English Professor & Writing Coach | From Draft to Final Grade

Marissa B.

I am a fifth-year PhD student in Composition, Rhetoric, and English Studies at the University of Alabama, where I also work as a graduate teaching assistant. I hold a master's degree in English from the University of North Alabama, along with a bachelor's in healthcare organization and a master's in organizational management. I am certified through the Global Society of Online Literacy Educators and hold Quality Matters certification in online course design, which means I am trained specifically in teaching writing in virtual environments rather than simply moving a classroom online. I have also served as a reader for the College Board's Advanced Placement exams and have editorial experience with a national literary journal, so I understand how student writing is actually evaluated by the people scoring it.

I am traditionally published in an international anthology by a top publisher and another anthology with Black Lawrence Press.

I have taught first-year composition for several years at the University of Alabama and UAB, and I currently teach English and literature at Miles College. I teach in classrooms, in fully online sections, and one on one. Alongside my classroom work, I tutor online individually, primarily in essay writing, research papers, literature, and grammar. Before I came to teaching, I worked as a nurse, which makes me a good fit for nursing and allied health students facing care plans, reflective writing, and evidence-based papers.

My approach is to teach the moves rather than fix the paper. Most students are not weak writers; no one has ever shown them how an argument gets built. I ask what the assignment is really asking, help locate a claim worth defending, and break the work into steps small enough to finish. I treat editing as a set of rhetorical choices, not a verdict on intelligence. Bring me a blank page or a messy draft, and you will leave the session knowing exactly what to do next.