BUTLER, Rebecca R. 1945-

PERSONAL: Born July 11, 1945, in Corsicana, TX; daughter of John Armour (an oil landman) and Clara Jerome House Roxburgh; married G. M. Butler, April 2, 1969 (divorced, 1982); children: Allison Butler Felmy. Ethnicity: "Anglo-Saxon." Education: Southeastern Louisiana College, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1964; Louisiana State University, M.A., 1965, Ph.D., 1977. Hobbies and other interests: Travel, gardening.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Dalton State College, 213 North College Dr., Dalton, GA 30720. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University System of Georgia, Barnesville, assistant professor of English, 1976-78; University System of Georgia, Dalton, began as assistant professor, became associate professor of English, 1978-2000. Fulbright Lecturer at Marie Curie University, 1992-93.

MEMBER: Society for the Study of Southern Literature (bibliographer), Lesche Women's Club (first vice president, 2000-01), League of Women Voters, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, American Studies Association, Popular Culture Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: National Defense Education Act fellowship, 1964-67.

WRITINGS:

The Fifty-Minute Essay (textbook), Harcourt (New York, NY), 2001.

Contributor to The Scope of the Fantastic—Theory, Technique, Major Authors, edited by Robert A. Collins and Howard D. Pearce, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1985.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A detective novel; a memoir of Walker Percy as a teacher; research on The X-Files.

SIDELIGHTS: Rebecca R. Butler told CA: "Teaching freshman composition to first-generation college students led me to experiment with and rearrange the traditional approaches to essay writing. Most of these young adults had not taken the college track in high school, and they had three months to learn how to produce a coherent essay at one sitting. I realized early that I could combine the so-called 'process' and 'product' teaching orientations so that while my students were getting the practice they needed with usage, they were also learning rhetorical patterns and, importantly, writing every day. It took years, I must admit, to organize my strategies into this textbook!"