Author Biographies

Lori-Beth Larsen

Lori-Beth Larsen earned an MA in TESOL from St. Cloud State University. She has a BA in Ethnomusicology from the University of Hawaii and a Reading certification from Minnesota State, Mankato. She has been teaching for about 25 years. Her background in teaching English to speakers of other languages lead to many discussions with Kathryn about the rhetorical background and communication preferences of students in developmental classes. She recognized that students were coming from non-academic dialects, meaning that they often didn’t understand how they were expected to participate in academic settings. This book focuses on integrated communication skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) and deliberately teaches the academic rhetorical patterns.

Kathryn Klopfleisch

Kathryn earned an MA in English and another one in Reading from Minnesota State, Mankato. She has been teaching for about 25 years and has a deep interest in developmental students. She has engaged in two research projects—the first one simply posed the question “What do ‘A’ students do that ‘D’ students don’t?” and then “What can we do to get ‘D’ students to act more like ‘A’ students?” Much of the material in chapter one comes from her study. The second research project involved working with faculty that taught reading intensive courses such as Philosophy, Psychology, and Earth Science to conduct reading and study skills workshops for students who failed the first exam. Through these workshops, she learned how many students struggle because they don’t have an effective note taking strategy, or they are unable to pick main ideas out of a text. However, once students were given concrete strategies for studying, their grades began to improve.