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Thank you, Dr. Thompson, for sharing valuable information and advice with us. It was so special to hear how your research is personal to you and supports research in language acquisition. This research is very important in the field of education at every grade level. Thank you!

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Maris, it was such a pleasure seeing you in this week's faculty interview. I learned so much about you that I didn't even know about. Your educational background is truly remarkable. Your dissertation about German American communities in the Midwest shows how you connected it with your family's heritage. During your graduate studies, you have grown an interest in historical bilingual communities in the U.S. You have a wealth of experience as an English, ESL, and ELD teacher. You also look at critical discourse analysis at the textual level and what's awesome about you is that you are still involved in any research that has to do with applied linguistics. I am learning that research is very messy and full of uncertainty. Grad school has been tough on me since I'm new to many things in the program but I will take your advice to heart which is to trust the process and to trust myself. Thank you for taking the time to share a little bit about yourself. Hopefully you will see my response. I won't let you down!

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Dr. Thompson’s work and story deeply resonate with me, she is one of my all-time favorite professors. Her passion for language, culture, and identity in education is inspiring. I admire how her research connects personal history, such as her grandmother’s experience with language suppression, to larger questions about bilingualism and belonging. Her use of narrative inquiry and critical discourse analysis shows how stories reveal power, identity, and community. I especially appreciated her reminder that teachers are everyday researchers and that trusting the process is essential. Her insights continue to influence how I think about teaching and learning.

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I love how you talked about your favorite researchers. The introduction was so cool! I can tell your culture is very important to you!

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I really enjoyed hearing about Dr. Thompsons experiences in her research and how she used a personal connection with your grandmother and something she had experienced. It goes to show how you can use connections as such with your research to potentially help you understand your topic better and provide good literature to a certain crowd.

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Dr. Thompson,

Your story really resonated with me. When you mentioned your grandmother not being allowed to speak German at home, it made me think about my own family history. My grandparents were second-generation Mexican Americans, and they were also discouraged from speaking Spanish in their household. Hearing that connection made me reflect on how language and culture can be lost through generations, even when families are just trying to fit in.

I also really connected with what you said about research being “messy.” The part about dead ends, frustration, and self-doubt hit home for me. It’s a good reminder that when I run into those roadblocks, it’s not that I’m failing, it’s just part of the process.

Thank you for sharing your experiences and reminding me that research isn’t supposed to be perfect.

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Thank you, Dr. Thompson, for sharing your story about getting to know your grandmother and her past during such a critical time. I sometimes think about the lived experiences of older generations as being overlooked when we review history because it is easy to record large, sweeping phases of history and more difficult to record the stories of individual people who actually lived during these moments. I love your commitment to seeing research study participants as individual people, I think it enriches the experience for everyone.

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Dr Maris Thompson,

Thank you for sharing your research on language and literacy, society and culture. Your research on the German American Experience reminded me of my own Mexican-American experience and those of my community. I think your dedication to this area of research is admirable. It truly shows your interests and passion to improve communities and our society. I took special interest in your research on first generation students as I myself am a first generation student. I think it is important to amplify the voices of these marginalized students and your use of ethnographic research methods proved to be impactful. A key takeaway that I have from your study on first generation students leads me to believe that focal interviews are often better than surveys when it comes to gaining access to insights that otherwise would not be found from surveys. I resonated with those students you studied specifically when you mentioned the anxiety of them not belonging and the imposter syndrome that they experienced. I agree that representation matters and this thought led me into a positive and hopeful reflection that I can learn from those like me and hopefully become someone that can help guide or inspire others. I think another reason why I felt reflective is because your research and your work feels relatable to my own experiences and how I am as a learner, how I view myself as a learner and my habits. I liked when you said, “The human experience is organized principally through narrative” and how it's a powerful idea. This leads me to wonder what and how I tell my own story and my own experiences and the impact it might have on my own reality. I found your method of interactional analysis and relationship familiarity interesting and it makes me think of how I interact with others and what I can learn from analysis. Lastly I want to thank you for saying that research is messy, full of uncertainty and self-doubt. It does feel like that at times and it is reassuring to hear that I am not alone in this feeling. I will try to follow your advice to let go of these scary and negative feelings. Thank you for saying that teacher's research everyday because we do. I will trust the process and I hope to learn more about you and your work.

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I appreciate Dr. Thomson's work in language acquisition. I appreciate your story and how you got started with your research. It came from a personal interest and built from there.

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Hello Dr. Thompson thank you for sharing all of your insights! I appreciate you allowing us to hear about your work with language acquisition. I loved how you shared about your grandma and made me reflect on my experiences with my own grandma and relationship with language.

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Thank you Dr Thompson. I appreciate how you discussed the methods you used for your research. It seems like you gained valuable knowledge my conducting interviews with a focus group. I liked how you got inspired from your family for your research.

I liked how you acknowledged that sometimes we may have road blocks along the way, but taking breaks when necessary is important too.

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Thank you, Dr. Thompson, for taking the time to share your personal experiences in research. I loved hearing about how your research started with something your grandmother had experienced as a child.

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Hi Dr. Maris Thompson,

Thank you kindly for your insight. It was so good to hear your story and the passion involving your research. I loved to hear about your experience with your grandma and how you used it as a way to understand the gaps in education. Also, I always write down random thoughts in my notes on my phone pertaining to teaching and researching, even at the most random times! So it was relatable when you advised us to trust the process, and take necessary breaks because you might have random thoughts after giving yourself a break.

I had the pleasure to take my capstone class with Dr. Thompson and I love her so much. She was one of the teachers who truly inspired me and was such a cheerleader through undergrad!

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Thank you Dr. Thompson for sharing your insights and your personal experiences. I also find myself very interested in language acquisition and language development as an ELA teacher, but I also am intrigued by 2nd language development as I also hope to later get my BCLAD certification so that I can support english language learners within my community who have been underserved in their education.

I also liked how you described the research process where you start with a question and even if it's not the exact set question that you want to focus on, that it provides this foundation for your research and you start going down the "rich diverse rabbit hole of ideas and knowledge" and how through this exploration, you're then able to keep evolving your research question.

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Hello Dr. thompson!

I would like to start off by thanking you and all of the work that you have done in language acquisition. I found it to be similar to what I hope to study and research in the future but with Spanish speaking people. Thank you for your story and reminding me that research is a messy process but to keep on going. Thank you again.

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I found Dr. Thompson's message to be filled with meaningful and important things. Dr. Thompson's research mainly focuses on language and interviews; therefore, she mentioned how she got the chance to interview people about their memories growing up and memories of anti-German sentiment. Dr. Thompson mentioned towards the end that doing research is messy and you just need to trust the process. I agree that research can be messy and challenging, but in the end, we all just need to trust the process and be patient with ourselves.

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I appreciated Dr. Thompson’s commitment to exploring language, identity, and narratives. Her work on the German American bilingual communities and the use of narrative analysis to uncover hidden stories is fascinating and highlights the power of language as a social practice. I connected with her based on that because I teach in a dual-immersion setting. I also found her insights into supporting first-generation college students through storytelling and relatable role models inspiring.

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Hello Dr. Thompson!

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights and research experience. I loved hearing about your research experience with first-generation college students at Butte College. Explicit teaching of study skills is essential and was something I didn't learn until college...but that was through trial and error. Thank you for sharing!