Meet ATL’s Faculty Spotlight for November 2026, Karen Haskell.
1. What course(s) do you teach, or have you taught, at URI?
At URI I primarily teach WRT 104 Writing to Inform & Explain, WRT 106 Introduction to Research Writing and WRT 227 Professional Writing. I also have experience teaching Technical Writing, Argumentative Writing, and Creative Writing, more specifically poetry.
2. What is your proudest teaching moment of the last year?
This summer I did a museum of things activity with my students. Groups of 3-4 students were given a bag of random items; everything from a plastic spoon to a protractor to fidget toys. Really just random objects from my house. Their task was to arrange them like a museum exhibit and then take the rest of the class on a museum tour. It was such a fun hands-on lesson. One group’s museum was Rhode Island themed. They arranged and interpreted all the objects as being about Rhode Island. Another group had a cloth face mask and used that as a jumping off point. Their museum was about the experience of children during the Covid19 pandemic. After the museum tours we debriefed as a class. We talked about narratives & storytelling; how humans are wired to add meaning and make sense of objects and actions. We also talked about source synthesis. They had to synthesize these 25 random objects which is not unlike what they had to do for their individual projects – take journal articles, websites, interviews, observations, and images to create a final story; a narrative that made sense to an audience.
3. What are the 3 qualities that you think make for a great teacher?
I was at a high school open house for my daughter, and her Biology teacher talked about his class, how he’s been teaching for over twenty years, and how much he loves fish. My daughter mentioned that his email profile picture is a fish. He runs the aquaculture program at the school, and you could tell he really enjoys it. I think it’s important to enjoy teaching – most of the time, anyway!
I also think it’s important to be a lifelong learner. A good teacher is always interested in updating a lesson, changing how they reach students, or learning something new that will benefit their students. Lastly, I think a good teacher is willing to make mistakes and learn from them.There’s always something new to learn.
4. What do you hope students look back on in ten years and say about your class(es)?
I teach a lot of freshmen and sophomores. I view my role as preparing them for their next writing opportunity whether that be a history research paper, biology lab report, or the next email they send to a professor. Further down the line, I want to prepare them for resumes, cover letters, and presentations, as well as everyday writing like recipes and social media posts. I want them to develop the skills they need to be competent, confident writers in any of the writing situations they will encounter. So, what I hope students remember is that I was supportive and inclusive and that I provided them with a strong foundation for the writing they will do throughout their lives.
5. How have you seen teaching evolve over your career? And/or where do you see teaching going?
Over the course of my career, my understanding of teaching and how to teach has really evolved. I began my career as an education coordinator for a non profit organization that ran ESL, GED & citizenship classes for adults. I learned a lot about student choice and engagement. These adult students were immigrants and refugees, usually working full time with families, who chose to come to class every night. The focus of these classes was to meet student needs: to read a prescription bottle, how to write an email to their kids’ teacher, read grocery flyers. Lessons were often created around student choice. They had a voice in what they were learning.
Second, a number of years ago I attended a workshop on Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL emphasizes providing students with multiple ways to access information, engage with learning, and demonstrate understanding.
Finally, my own family’s neurodiversity has led to my involvement in special education and accessible education and services.This has helped me recognize how much the educational experience can differ from one learner to another and how important it is to work with those differences.
Each of these experiences have shaped how I show up in the classroom. They have impacted my teaching, pushing me to be more inclusive, supportive, and student centered.
6. How do you relax after a long day of teaching?
I am an avid reader. The last book I read was Paris by Edward Rutherfurd. He writes these big sweeping historical narratives about big cities -Paris, New York, London. He weaves together different families over the centuries while telling the history of the city.
7. What do you like to do for fun?
My family & I are big WNBA fans. My grandparents were huge UCONN fans and when a WNBA team, the CT Sun, arrived in Connecticut in 2003, they took me to a game. I later started taking my husband and daughters to games. We even went to an Unrivaled game in Philly last January. Unrivaled is a professional three-on-three league featuring many WNBA players, and that game set an all-time attendance record at the arena. I love seeing how much women’s sports have grown, and it’s exciting that my daughters have grown up in a world where women’s professional sports have always been part of the landscape.
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