Teaching Philosophy

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones,

in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”

Tom Stoppard

As a teacher, I facilitate a welcoming, accessible environment in which students are empowered as communicators to make a difference in the world. I encourage my students to craft their own personalized practices as writers and communicators, challenging them to build collegial relationships with their peers and to use their writing to effect systemic change. Through text selection and celebrating diverse linguistic habits, I center marginalized voices in the writing classroom. My role as a teacher requires serving as a facilitator and not merely a director or supervisor; I aim to center student identity and agency in every course I teach.

Cultivating Community

The professional and academic writing students will do in the future will often be performed within a writing community. This is why I want my students to see each other as peers and sources of support in the processes of writing, reading, and thinking. Along with highlighting the importance of peer review, I use student-centered teaching modalities like jigsaw discussions, pair work, and group reflection to build connections between students.

As an equity move, I make it clear in both my syllabus policies and my explicit instruction in class that respecting others’ identities, experiences, pronouns, and names is of vital importance. This means the community in my classroom does not avoid acknowledging differences but celebrates unique identity.

Another way I build inclusion into my classroom community is through sharing the work of diverse authors and emphasizing the biases present in many writing classrooms. I share the work of poet Jamila Lysicott as a lead-in to explicit discussion of how so-called “standard” Englishes are often privileged. I also grade using rubrics that highlight expression and communication, not grammar and convention. I share with students how these issues of anti-racist assessment are vitally important within the field of writing studies.

Students benefit from this culturally inclusive class experience. One student wrote in their fall 2023 evaluation survey that along with writing skills they “developed …knowledge about my own and other people’s culture” in my course. My inclusive approach helps meet this goal: students understand each other better and come to understand themselves, too.

Along with connecting with each other as colleagues, my students come to develop a collegial relationship with me as well. I believe rapport and relationship are central to effective teaching, and I work hard to learn about my students and teach based on who they are as individuals. Frequent office hours, small group meetings, and personal feedback are important parts of this relationship-building. I also get to know my students by prioritizing choice in assignments so that their writing communicates who they are, not just what they can do. My focus on relationships has two benefits: deepening everyone’s investment in the class and modeling what collegiality looks like in academic and professional settings.

True Accessibility

I am deeply passionate about prioritizing student mental health, ensuring equitable access to learning supports for students with specific needs, and providing resources to help language learners. In our diverse state and nation, it is of vital importance that I carefully create every element of my composition courses with accessibility and accountability in mind, from image descriptions on the Canvas website to live captions during lectures. My research in disability studies has allowed me to place a special emphasis on making my class accessible and I constantly seek to improve my practices in this area.

Self-Empowered Students

The power of words is a central theme in my courses. I desire to see students develop an awareness and even enjoyment of this element of writing. They gain a sense of empowerment through their growth as communicators. I build flexibility into my courses, sometimes allowing multiple options for the pacing of draft and feedback cycles so students can develop a writing process that works best for them as individuals. My goal is not for them to learn to write how I want, but to learn how to write in the way that best serves their purposes and allows them to use their skills to make an impact in their communities and academic disciplines. Beyond that, their writing and communication skills will allow them to effect systemic change, and I encourage them to write with this goal in mind.

A History of Success and a Future of Improvement

My instruction has received positive student evaluations and excellent feedback from colleagues who have observed and evaluated me. I am constantly evaluationg and revisiting my own instruction to ensure I grow and improve each time I teach a new group of students. My current research into generative AI has allowed me to face the oncoming challenges of teaching writing in this era of unceratinty with confidence and excitement.