TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
In my decade-plus of teaching writing at the college level, I have had the privilege of teaching first-year writing courses, upper division writing courses, and graduate pedagogy and methods courses at the University of Arkansas, Sonoma State University, Dartmouth College and the University of South Florida. At USF and Sonoma State, I have also had the privilege of teaching graduate courses in writing pedagogy, writing studies, and rhetorical theory. These diverse experiences have led me to a few important realizations about teaching writing and rhetoric.
EQUITY IS FOUNDATIONAL.
Students of color are harmed by racist institutional and academic structures. Writing programs and writing centers must work to actively dismantle those structures. And writing courses, following the work of April Baker-Bell, Geneva Smitherman, and Asao B. Inoue, must actively work toward disrupting and dismantling anti-Black linguistic racism and other forms of linguistic oppression. Instead of a strict adherence to a single, supposedly-objective standard, my writing courses make space for students to practice and celebrate their home languages and knowledges. I also work to create antiracist class spaces by using grading contracts/ungrading approaches, assigning texts from diverse authors, treating my students as whole people, and operating, first and always, from a place of empathy and generosity. (You can read more about my antiracist approach to teaching here.)
WRITING CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM RHETORIC.
The most common denunciation of rhetoric is that it is nothing more than style without substance, but as a writing teacher, I know that efficacious writing exists only when good ideas meet sound rhetorical approaches. In my classroom, this means that every writing course I teach begins with a discussion of the rhetorical choices writing requires. In addition, I make rhetorical conceptions of audience and credibility a cornerstone of every course by asking students to discuss these traits in everything we read throughout the semester as well as in their own work. As an Associate Editor at Writing Commons, I know that by asking to students to consider rhetorical concepts, audience and credibility in particular, we remind students that their writing doesn't exist in a vacuum; it has a specific rhetorical purpose for a particular audience. This inextricable connection between writing and rhetoric is also why my graduate seminar on rhetoric and composition focuses on both the history of rhetoric and the history of writing studies: we must understand both of these complex histories in order to understand the work we do as writing teachers.
THE BEST PEDAGOGY EMERGES FROM EXPERIENCE WITH REAL STUDENTS IN REAL CLASSROOMS.
My approach to classroom practice emphasizes the value of allowing room for surprise, interruption, and creativity. For this reason, I craft assignments that emphasize production and process. In general, my assignments offer fewer constraints, and I evaluate the sometimes-odd projects that emerge using criteria created collaboratively with students and postmortem reflections that allow students to articulate their reasoning and their creative process. For example, in multiple courses (in the first year and beyond), I ask students to craft “definitional texts.” These texts can take any form so long as they (1) define one of the key terms from our course, (2) represents six hours of work, and (3) grapples with at least two pieces we've read during the course; I give no limits in terms of medium or genre. Then, once students begin to work on their projects, as a class, we create a set of criteria for feedback. This collaboratively-created rubric also serves as the foundation for questions on the postmortem reflection that students compose once they submit their texts. Students have submitted comic books, videos, interactive webtexts, flip books, and a whole host of thoughtful, inventive projects. Every time I teach this project, I'm surprised by the creative investment these projects evidence, a level of creativity that develops from my open approach to assignments, the kairos of our particular classroom environment, and the sort of serendipity that cannot be intentionally crafted.
WRITING FOR NEW GENRES REQUIRES AN EMPHASIS ON EXPERIMENTAL AND CREATIVE COMPOSITION.
The genres that characterize writing in the 21st century tend to privilege brevity, visual acuity, and creativity. In order to prepare students to compose in these spaces, I assign multimodal and web-based projects. In my Writing with Media course, students compose infographics, podcasts, and public service announcements; in my Writing in/and Communities course, students similarly compose new media genres that allow them to think more expansively about writing and to write for a broader audience than they usually do in an academic writing context. These multimodal genres require students to think about communication beyond printed essays and examine the ways that writers communicate beyond academic assignments.
EFFECTIVE TEACHERS RESPOND TO STUDENT NEEDS.
My classes are, above all else, interactive and student-focused. We spend most of our class time discussing course readings and videos and revising our own work. This focus on revision as well as the time I spend on individual and small group conferences is one of the greatest strengths of my courses. Semester after semester, students tell me that these conferences are where they learn the most about themselves as writers. Equally as important as these conferences, though, is my commitment to using diverse, relevant, and thought-provoking resources to encourage class discussion. I ask my students to engage with challenging theory because different voices meet the needs of students with different backgrounds, investments, and relationships with language, and I ask my students to craft digitally born and multimodal projects because these projects better represent the emerging genres that characterize contemporary professional and academic writing situations.
EFFECTIVE WRITING INSTRUCTION NEEDS REFLECTION AND CREATES THE CONDITIONS FOR KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER/ADAPTATION.
Along with emphasizing creativity, experimentation, and responsiveness to student needs, my pedagogy includes a belief that reflection is a fundamental part of effective writing courses. Ongoing, consistent, and specific reflection supports metacognition as well as transferable and adaptable learning practices. For this reason, in my classroom, students create course portfolios that include both completed course assignments and ongoing reflective assignments. For example, in the practicum for new graduate teaching associates, student-teachers write weekly teaching journal entries that eventually inform the teaching philosophy and second-semester composition syllabus that they write at the end of the semester. The 2020-21 academic year marks my fourteenth year teaching writing at the collegiate level. During that time, I have taught first-year writing courses, upper division technical and professional writing courses, senior level new media production, and graduate courses in composition and rhetorical theory. These diverse experiences have led me to a few important realizations about teaching writing and rhetoric. For a more complete picture of my teaching experience, please see the pages collected under the Courses menu above as well as my Teaching Portfolio.