Lauri Mattenson

E-mail: mattenson@humnet.ucla.edu Office: Kaplan Hall 126B

Lauri Mattenson is a Senior Lecturer with UCLA Writing Programs. She was recognized for “The Practice of Teaching” as a 2026 UCLA “Distinguished Teaching Award” winner, won the 2025 UCLA Prison Education Program “Campus Champion Award,” and was recognized by the Honors Division with the 2020 “E. Weber Teaching Award” for her work with undergraduates in “BodyMind Literacy,” an experiential Honors Collegium she created in order to promote a more mindful and embodied approach to learning. Lauri recently served as a Faculty Fellow with the UCLA “Dialogue Across Difference” Initiative and the Mellon-EPIC program (Excellence in Pedagogy and Innovative Classrooms). As a current member of the UCLA Prison Education Faculty Advisory Board, Lauri advocates for prison reform and teaches writing workshops for currently incarcerated adults in California institutions and students in juvenile halls. Previous publications include: “The Study of Comedic Rhetoric as an Antidote to Antisemitism” (chapter contribution, Challenging Antisemitism: Lessons from Literary Classrooms), The Los Angeles Times, The LA Times book collection of the “Best of LA Affairs” column, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Mother Company, The Jewish Journal, Massage Magazine, Turning Wheel: The Journal of Socially Engaged Buddhism, The Daily Bruin.

Click here to view “The Interview Assignment.”
Click here to view Honors 50 visit to Stanley Mosk Courthouse.

Courses currently teaching or recently taught:

Honors Collegium 65W: BodyMind Literacy

Honors 50: Creating Your Roadmap

English 3D: (Composition, Rhetoric, and Language): The Social, Political, and Educational Value of Stand-Up Comedy

English 3D: Free Speech on Campus

English 3D: Essays and Epistemic Beliefs

English 3D: Service Learning and Civic Development

English 3D: Op-Eds and Underrepresented Thinkers

English 5W: (Literature, Culture, and Critical Inquiry): Narrative Nonfiction and Moral Development

English 5W: The Best American Essays? — Essais and the Art of Evaluation

English 5W: The Essay as a Site of Ethical Inquiry

English 5W: Walking Class: Aligning Freedom of Movement with Freedom of Mind

English 137: Writing for Public Speaking