Professor in the Writing Center

Teaching Area(s)

Writing Center
English

Education

• MFA, Writing (secondary concentration in Translation), Vermont College of Fine Arts
• MA, French, Middlebury College
• BA, Principia College

Contact

• 618.374.5145
• Send a message to Ellen.

"Teaching is creative and energizing in ways that no other job has been."

As Writing Center director, Ellen Sprague guides the department and teaches writing. She also chairs the Writing Advisory Board and is the FYE Coordinator, mentoring faculty in their program building and delivery. Each year Sprague teaches a 300-level course that trains qualified students to become certified peer writing/research tutors. She has also taught Intro to Creative Nonfiction for the English Department. Three times since 2017, she has taught a world literature course and country studies during the Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina Abroad, which focused on stories from a homeland with shifting borders. She was elected as the faculty sponsor and vice president of Phi Alpha Eta, Principia's academic honor society. When she is not teaching, Sprague offers one-on-one tutorials with students, helps faculty incorporate writing instruction into their classes and assignments, and celebrates writing at Principia. She has also taught Principia Lifelong Learning courses.

Scholarly Interests

Sprague's scholarly interests include writing personal essays (literary and creative nonfiction); translation (French–English); French; the languages, literature, history, and culture of Slovenia and the former Yugoslavia—including learning Slovene; and using all of the above to create dynamic and effective writing lessons and assignments.

Contributions to Field

• Led team reimagining the re-instated Principia College Writing Center beginning in summer 2022.
• Guided stakeholder process for envisioning and implementing the all-college Writing Program, including curricular and supplemental initiatives regarding writing.
• Conceived, developed, and led three one-month study abroad programs to Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina called “Stories from a Homeland of Shifting Borders."
• Developed the College’s writing/research tutor program, which offers tutors certification from the College Reading and Learning Association’s International Tutor Training Program.
• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute—The Centrality of Translation to the Humanities: New Interdisciplinary Scholarship— (2013). One of 25 scholars invited to work through case studies in such areas as literary and Bible translation. The charge at the conclusion of the institute was to promote translation studies and to publish translations.

Awards

• Moller Fellowship awarded for academic sabbatical leave during fall 2021, Principia College.
• “Requiem for a Pen,” honorable mention, Principia College Writing Contest. Personal essay, 2016.
• “One Man’s Prison Is Prison.” The Laurel Review, Fall 2015 issue. Only narrative nonfiction essay selected for biannual publication.
• Linda Julian Essay Award for “Braking for Buntings.” Emrys Journal, 2014 issue. Cash prize annually given to “the most outstanding creative nonfiction essay.”

Memberships and Affiliations

• American Literary Translators Association
• College Reading and Learning Association
• International Writing Centers Association

Publications and Presentations

• “Innovation as Practice in Building a Tutor Program,” individual presentation at International Writing Centers Association conference (Oct. 2021).
• “WISE Write-In SEries: A Learning Community for All Writers,” individual presentation at Lilly Conference on Teaching for Active and Engaged Learning (Feb. 2019).
• “WISE Write-In SEries as a Community Builder,” panel presentation with writing tutors at International Writing Centers Association conference (Oct. 2018).
• “Sidewalk in the Sun.” InTranslation (The Brooklyn Rail, intranslation.brooklynrail.org), April 2019. Eight essays translated from French, Philippe Delerm’s Le trottoir au soleil (Gallimard, 2011).
• “French Fry Fail,” contribution to “What happened on June 21st” project at Essay Daily, (www.essaydaily.org), 2018.
• “Why Everyone Should Translate.” Panel discussant at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program residency in Montpelier, VT (June 2016).

Ellen Sprague CV