Updated Spring 2019 (Note: this profile and portfolio will not be updated henceforth since I will lose access to my Penn State account in June 2019. For an updated profile, please search for me here).
My name is Jonathan Lehtonen, and from fall 2018 to spring 2019 I was a Lecturer in English for Penn State World Campus teaching an online version of English 015: Rhetoric and Composition. I was formerly an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics, where I taught 23 sections total of ESL 015: Composition for American Academic Communication.
With over seven years of college teaching experience, I hold an MA in English from Penn State University, and I completed a Penn State Graduate Certificate in TESOL in May 2016. During my time at Penn State, I taught 11 on-site courses in Rhetoric and Composition (English 15), three in Technical Writing (English 202C), and three online courses of Rhetoric and Composition. I also enjoy tutoring and editing for international graduate students.
I was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), where I earned a BA in English, Summa Cum Laude. As a member of the UMBC Honors College and Humanities Scholars Program, I studied abroad in Turku, Finland (Fall 2009) and received several scholarships as well as the English Department’s Robert Shedd Award.
TEACHING AND RESEARCH INTERESTS:
- Culturally Responsive Teaching in Composition Contexts
- Ecocomposition
- Place-Based Environmental Education
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
Lehtonen, J. (2019). Ecocomposition in the ESL Classroom: The campus space compare and contrast assignment. Languages 4(2). 13 pages.
Lehtonen, J. (2018). Kalevala ecology: Bioregional aesthetics and Sámi environmental autonomy. In Halmari, H., Kaukonen, S., Snellman, H., and Virtanen, H. (Eds.), The making of Finland: The era of the Grand Duchy. Special issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies 21(1/2), 46–81.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Lehtonen, J. (2019, February). Ecocomposition in the ESL classroom: The campus space compare and contrast assignment. Paper presented at the Mobile Language Learning Experience International Conference. New York, NY.
Lehtonen, J. (2017, May). Metatheatrical illusion in Hannikainen’s Silmänkääntäjä – A satire on cultural imperialism. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study. Minneapolis, MN.
Lehtonen, J. (2016, March). Kalevala ecology: Nordic animals, shamanic ontology, and Finnish national identity. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association. Cambridge, MA.
Lehtonen, J. (2015, May). Grammar autoethnography: Training students to reflect on ‘intergrammatical’ competence. Paper presented at the 46th annual convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association. Toronto, ON.
SCHOLARLY INTERESTS
After my first year of teaching ESL composition full-time at Penn State, I presented a paper on teaching grammar in developmental writing courses at the Northeast MLA Convention in Toronto (May, 2015). In March 2016 at Harvard University, I presented a paper at the American Comparative Literature Association concerning the representation of animals and the environment in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. I reworked this paper into a full length article, entitled “Kalevala Ecology: Bioregional Aesthetics and Sámi Environmental Autonomy,” which was published in the Journal of Finnish Studies (Volume 20, Issue 1/2). I also presented a paper on early Finnish-language drama in May 2017 at the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study convention in Minneapolis.
In spring 2019, I published an essay entitled “Ecocomposition in the ESL classroom: The Campus Space Compare and Contrast Assignment” in Languages. I also presented on this topic in February 2019 at the Mobile Language Learning Experience International Conference hosted by the Lycée Français de New York. This paper presents the theoretical grounds for an assignment I designed at Penn State to develop students’ research skills through having them investigate the ecological and cultural features of their campus environment
Through both educational community service as well as my academic career, my mission is to promote intercultural exchange through enhancing students’ awareness of effective communication principles in the context of their lived environments.
For more extensive teaching examples, click here.
