COOK FAMILY WRITING PROGRAM

Michele Zugnoni serves as a professor, first-year advisor, and member of Northwestern’s first-year writing seminar assessment team. She teaches courses in legal writing, business writing, and several first-year seminars. Recent seminars include the hero’s journey, the modern fantasy novel, and women in mythology and history. Zugnoni created the legal writing course using her background as a former attorney. Her intention was to give undergraduate students opportunities in writing and oral argument similar to those found in law school. As an educator, Zugnoni employs a social-expressivist approach and strives to foster student agency in learning.

Zugnoni is actively involved in the field of Writing Across the Curriculum / Writing in the Disciplines (WAC/WID). As a member of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum’s Mentoring Committee, she created and coordinates the Summer Mentoring Program. The program pairs writing and communication professionals in one-on-one mentoring relationships that cultivate professional development and cross-institutional exchange. 

Zugnoni also serves as Associate Publisher for Communication at The WAC Clearinghouse, where she leads a team of communication specialists in highlighting the Clearinghouse’s open-access scholarship across social media channels. In addition, she sits on The WAC Clearinghouse’s Editorial Board. Currently, The WAC Clearinghouse is home to 13 journals, several media series, and more than 250 books.

Zugnoni has an active research agenda. As principal investigator for the WAC/WID Mapping Project, United States Branch, she surveys universities across the United States to learn how they incorporate elements of WAC/WID into their courses. This initiative provides a comprehensive view of WAC/WID practices nationwide. She is also studying the intersection of legal writing and academic writing and, in particular, how legal writing principles can inform pedagogical practices in writing instruction.

Prior to beginning her position at Northwestern, she worked as a public interest attorney in California.

Zugnoni is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Beyond teaching and research, she spends many hours writing creative fiction, playing piano and video games, and traveling to adventurous locales. She is a certified life coach and mediator, and serves as a volunteer mediator for the Chicago Center for Conflict Resolution.  

Benjamin, S., Kallen, K. & Zugnoni, M. (2025). Primary research for design projects. Northwestern University Libraries. Accessed at dtc.northwestern.pub.

Zissimopoulos, K. & Zugnoni, M. (2025). Working with teams. Northwestern University Libraries. Accessed at dtc.northwestern.pub.

Zugnoni, M. (2025). The synergy of Design Thinking and Communication and its new faculty mentoring program. Programmatic Perspectives, 16(1), pgs. 177-194.

Zugnoni, M. (2024). The time capsule: A narrative composition for developing social support systems. Writing Spaces, 5, pgs 1-6.