Teaching

I have over 15 years of teaching experience ranging from developmental English to advanced fiction writing. Selected courses below.

The most disappointing student essay I ever received was early in my teaching career, and I gave it an A.

The problem, after all, wasn’t with the paper itself; I gave it a high grade because it was an excellent paper: well-written, clear, and thoroughly argued.  The writer, a bright and motivated student all semester, had evidently listened to my feedback on drafts and crafted his response accordingly—I remembered our conference conversation well.  In conference, he had articulated his strongly-held beliefs, and we had a rich conversation about them, which is partly why, as I sat in my office and finished reading his final draft, I wondered where I’d gone wrong. Instead of developing and defending his ideas once he left my office, he had simply changed his thesis.  He had written what he thought I wanted to see. 

Since those early days of teaching, I have applied many hard-won lessons to my approach in the classroom.  In my writing classes now, whether the focus is on reading, writing, or research skills, I develop assignments and lesson plans that help students understand writing as a tool—a method of problem-solving—rather than a set of prescribed guidelines or rules.  This switch in perspective, from writing as a noun to writing as a verb, leads to discoveries that stoke the students’ desire to learn and to accept responsibility for that learning. The design of my writing courses and sequencing of assignments, then, is geared to push students toward their own process of revision, to help them understand that they are part of a larger conversation, and to challenge them to take responsibility for what they say and how they say it. 

At the core of my teaching philosophy is the belief that English classes are where we give students the opportunity to learn how to learn.  I want students to understand their own observations and insights within the social, cultural, or historical context of a larger conversation, but I also want them to take ownership of their own ideas.  So, whether we are analyzing texts or our own rhetorical moves, I teach students that writing and reading are primarily acts of exploration and discovery.  And because of this philosophy, I encourage students to engage not simply within an artificial rhetorical situation—one in which I, as the instructor, am the audience, and the purpose of the paper is to receive a high grade—rather, I push them to interact with ideas and texts through the lens of their own thoughts, assumptions, and preconceived notions. 

One way I try to foster this attitude of revision and learning is to focus on collaboration and small writing communities within my classes, not merely for quick peer-reviews or workshops, but as a way to help students engage critically with the observations and insights of their peers.  For instance, early in the semester, I give each small group a broad prompt—the intersection of politics and media, for example—and have them work out their own interpretation of the assignment, as well as their response to it, while also getting constant feedback from their community of peers.  Once they have researched and developed their own point of view for that first essay, I ask students to work together as a team in order to synthesize each of their perspectives into a larger project—one that presents the group’s consensus in a multi-modal format through the use of a website or an online presentation tool. This sequence of assignments allows students the opportunity not only to formulate their own personal ideas, but also to re-assess those ideas within the context of a larger, peer-driven conversation.  Furthermore, it forces them to grapple with how to revise their rhetorical strategies as a function of a new genre, audience, or purpose. Finally, I ask students to write a reflection on their overall experience, which helps them to consider the complexities of each step in the process, as well as how their own thinking evolved throughout the project. 

Aside from this ability to analyze their writing choices, however, I also want my students to see how important it is to apply their writing and critical thinking skills beyond the boundaries of traditional academic assignments.  For example, I have designed one of my assignments around the genre of board games, and I ask students to see these games as culturally significant artifacts.  Students consider the rhetorical choices made by the game’s designer, as well as how those choices might tell us something about our society.  They might dig into Monopoly’s depression-era, pedagogic history and compare it to how the game is played today, for instance, or they might consider how a game such as Pandemic or Settlers of Catan makes subtle but sophisticated statements about globalization, gender norms, or the distribution of finite resources.  In doing so, students explore how our culture both shapes and is shaped by something as seemingly superficial as a board game, and they can then extend those analytical abilities to other types of artifacts or arguments.  Ultimately, I believe that if I can get students to discuss the various pros and cons of a specific rhetorical choice—whether that choice relates to the use or credibility of a particular source, the necessity of a paragraph, or the way they have framed an argument—I think they will begin to understand how language and writing work on a deeper level, thus leading to a confidence that will carry them through other situations where they are asked, or feel compelled, to articulate their own voice. 

Ultimately, my approach to teaching comes directly from my own experience as a writer, reader, and researcher.  I apply various techniques and teaching styles because, I’ve found, it’s essential to understand each classroom independently of what has occurred in my prior classes.  As with writing, the audience defines the specific choices I make each semester.  One result of this dynamic is that I strive to constantly become a better informed teacher, which means seeking out the advice and experience of other teachers, while also listening for feedback from my students.  It also means consistently developing assignments and exercises that work toward my goals and revising the attempts that didn’t work as well.  At the core of each decision I make as a teacher, however, is a key question: How do I get students to see me not simply as some authority they need to please, but instead as an interested, if sometimes critical, reader of their ideas?  Each class I teach, then, is my answer to this question, and the approaches outlined above are my continually-evolving attempt at forming a better, more effective answer.

Teaching Interests

Academic Experience

University of Texas at Arlington, English Department
Arlington, TX

Lecturer (2017 – present)
I’ve taught a variety of classes at UTA, including our first-year persuasive writing courses, research writing courses, and upper level creative writing courses. I’ve also taught in the developmental writing program, which pairs lab work in reading and writing skills with our introductory class in rhetoric and composition. For our ‘topics’ literature course, I’ve developed several classes, including one based on sports literature and another based on historical research in literature. And, recently, I’ve helped pilot a beginning creative writing class for students outside of the English major who want to learn more about craft and “reading like a writer.”

University of Kansas, English Department
Lawrence, KS

Lecturer (2016 – 2017)
Developed and taught first-year writing classes, creative writing classes, and upper-level fiction writing workshops.

Graduate Instructor of Record (2011 – 2016)
Taught first-year writing classes, creative writing, and literature classes.

Labette Community College, English Department
Parsons, KS

Department Chair (2009 – 2011)
Supervised a pool of adjuncts, including training, and managed weekly departmental meetings. Represented our department in regular meetings with the Dean of Humanities. Organized annual Gribben Lecture series.

Assistant Professor of English (2008 – 2011)
Developed and taught developmental writing. persuasive writing, creative writing, and literature classes. Responsible for developing and teaching our first online research writing program.

Pellissippi State Community College, Project Grad
Knoxville, TX

Instructor (2008 – 2009)
Taught “Writing for College” courses to high-school students with the goal of increasing graduation rates and post-secondary enrollment.

Governor’s Program for Gifted Children
Lake Charles, LA

Instructor (2007)
Taught Creative Writing in Graduate Program for students interested in the arts.

McNeese State University, English Department
Lake Charles, LA

Graduate Instructor of Record (2004 – 2007)
Taught developmental, persuasive, and research writing courses.