern Writing, in 2004-2005. This course enhances program offerings by exploring the intersection between verbal and visual rhetoric. INI 203Y, Foundations of Written Discourse, is one of two second-year offerings in the Writing Program (INI 204Y is the other). In INI 203Y, students learn about rhetoric, style, argument, and grammar. The course focuses on non-fiction prose, including political speeches, constitutional documents, and essays.

Cynthia is an active member of the University of Toronto’s Faculty Association (UTFA), where she sits on a number of committees, including UTFA Council and the Executive Committee. At present she is Vice-President, Grievances.

 

Roger Riendeau

Vice-Principal, Innis College

Roger Riendeau, Vice Principal and Academic Coordinator of Innis College, University of Toronto, teaches in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Critical Analysis Program offered at Innis College. A graduate of Glendon College, York University and the University of Toronto (Canadian history specialist), he joined the faculty of Innis College in 1976. Until 1994, he was an instructor in the Innis College Writing Laboratory (now Writing Centre) and taught INI202Y The Canadian Experience, a course that introduced students for whom English is a second language to Canadian culture and society. He also taught in the Writing Laboratory and the Pre-University History Program at Woodsworth College from 1974 to 1983, and he was the first Director of the Trinity College Writing Center from 1977 to 2002.

In 1979, he launched INI204Y The Academic Writing Process. This course was included in the Innis College Minor Program in Writing and Rhetoric, which he inaugurated in 1983 and coordinated until 1993. He also he taught the history section of INI235Y Introduction to Urban Studies during the early 1990s. In a further effort to enhance the critical thinking and argumentation skills of undergraduates, he devised HUM199Y Who Shot JFK? Truth, Lies, and the Illusion of Evidence, which was offered in the 2000-01 and 2001-02 academic terms. The popularity of this course inspired him to launch INI304H The Illusion and Reality of Evidence in 2005. Along with INI204Y, this course is included in the revised Innis College Minor Program in Writing, Rhetoric, and Critical Analysis, inaugurated in 2003-04 under the direction of Cynthia Messenger.

Roger Riendeau’s research and writing has focused on Canadian urban history. From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s, his main research and publication interest was the development of municipal services and infrastructure in the metropolitan Toronto area from Confederation to the beginning of World War II. He also published the first, and thus far the only, history of Mississauga, tracing its transformation from a sprawling rural township into Canada’s sixth largest city. Because of his interdisciplinary approach to Canadian urban history, he was invited to be a resident member of the Centre for Urban and Community Studies from 1989 to 2000. His most recent publication is A Brief History of Canada (2000), one of the few comprehensive single-volume scholarly textbooks on the subject published in the past three decades. A revised second edition is being planned for publication in 2006.

In addition to his work at the University of Toronto, Roger Riendeau is a professional editor who has served in an advisory or a production capacity on many scholarly and popular books in various disciplines. Most notably, he has been the Managing Editor of the Canadian Journal of African Studies since 1986. His editorial work has contributed to his special insights into the writing and research process and the teaching of writing and rhetoric to university students. He is currently researching and writing a history of Innis College and developing his Teaching and Research Website.

 

Sessional Lecturers

 

Sharon English

Sharon studied English Literature at the University of Western Ontario and the University of British Columbia and has taught academic writing in the Innis College Writing Centre since 2000. A fiction writer and experienced freelance editor, Sharon has also taught numerous courses in professional communications, fiction writing, and grammar. In 2008–2009, Sharon will teach INI 311, Seminar in Creative Writing and also courses in the short story and nature writing at the University of Toronto’s School for Continuing Studies.

Sharon English has published two collections of short stories, Uncomfortably Numb (Porcupine's Quill, 2002) and Zero Gravity (Porcupine’s Quill, 2006). Zero Gravity was long-listed for the 2007 Giller Prize, short-listed for a 2006 ReLit Award, and included in the Globe and Mail’s Best 100 new titles of 2006. Sharon has also published in numerous journals, including Best Canadian Stories, 2004 and Canadian Notes and Queries.

 

Dr. Vikki Visvis

Vikki Visvis received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto in 2004. She is currently a lecturer for the Department of English and the Writing and Rhetoric Program. In 2004-5, Vikki taught both Critical Writing about Narrative and Effective Writing at the University of Toronto, intensive academic writing courses for undergraduates. She also has experience as an ESL tutor, and works at various writing centres on campus. She has published academic essays on Canadian and American literature, particularly on issues of trauma and rhetoric, in Mosaic, Studies in Canadian Literature, ARIEL, and African American Review.

 

Dr. Viktoria Jovanovic-Krstic

Dr. Viktoria Jovanovic-Krstic joined the Writing and Rhetoric Program in 2007 from York University where she worked for many years in the  English and Professional Writing Department. Dr Jovanovic-Krstic brings with her years of experience in English stylistics and grammar, as well as business and technical communications from various academic institutions across Canada and Europe. Her main areas of research and interest are the rhetoric of war, spinning and framing tactics in the press, grammar, persuasive writing and business communications.

 

Melanie Stevenson

Melanie Stevenson has taught professional and academic writing at Innis for several years.  Prior to earning a Ph.D. in English, she worked in medical publishing and theatre. Currently, Dr. Stevenson teaches business writing to commerce students through the Writing and Rhetoric program. She also teaches communication in the Engineering faculty and gives writing workshops in Urban Studies. She has published in academic journals such as Canadian Literature, Essays in Theatre, L'Annuaire théâtral and University of Toronto Quarterly and has won a number of grants for her work, including a SSHRC post-doctoral fellowship and a Toronto Arts Council First Time Writer's Grant. She is a member of the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing (formerly the Canadian Association of Teachers of Technical Writing), the Canadian Writing Centre Association, and the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Her current pedagogical and research interests concern the implications of globalization and "Web 2.0" for professional communication and pedagogy.

 

Becky Vogan