Sarah M. Lacy-Hallal joined the English department at the College of Staten Island in 2026, with over a decade of experience teaching and researching First Year Writing. She earned a doctorate in Rhetoric and Composition in 2022 from Kent State University, with a dissertation combining Writing in the Disciplines and teacher response to writing research.
Sarah’s approach to First Year Writing focuses on building trust in the classroom in order to empower students to feel confident to make decisions about their own learning, identifying what they want to learn about writing in an autonomous way. She uses a combination of reflective pedagogy and interactive response to student writing to craft individualized writing lessons for each student based on their self-identified needs.
Sarah has recently presented at several national conferences showcasing her most recent research focused in teacher response to writing, student feedback literacy, and writing transfer research. Her most recent publications can be found in The Journal of Response to Writing as well as chapters in the two upcoming books Conversations and Collaborations which will be published through NCTE, and Responding to Writing: A Practical Sourcebook for Instructors published through University of Michigan Press, each of which marry empirical research with practical resources for teachers of writing across all levels and disciplines.
Sarah is also on the editorial board of the Global Society of Online Literacy Educator’s journal OLOR Effective Practices.
Degrees
PhD in English (Rhetoric and Composition), Kent State University
MA in English (Literature), Cleveland State University
BA in English (Film Studies) & Theater Production, University of Delaware
