
Michelle Hall Kells
Michelle Hall Kells is Associate Professor in the Rhetoric and Writing program. She has ten years teaching
experience in Rhetoric and Composition. Her areas of specialization (civil rights rhetorics, sociolinguistics,
and composition/literacy studies) coalesce around problems related to ethnolinguistic stratification and
intercultural communication. Kells launched Attending to the Margins: Writing, Researching, and Teaching on
the Front Lines (Heinemann, 1999) with Valerie Balester. A second, Latino/a Discourses: On Language, Identity,
and Literacy (Heinemann, 2004) co-edited with Valerie Balester and Victor Villanueva focuses on teaching writing
to diverse student populations. Her article "Linguistic Contact Zones: An Examination of Ethnolinguistic Identity
and Language Attitudes" is featured in the January 2002 issue of Written Communication.Kells is author of
Hector P. Garcia: Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006).
Her current book project is Vicente Ximenes and LBJ's "Great Society": The Rhetoric of Mexican American Civil Rights
Reform. Kells recently delivered a plenary address for CCCC 2010 Research Network Forum, "That's So WAC: Speaking
Life as a Second Language" about the UNM Writing Across Communities initiative.
CCCC RNF Handout
CCCC RNF Abstract