Donna Dunbar-Odom

Professor, Director of English Graduate Studies

Office: HL 224
Phone: 903.886.5264
E-mail: Donna_Dunbar-Odom@tamu-commerce.edu

I came to Texas A&M-Commerce (then East Texas State University) in 1993. My PhD is in Cultural and Critical Studies with a specialization in English from the University of Pittsburgh, and my MA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha is in 20th-century American literature. I have published textbooks for first-year composition, introducing ethnographic research methods into the teaching of argument. My book Defying the Odds: Class and the Pursuit of Higher Literacy (SUNY Press, 2007) focuses on why some working-class students pursue higher literacy against all expectations and predictions.

I serve now as Professor of English and Director of English Graduate Studies. My research focus is Composition and Literacy Studies—specifically literacy acquisition and the working-class student, but I also teach literary theory and pedagogy courses. I have directed dissertations on film and composition, basic writing theory, neo-expressivist composition theory, and teaching writing in the two-year college, among others.

Curriculum Vitae: Dunbar-Odom.doc