• ENG 090, Introduction to Academic Writing
• ENG 097W, Academic Reading
• ENG 098, Preparing for College Writing
• ENG 111, College Composition I
• ENG 111A, Writing Methods/College Composition I
• ENG 112, College Composition II

How to Contact Mrs. Kanicki

• E-Mail: heatherkanicki@delta.edu
• Office Phone: 989.686.9199
• Office: S053

 Davenport University, English Department - July, 2006 to present Davenport was the first university to hire me, fresh out of graduate school as I was. Though I'd had years of teaching experience via tutoring and peer mentoring, I'd had very little experience in a professional setting as the sole instructor. The first course I taught was English 109 - Composition 1. It was a good class to "cut my teeth" on in the realm of composition, especially since my Masters Degree was British Literature focused - not Rhetoric and Composition. I had been so used to simply writing papers, that I had forgotten that it hadn't been born knowing how to do it. This class forced me to take a step back and think about how a paper worked - in other words, it made me go back to the basics - to help my students learn. That first class has proved invaluable because of that. I did so well with teaching students how papers works that, when Davenport decided to change their requirements for graduation, they wanted me to teach the pilot course of the new English 110. Saginaw Valley State University, English Department - August, 2006 to present SVSU hired me only a few weeks after Davenport did, and I taught classes at both universities at the same time. The first section I taught at SVSU was English 212: Topics in Critical Writing. Because I received the class so late, the textbook and topic were already chosen for me by the department head at the time, the emphasis being pop culture. Yet, I was happy with the choice. In graduate school, I had grown accustomed to classes where we simply sat around and chatted about reading assignments, delving in passionately since this was the focus of our degrees. Therefore, a textbook that was only comprised of articles we could chat about was a dream come true. Until the first reading, however. It became clear on that first evening when we began discussing article one that the students did not necessarily share my passion for picking readings apart. More to the point, they simply didn't know how. If I asked a question, they answered, but such things did not lead to classroom discussions as I'd hoped. It was in English 212, born from a new teacher's desperation to make a real go of it, that my more hands-on approach was born. I created games and art projects, had the students perform skits, introduced film clips, did pop taste-tests, anything I could think of to get the students motivated. It worked so well that I have used these tools to some degree in every class I have taught since. Delta College, English Division - July, 2007 to present Delta College hired me one year, almost to the day, that Davenport did, and I now teach at all three colleges at the same time. Out of all three schools, though I had been a student at SVSU in the past, Delta was the only one that gave me the feeling of coming full circle in my life. I had walked through those doors a hundred times as a student, but now, it seemed, I would walk through them again but in an entirely different role. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to stand at the front of classrooms where my love of English Literature had been born, but apparently there was universal irony in my coming to teach there. The place that had taught me to love literature became the place that taught me to love teaching composition. The cornucopia of writing courses that Delta offered gave me the chance to become a more well-rounded teacher. I have since learned how to teach varying levels of developmental writing and reading as well as honed my skills as an advanced composition teacher. English 090: Introduction to Academic Writing all the way to English 112: Advanced Composition have now become my professional playground, and I have the delight of seeing my students grow from barely being able to write a sentence in 090 to composing beautifully thought-out papers in 112.

English Division Support Office

E-mail: sldeford@delta.edu | Phone: 989.686.9159
Fax: 989.686.0485 |Office: S006