March 26, 2016

Dear Awards Committee,

Throughout my first year at Florida State University as a PhD student in Rhetoric and
Composition, Ive had the pleasure to observe Joe Cirio in a variety of teaching and tutoring
contexts. In the Fall of 2015, I observed Joe teach ENG 3931, an upper level course designed to
prepare undergraduates to tutor in the Reading-Writing Center and ENC 3416, Writing and
Editing in Print and Online (WEPO) in the Spring of 2016, I observed Joe teach. I have also had
the opportunity to observe Joe in the Digital Studio on several occasions, including both his visit
to my composition course as a traveling tutor to do a tutorial on Wix, and my own consolation
with him in the Digital Studio as I prepared materials for the National Day on Writing in October
of 2015. Throughout my observations and conversations with Joe, I have always been impressed
by the knowledge he demonstrates in a variety of content areas, as well as an ability to share and
teach that knowledge across a variety of student abilities and interests.
As an instructor, it is evident that Joe gives careful consideration when developing course
plans, as his students participate in meaningful small group assignments that allow them to
further apply and integrate course concepts and knowledge. In ENG 3931, because the students
had done a rather large reading, Joe started the class by dividing the reading into six parts. For
each section of the reading, a group of students had to collaboratively pull out the main idea,
choose a passage they liked and then think of an application this had for tutoring practices. Then,
after students were given about 15-20 minutes to do that, Joe brought the class back together for
a group discussion where each group was able to share their answers with the class. This allowed
for each part of the text to be adequately addressed and applied, and gave students an opportunity
to grapple with the text in small groups before sharing with the whole class. This activity also
provided all students in the class with an opportunity to participate.
Likewise, in Joes WEPO course, he also designed an activity providing the students an
opportunity to apply course concepts with real life examples. He divided the class into six groups
and gave them each an artifact: Donald Trumps Twitter page, a Facebook post, a Washington
Post article online, a print copy of FSView, Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer on YouTube,
and a print copy of Spreadable Media. Each of the groups were asked to think about their texts
potential for spread, the texts potential or invitation of user participation, and the texts
connections to other texts; further, students were asked to reflect upon how they personally
interacted with, circulated, and participated with the various texts. I thought it was an excellent
illustration that showed how different texts move and interact, and Joe used the activity to help
students think differently and in more nuanced ways about how they might produce their own
texts for their upcoming projects, particularly taking note of the different channels and modes of
circulation. It is evident through both of these examples that Joe demonstrates an outstanding
ability to provide students with an opportunity to apply both theory and practice together in his
courses.
Though I have several traveling tutors visit my course, Joes tutorials in digital platforms
such as Wix have been excellent due to his ability to provide a large amount of new information
to a large group of students at varied skill levels in a manageable and useful way. Joe spends
ample time both discussing strategies for utilizing new platforms, providing useful examples, as

well as discussing the importance of design when creating digital portfolios. Joe incorporates
students prior knowledge when providing the tutorial, allowing student work to be highlighted
as examples. Joe provided my students with numerous outside digital resources, and connected
them with rhetorical strategies they can utilize when composing, like the importance of choosing
a sustained color scheme and designing with ones intended audience in mind. Joe moved stepby-step through the tutorial, pausing frequently to gauge how well students were moving through
the material, as well as address any confusion. As a result of Joes careful teaching and content
expertise, my students created excellent rhetorically designed e-portfolios.
As a tutor, Joe demonstrates the same level of content mastery and careful detailed
instruction. Having no experience with design programs, I received a great deal of help from Joe
as he asked me a series of questions to gauge my previous experience, project goals, and
intended timeline. Working through these questions, we decided that InDesign would be the best
program for my project, and Joe walked me through a basic tutorial to get me started. Joe would
begin by demonstrating a particular design task, such as uploading and formatting images, and
then ask me to do a similar task. Such a modeling style of tutoring was very valuable. Joe then
pointed me towards a digital tutorial created by the Digital Studio to help me continue working,
and moved on to help other students. Because there were several other students in the studio, Joe
utilized his time with each student wisely, walking through the same starting questions and
helping each student begin on a variety of programs and platforms. Joe again demonstrated
mastery in a variety of digital tools and strategies, and managed several students working on
several projects with poise and ease.
Joe creates an intentional and welcoming teaching and tutoring environment that seeks to
benefit an assortment of students with varying skill and interest levels. Joe carefully considers
his pedagogical practices for both his students and tutees. As a peer, Ive learned a lot from
working with Joe, and I consider him to be a knowledgeable instructor and tutor who represents
the best practices of the College Composition Program and Digital Studio at Florida State
University.
Sincerely,

Rachel Efstathion
Florida State University