Education
Ph.D., University of Delaware
M.A., James Madison University
B.A., University of Delaware
Dr. Zeleny is an Associate Professor of English and Integrated Arts. She is also the Writing Program Director. Before entering the college classroom, Zeleny worked as a high school teacher in Baltimore County. She also spends much of her time learning how to bake new things. She specializes in watercolor portraits and owns Paint and Ink.
Her research centers around gamification of the classroom, visual rhetoric, and interdisciplinary methods for examining the novel. Zeleny often presents her work as professional development to other universities as well as conferences such as Serious Play.
She focuses on experiential learning and community engagement. Students have made escape rooms for public libraries and historic buildings. Her work has been featured in WYPR and other news outlets.
Book Chapters
Zeleny, R. (2022). “And Now Presenting”: Incorporating Game Design into Writing Center Training,’. Utah State University Press. 22 pages.
Zeleny, R. Red Talks, "Gamification and Social Activism," UBalt, Law Center. (2023).
Zeleny, R. Rhetoric Society of America, "What A Trip: Virtual Field Trips, Social Justice and Multimodal Composing in Virtual Environment," RSA, Baltimore, MD. (2022).
Zeleny, R. College English Association, "Escape(ED): Experiential Learning in Virtual Spaces/The Great Escape: Social Justice, Close Reading, and Virtual Escape Rooms," CEA, Birmingham, AL. (2022).
Zeleny, R. CUMU, "“Pack your Bags: The Transferability of Virtual Field Trips in a Post-Pandemic Landscape,”," CUMU, virtual. (2021).
Zeleny, R. First Year Writing Professional Development, "Escaping Procrastination: First-Year Writing and Gamification," University of North Carolina Pembroke, Zoom. (2021).
Zeleny, R. Rhetoric Society of America, "Putting US Back in Museums: Adult Learners, Experiential Learning, and the Museum as Classroom," University of Oregon, Portland. (2020).
Medium: Interviewed and Quoted for "What Should We Think About Offensive Statues and Public Monuments?" - https://anthonydimauro.medium.com/what-should-we-think-about-offensive-statues-and-public-monuments-36959e66d7fe (2020).
"Jolly Good Fellows: Writing Fellows and the Improvement of Assignment Design" (On-Going)
This IRB approved study collects student narratives in order to assess current efficacy and engagement with writing prompts.
"Whew, that was close (reading): Escape Rooms in the College Literary Classroom" (Planning)
In an effort to combat low morale and low motivation, educators, too, sought to include escape rooms into their newly designed online classes. Armie, Sanchez and Perez explain that “With the implementation of escape rooms, the boredom provoked by conventional exercises is fought with novelty, and although pressure exists, this is a totally different experience to the one infused by traditional exams. Here the existence and perception of pressure is constructive, as the urgency to solve the challenges helps students to focus on a scenario where every second counts; however, students do not feel alone facing the mission or the trouble (272). In a qualitative study by Leon et al, researchers determined that virtual escape rooms during this time not only had the ability to promote a sense of play and community but also to “alleviate these negative effects on the mental health” and “promote motivating teaching” (1). This research addresses how to gamify the College English Classroom.