Hello!

My name is Cris Lira and I am a lecturer of Portuguese here at UIOWA. I have a PhD in Romance Languages (Spanish and Portuguese). My current research focuses on the representation of female guerrilla warfare fighters in Brazilian and Argentine narratives related to the last dictatorship in both countries (1964-1985).  Portuguese is my first language. I also speak English and Spanish (both of them with a little bit of Portuguese flavor 🙂). 

My academic writing has been mostly done in Portuguese and I hope this course will help me cross the line to feel more confident when writing in English. Besides academic writing, I also write fiction (mostly short stories) and poetry in Portuguese. I have a short story in Spanish accepted for publication (12:28), and sometimes I venture some creative writing in English as well (I have participated in an online workshop and I hope to attend more in the future). Writing for me is like eating, drinking water and sleeping. It is a necessity. It is something that I do regularly and for many different purposes, being one of them the mere fact that I have to. I just have to.

At the moment, I am teaching two language courses (Accelerated Elementary and Intermediate Portuguese language courses) and one literature course (The Experience of Exile in the Portuguese-speaking world) in Portuguese. I have been teaching for more than 15 years (in Brazil, middle school and high school Portuguese language, grammar and literature. In USA, Portuguese language courses, film and composition. I was also a TA for a Latinx class taught in English). 

I am looking forward to be in this class. Thank you for allowing me to audit it. I hope that improving my knowledge of how second language writing acquisition happens, I might be able to provide better feedback to my students on how they can become more accomplished writers not only in their L2 but in any language.