Harriett Virginia-Ann Jernigan

Bio

Harriett Jernigan is a lecturer in PWR and currently teaches PWR 1. She earned her BA at the University of Alabama and her PhD at Stanford University and specializes in writing across the disciplines, second-language acquisition, project-based instruction, and German languages, literatures and cultures. In her PWR course, “The Rhetorics of Ethnic and Racial Identity,” Harriett explores the manner in which narratives of ethnic and racial identity play a pivotal role in contemporary social and political discourses. She poses questions about common tropes in identity narratives from the 17th century to the present day and how they inform the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.

Harriett led the design team that developed Stanford’s first standardized language placement test for the Language Center in 1999 and assisted in placing it online. She has also worked as an educational consultant for Springer Nature and was responsible last year for revising and expanding the EFL curriculum at the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. She has also published articles on democratizing grammar and writing instruction in foreign languages, fostering learner autonomy through project-based instruction, and social geography.

She is currently engaged in a book project focusing on using Cognitive Grammar (CG) in foreign-language pedagogy training and runs a bilingual podcast project.

Most recently, Harriett was nominated for Teacher of the Year in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany while teaching English at the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences.

Academic Appointments

• Lecturer, Writing and Rhetoric Studies

Honors & Awards

• SIIS Fellow, Brandeis University (2015)
• Most Influential Instructor in an Undergraduate’s Career, San Francisco State University (2002-2004)
• Wheeler Fellow, Stanford University (1997-1998)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

• Member, American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (2008 - Present)
• Member, Modern Language Association (1996 - Present)
• Member, German Studies Association (2008 - Present)