Faculty Profile: Natalie Stillman-Webb

Natalie Stillman-Webb

Natalie Stillman-Webb began teaching for the Department of Writing and Rhetoric Studies in 2000, after completing a PhD at Purdue University. She is passionate about engaging students in real-world writing practices, including writing in the disciplines, project-based learning, and community-engaged learning. Her students learn about challenges facing their local communities while engaging with organizations such as The Road Home, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah, Sageland Collaborative, and The Children’s Center Utah.

One of her favorite classes to teach is WRTG 4830: User Experience Research and Writing. Each semester the class works with a different nonprofit partner, conducting usability testing on the organization’s website and making actionable recommendations on how it can better meet the needs of its diverse users. Reflecting on the experience of partnering with The Road Home, Stillman-Webb says, “My students and I found the website usability research illuminating, but equally rewarding was the time we spent conducting a winter clothing drive and serving meals at the Pamela Atkinson and Gail Miller Resource Centers. Community engaged learning is unique, because instead of working from theoretical case studies students have opportunities to respond to real-world problems and to engage with the actual stakeholders of their research and writing.”

Much of Stillman-Webb’s teaching and research has centered on supporting teaching and learning in digital environments. “I love helping students cultivate skills they’ll use to communicate effectively in their future professions,” she says. She recently facilitated the creation of an online major, with the goal of expanding access to students who, because of physical or familial or geographical constraints, otherwise wouldn’t be able to pursue a degree in Writing and Rhetoric Studies. Her interest in online writing instruction has led to empirical research and publication in the journals Computers and Composition, Kairos, College Composition and Communication, and Composition Forum, among others.

Stillman-Webb is currently finishing work on a book, titled “The Community of Inquiry Framework in Writing Studies: Designing for Learning with Peer Review,” with her collaborators Jennifer Cunningham (Kent State University), Mary Stewart (California State University San Marcos) and Lyra Hilliard (University of Maryland). The book, which will be published later this year, examines the role of student peer review in fostering learning community in online and hybrid writing courses.

Considering where her research will go next, she says, “Data for the book was collected before the use of GenAI became widespread, and I am now interested in examining how this technology will affect learning communities as well as peer and faculty feedback within writing courses. More research is needed on the use of GenAI in writing instruction, to help us develop the best practices for facilitating student learning.”