FrancesOh

October 29, 2022

Doctorate Degree Application 1: Letter of Intention

I apologize for my absence from this creative place that gives me joy. Over the last few months, I have been in a whirl of rejecting some doctorate degree programs and being rejected by one doctorate degree program.

As anyone who has applied for admission into a college or university can attest, the ordeal is protracted and harrowing. I have settled into what I surmise is “the place” or “the one:” My doctorate at Saint Leo University.

From this post and moving forward, I will share the writing pieces I composed as required by graduate admissions offices. Each university uses a different name for the requirement: Letter of intention, plan of study, writing sample, philosophy of study, and so on. I will dig them out and will share them here. After that, I will move on to the required writing for potential employers.

Happy reading!

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My Plan of Study: A Doctor of Philosophy Degree in English

Frances Eucharia Ohanenye

            My production of texts began at age eight when I wrote my first story largely because of my fascination with the words my father regaled us with as captivating tales at night. Thus began my infatuation with words, and it has not slowed itself down. In my teaching career and through my education, I have explored many of the areas listed among Old Dominion University’s English fields (left as ODU capitalized them): I teach Composition and Rhetoric for Houston Community College and Lone Star College simultaneously. I obtained my second Master of Arts in Creative Writing. I obtained my first Master of Arts in Journalism. I have invested in teaching Literature, Technical Writing, and the Teaching of English at the K-12 level. My motivations for applying for my doctorate degree in English at ODU are numerous. In the succeeding paragraphs, I share my academic and professional journeys and my hopes that the Doctor of Philosophy degree in English from ODU will be instrumental in the achievement of my multi-faceted goals.

            My previous areas of study (advertising and public relations for my undergraduate degree and journalism and creative writing for my two graduate degrees) have equipped me with strategies on how I plan to succeed in the program ODU designed for its doctoral students. I will be in my element at ODU because technology has been another strength since high school when I took a formal course in typing, and the skills and speed from that typing course multiply and continue to serve me well. I am conversant with technological software programs (Web 2.0 and Web 3.0) and several learning management systems. I completed my second Master of Arts degree entirely online. These strengths equip me as I journey through ODU. Because I am always learning, I get better at teaching and at giving students what they need. In 2020, during the first nationwide COVID-19 quarantine, I completed over 70 self-imposed professional development and self-actualization course hours online within three months. The intensity and the rapidity of my engagement pivoted the trajectory of my ability to digest and process information at a breakneck speed.

            My rate of information assimilation and re-creation of data forced me to change my role from a passive receiver (as was my position through my undergraduate and graduate courses) to one of automaticity. Instinctively and swiftly, and as new materials came at me, I guided them into different compartments in my brain for use at different future times, for different diverse purposes, and to create outlets/outputs. My brain began the refreshing system of categorizing new information into different literature genres so that now I find myself interested in writing children’s picture books, middle grades fiction, poetry, young adult fiction, “textbooks,” test preparation manuals, women’s/chick lit fiction, general realistic fiction, mystery/crime fiction, essays, and so on. For the post-graduate program ODU has designed for its prospective doctoral students, my previous areas of study (advertising and public relations for my undergraduate degree and journalism and creative writing for my two graduate degrees) prepared me with a deeper sense of word-knowledge strategies on how to excel in educational programs, so I am equipped to hold my place in competition with my previous self.

            When it comes to “form, purpose, technology, audience, cultural location, and communities,” I will be in my element at ODU. All my life, I have been enamored with words: Their multidimensional and intricate forms and purposes, their ease in being embedded and coded in technology programs, their fluidity in being tailored to different audiences, and their chameleon-like infiltration of diverse cultures/locations and in different communities of the world. I love word origin and molding words in myriad ways no matter how they are packaged and rebranded. I study words and take advantage of invaluable courses that allow me opportunities to expand my repertoire of etymology. I am most interested in completing my English courses at ODU as a part-time online student. I will attend the two Summer Doctoral Institutes at the main campus if I am granted admission. My outlook on education is to always be at both ends of it: A lifelong learner and an eternal teacher. I fully commit myself to giving and obtaining the best out of my ODU professors. I will continue to create innovative activities and seek extraordinary opportunities for my success regardless of the challenges I encounter with my fellow humans or through technology.

            One challenge I encountered with my fellow human beings was that I began a doctorate degree elsewhere during the fall semester of 2020. After two semesters, and as I endeavored to take reading courses in the program called Reading, Language Arts, and Literacy Education, I was steered away from courses in reading, language arts, and literacy. I was asked to drop the reading courses for which I had registered. I knew I had to find a doctoral program with an emphasis on English. The doctorate degree in English at ODU will afford me a broader base through which to enter careers within and outside the academic arena since the English curriculum at ODU “integrates writing, rhetoric, discourse, technology, and textual studies. The course work and research opportunities appeal to those pursuing an academic career as well as professionals with careers outside the classroom.” I could not have found a more appropriate program because I yearn for the duality of a doctorate in English: Teaching and working with English in as uncountable ways as possible. 

            In my professional endeavors, I wrote and won grants, shifted teaching into a paradigm, and helped struggling students at different grade levels to ace difficult courses and exams using methods and programs I designed and piloted. I motivated and challenged students to give more than they thought/knew they could give. I wrote grants to purchase technology hardware, software, peripherals, books, and other instructional materials students needed to help them ascend to the next rung in achievement. Teaching English necessitates the exploration of a variety of texts and media. In working with struggling learners through the years, I realized that the world needs to right many wrongs done to our youth due to our failure to allow them to create text. We have trained them well in consuming text. We need to rescue our youth and equip them with proper and formal communication skills. Tomorrow brings a new page for students to write a new narrative of who they would like to be. Life is a struggle for the marginalized. I burn with unshakeable dispositions rooted in my resolution to educate students better each day with the essential skills and technological tools they need to compete in a global communication market.

            Because my dissertation will focus on the effects of culture (among other variables) on the lack of access to digital literacy for the marginalized, I will capitalize on the opportunities at ODU that will allow me to explore courses in Literary and Cultural studies, in Technology and Media Studies, and will allow me a self-designed emphasis to chart a path in my endeavor to uplift the marginalized. My doctorate in English from ODU will elevate my expertise and equip me with new methodologies on how to empower our youths more than I have been doing in the last two to three decades. I have seen firsthand what needs to be done for our youth. Engaging in rigorous, intellectual, and creative inquiries at ODU will energize me with inventive avenues of impacting humanity in ways I had not done. After obtaining my doctorate degree from ODU, my paramount goal will be to explore ingenious and resourceful ways to make literacy accessible for the marginalized of our world through for-profit or not-for-profit avenues and through digital resources.

            As my new-found knowledge is guided, and as it expands, I hope to create programs for the marginalized, and I need to conduct robust and extensive research that will break new grounds in English, English education, literacy, reading, and literature. I need fresh preparation, mental enrichment, the titular recognition (Ph. D.), a new voice, a new narrative, and the confidence that a doctorate degree will confer on me to tackle what future students must know and do while using technology in reading, English, literacy, literature, in programs for English for Second Language Learners, and Special Education. My professional experience in the aforementioned areas will help me to equip future teachers/leaders with alternative and far-reaching means of helping our marginalized youth, mostly females. I would like to work with non-profit organizations that mentor or reach our youth. Putting it simply, our youth is the reason I am applying to finish my doctoral degree so that I/we can improve global literacy rates and student success rates. I have arrived at the most perfect time at ODU, what with ODU being awarded a Research 1 classification just a couple of days ago (as announced on December 21, 2021).

October 30, 2012

“I’m Going Into the Deep End, Far Over My Head!”

I am going into the deep end of the writing journey on November 1. This year, I will commit to a soulful call, a yearn that has tugged at my heart for a few years now. I am going to join the thousands of NaNoWriMos in Atlanta to pen that novel. What genre? What characters? What inspiration? I admit that I have unfinished novels scattered like the leaves on my yard, but I want a fresh voice, a fresh idea, and a fresh challenge.

I am going to give in to that “Butt in the chair/seat” (B.I.T.C. or B.I.T.S.) philosophy, right-wing advocates, for the first time in my life. I guess you could call me a left-winger. A believer in when the juice flows, I have always written for creativity. When the honey well drips with more than enough of that nectar, I write joyfully, plentifully, creatively. (Don’t tell me not to use adverbs. I am a left-winging writer.) I have never wanted for words or inspiration. This NaNoWriMo is different!

Ha, ha! Let’s see how much honey will remain in that well when I keep going to fetch from it daily. Scary thoughts are made of these! Thirty days of writing continuously, pounding the keys, forcing them to obey me. To obey or not to obey, that is the question I will answer in 30 days. Will the honey well run dry after I milk it day in, day out? I fret!

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July 29, 2012

What Will You Do to Keep from Getting What You Want?

Since the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project ended this summer, and I became a Fellow, I have been writing furiously in every quarter of my writing life. As furiously as I write, something or someone (me) is preventing me from getting the change I want: a situation I liken to someone shooting herself in the foot to prevent physical progress.

At the KMWP event, there sat a lonely book on a table begging for a good home. I, being a lover of all things book, picked it up and knew that I would give it a good home and a good read. I confess that, that book sat unopened for a few weeks while I wrote furiously in all quarters.

Something caused me to pick it up and flip to the introduction. I know as a teacher, a writer, and an avid reader that an introduction is the million-dollar Super Bowl advertisement for a non-fiction. If the introduction does not grab me, it will be a struggle to read the rest of it.

I opened up to the introduction and froze, forced to examine myself and the reason I have not been published, and forced to accept that I have prevented myself from being published. The question the authors ask (which they borrowed from the late William Perry of Harvard, a gifted trainer of therapists, counselors, and consultants): “What does this person really want—and what will they do to keep from getting it?”

I devoured the introduction, a ten-page volcano that shook me to my roots. The book itself is titled How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey.

Put simply, I know what I really want, but I have done everything to keep from getting it until now. I’ve made every possible excuse in the world. There is no excuse anymore. I’ve done things that are not-for-profit. They made me incredibly happy, still make me incredibly happy, but they do not need to prevent me from accomplishing my for-profit goals. Getting published is for profit, little or big, and that is the ultimate goal of every writer who labors, moi meme included.

I’ve labored for far too long. I’ve been writing since I was ten years old. I’ve been published in magazines and online, but you would think that I should have had books out and been filthy rich and world-famous by now.

What will I do (have I done) to keep me from getting what I want? Everything, but no mas! I made resolutions this year, and I will not allow this year to end without accomplishing them or most of them. Change has come to stay.

March 9, 2012

Sitting on Revision

When I taught reading to middle school students who groaned loudly every time I asked them to read anything, I gave them this mantra: “I do not like to read, but I have to read.” I gave reasons why they should read. Those who allowed the sprinkled dust of tacit persuasion to touch their intellect bought into it.

Today, I find myself at crossroads and have to adopt my mantra in order to get over a huge chasm the size of the Grand Canyon. I do not like to revise my work, but I have to revise it for several reasons.

When a writer submits a purported best-write, and the publisher comes back with the proverbial red ink suggestions for a rewrite, it takes a lot to pump up the shoulders, keep eyes on the prize, and buckle down to those suggestions. I repeat: It takes a lot!

That is where I am. I have stated numerous times that I do not have the old fanged and famous diagnosis of writer’s block as hashed out by Edmund Bergler, Purdue Online Writing Lab, Irene Clark, and many others.

Since I have a continuous influx of ideas, I refuse to subscribe to this school of thought. I write because ideas bombard my brain constantly. I choose not to write not due to any writer’s block.

What I have is the Kilimanjaro-reluctance to do what I must do. Some will classify it as procrastination; others will call it writer’s block. I just refused to revise my work. Simple, case closed. Or is it?

I have been sitting on my publisher’s recommendations for months now. I wanted to arrive at a place where I actually would allow myself to take that novel apart, perform the necessary surgery, and reattach the limbs (if possible). It is a tall order, this submission to dismantling a well-built house with a wrecking ball.

I admit, ego blocked my progress. That confounded chip is the undoing and the downfall of a writer who refuses to detach herself from that most magnificent creation and be humble. Today was such a thing for me. I went to bed at 1:50 this morning because transformation gripped me. I devoured books by people who know the business. They tolImaged me to get over my elitist self.

They informed me that I was misinformed. Because I taught English, writing, and literature for decades, and because some colleagues called me “word wizard,” I figured I was that. They said I needed to get real, take off that title, fling it into the bottom of the Pacific, and find a tattered cloak of humility to put on for the world to see that I have written diddly, nada, nothing.

Heather Sellers and The Portable MFA in Creative Writing were kinder in their phraseology, but Les Edgerton let me have it without mincing words. When I say, “me,” I am sure he has no idea who I am, but the “me” refers to any reader who picks up Hooked. Yes, the man knows how to title his book. I was hooked from Page 1 until I put the book down around 1 A.M. and picked up Page after Page by Sellers.

With my tail tucked between my legs, I am humbled and owe my publisher an apology for wasting valuable time on what I should have finished months ago. Then again, I am glad I waited for the tough love that came.

It arrived early this morning with waves of inspiration and resolution crashing down on me to get my lazy behind on the chair, what Sellers calls “Butt-in-the-chair” determination. Needless to say, I needed a figurative kick in the shin (which hurts more than a kick on the derrière).

As any writer worth her salt knows, a writer must be a reader first and must read and read. I feel better now that I have heard other voices to imbue me to do what I must do.

“Go crazy! Punch a higher floor!” sang Prince. I am not letting the elevator bring me down, not until I finish this most important necessity. I hear Prince’s instrumental as I jump into revision. “Oh, no, let’s go! …Let’s go nuts!” (With revision, that is.)