Kim De Vries


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Kim Welcome

Welcome. I earned my MA and PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in English (concentration in Rhetoric and Composition). I have been teaching writing at MIT since September 2001.

This year my classes include introductory technical writing and advanced writing in Astronomy and the Earth Sciences. At MIT I've also taught a class in the personal essay, and I've advised an undergraduate and a graduate thesis. I'm interested in teaching courses that explore rhetoric and issues of identity: gender, race/ethnicity, class, etc. I also would like to teach comparative rhetoric and non-western rhetoric; I feel it is especially important to teach graduate students, future teachers, about these topics.

My research interests relate to transnational literacies, comparative (and contrastive) rhetoric, online communities, and identity studies.While all of these connect with my teaching, I have been studying pedagogy more explicitly Pedagogy and classroom culture vary widely from country to to country; I've looked especially at the Chinese educational system.

If you are one of my current students, you may be looking for our class website, or my office. On the classes page you'll find a link to the Stellar system and from there can find your way to our specific pages. My office is 14N-212, which is in the north wing of Building 14--NOT in Building N14, which is a fifteen minute walk in the wrong direction!

While I've tried to avoid buried links, at the same time I'm aiming for simplicity, so there are a few. If you want to see all the pages you might visit, visit the site map above.