Teaching
This page contains links to various teaching materials including my teaching philosophy, course materials (e.g., syllabi, assignment sheets, lesson plans, and examples of student work), and comments from student evaluations. If you're a student who's considering enrolling in one of my courses, feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.
Philosophy
Through my teaching, I aim to help students as they develop critical, creative, and collaborative sensibilities that address their academic, professional, and civic lives. In composition and professional writing courses, students put these sensibilities into practice through assignments where they compose alphabetic and multimodal texts for academic and nonacademic audiences. While the means for developing these sensibilities change depending on students' needs and our shared expectations for a particular course, some common goals and methods extend across all my teaching.
Developing Reflective Practices
In each course, I focus on writing as praxis, that is to say bringing analysis and production together to guide students' work. In my teaching this means attending to the rhetorical situation that shapes each assignment; providing students with a vocabulary that helps them act as reflective practitioners in each situation; and guiding them as they develop an understanding for how considerations of purpose, context, audience, and medium inform their composing practices.
Students initially work on individual assignments that help them use writing as a means for becoming acquainted with the vocabulary we employ in the particular course and for developing a critical awareness of their composing practices. Depending on the course, such assignments might involve rhetorical analyses, literacy narratives, or reflective writing that deals with scholarly texts. Using individual assignments at the outset of the course allows me to devote attention to each student's particular needs and concerns. In-class activities, however, revolve around large- and small-group discussion and peer review where students help shape one another's work. Throughout the rest of the semester, students work on collaborative, project-based assignments, often in partnership with campus or community organizations.
Coordinating Collaborative, Project-Based Assignments
These collaborative projects focus on action research; students work in teams to address an issue or to meet some need identified in conversation with the partner. For example at Purdue, some of my sections of Business Writing worked with the university’s Cancer, Culture, and Community organization to develop social-media strategies to advertise the group's annual fall colloquium to audiences on and off campus; and in one section of first-year composition, students developed films to introduce speakers at colloquium events. These projects allow students to experience the complexities of writing for the public, which fosters a sense of engagement. Nothing inspires students quite like knowing that 400 people will see the films they made.
Emphasizing Research Methods and Design Processes
I divide such projects into three phases that reflect a human-centered design process: (1) research, (2) prototyping, and (3) implementation. Phase 1 involves field, library, and web research aimed at developing a better understanding of who the partner-organization is, what they do, and who their audience is in a particular situation. Students use this information to shape their work in the next phase, which involves rapid prototyping. In phase 2, students develop multiple models, such as scripts and storyboards or brochures and posters, and they present these models to one another and to representatives from the partner for feedback and revision. In phase 3, students develop one model to completion. Near the end of the project, they present this version to their partner prior to implementation. They also develop an implementation plan and carry it out. Often times, these projects require outside funding. I work with students to compose grant materials and have had great success in securing funding for every project thus far.
Promoting Ethical Collaboration and Community Engagement
Working on these project-based assignments requires students to develop habits for ethically collaborating with one another. Furthermore, these projects require students to interact with local groups and people; respect for others' needs, views, and experiences plays a pivotal role in successfully completing these projects. For example in a course titled Writing in the Digital Age, students worked with Austin Free-Net, a non-profit that addresses digital access and inclusion. In carrying out the project making instructional videos for Free-Net’s YouTube channel and addressing the digital divide in Austin, students discussed the ways race and class intersect with access and digital literacy, and they developed tactics to attend to these concerns in their videos, e.g., by producing them in both English and Spanish and making the videos modular so that downloading them would not eat up a user’s data plan or take a long time with a low-bandwidth connection.
Because of my experiences developing and implementing such projects, I am devoted to connecting course goals to community-based work.
Developing Reflective Practices
In each course, I focus on writing as praxis, that is to say bringing analysis and production together to guide students' work. In my teaching this means attending to the rhetorical situation that shapes each assignment; providing students with a vocabulary that helps them act as reflective practitioners in each situation; and guiding them as they develop an understanding for how considerations of purpose, context, audience, and medium inform their composing practices.
Students initially work on individual assignments that help them use writing as a means for becoming acquainted with the vocabulary we employ in the particular course and for developing a critical awareness of their composing practices. Depending on the course, such assignments might involve rhetorical analyses, literacy narratives, or reflective writing that deals with scholarly texts. Using individual assignments at the outset of the course allows me to devote attention to each student's particular needs and concerns. In-class activities, however, revolve around large- and small-group discussion and peer review where students help shape one another's work. Throughout the rest of the semester, students work on collaborative, project-based assignments, often in partnership with campus or community organizations.
Coordinating Collaborative, Project-Based Assignments
These collaborative projects focus on action research; students work in teams to address an issue or to meet some need identified in conversation with the partner. For example at Purdue, some of my sections of Business Writing worked with the university’s Cancer, Culture, and Community organization to develop social-media strategies to advertise the group's annual fall colloquium to audiences on and off campus; and in one section of first-year composition, students developed films to introduce speakers at colloquium events. These projects allow students to experience the complexities of writing for the public, which fosters a sense of engagement. Nothing inspires students quite like knowing that 400 people will see the films they made.
Emphasizing Research Methods and Design Processes
I divide such projects into three phases that reflect a human-centered design process: (1) research, (2) prototyping, and (3) implementation. Phase 1 involves field, library, and web research aimed at developing a better understanding of who the partner-organization is, what they do, and who their audience is in a particular situation. Students use this information to shape their work in the next phase, which involves rapid prototyping. In phase 2, students develop multiple models, such as scripts and storyboards or brochures and posters, and they present these models to one another and to representatives from the partner for feedback and revision. In phase 3, students develop one model to completion. Near the end of the project, they present this version to their partner prior to implementation. They also develop an implementation plan and carry it out. Often times, these projects require outside funding. I work with students to compose grant materials and have had great success in securing funding for every project thus far.
Promoting Ethical Collaboration and Community Engagement
Working on these project-based assignments requires students to develop habits for ethically collaborating with one another. Furthermore, these projects require students to interact with local groups and people; respect for others' needs, views, and experiences plays a pivotal role in successfully completing these projects. For example in a course titled Writing in the Digital Age, students worked with Austin Free-Net, a non-profit that addresses digital access and inclusion. In carrying out the project making instructional videos for Free-Net’s YouTube channel and addressing the digital divide in Austin, students discussed the ways race and class intersect with access and digital literacy, and they developed tactics to attend to these concerns in their videos, e.g., by producing them in both English and Spanish and making the videos modular so that downloading them would not eat up a user’s data plan or take a long time with a low-bandwidth connection.
Because of my experiences developing and implementing such projects, I am devoted to connecting course goals to community-based work.
Materials
Below you'll find links to sample materials. All student work is used with permission. If you have any further questions about particular assignments or would like to see additional materials such as lesson plans, please contact me.
St. Edward's University
ENGW 1302
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ENGW 4341
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ENGW 2329
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Syllabus
Sample Assignment Sheet: Discussion Leader Assignment Student Work Sample: Reading Synthesis Paper (2 of 3) WRIT 2311
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Purdue University
ENGL 106
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ENGL 309
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