Teaching Philosophy

My overall goal in any writing class is to prepare students for the next step in their intellectual development, whether that be the next college writing class they take, an upper level engineering course, or the beginnings of their career. I continually seek to incorporate assignments which draw on examples of real-life work-related writing, students’ heritage or home languages, digital or multimodal applications, and rhetorical analysis. My goal is never to produce widgets or a homogenized student population incapable of independent thought. Similarly, I do not seek merely to teach students how to craft a “perfect” written product. However, these beliefs are mediated by the fact that in order to be successful in that next intellectual step, students need to know that “standards” exist and how to use those standards effectively.

I see my job as a teacher to get students to see where they are so they might see where they are going; students need to base the new concepts they are learning within contexts that are already familiar.  So, for example, in technical writing courses, I draw heavily from students current employment situations, and in upper level composition courses I draw from a student’s heritage or home languages.  

The following list highlights some specific philosophies about the nature of teaching and learning, the nature of writing, and my classroom practices:

The nature of teaching and learning

• Teaching is more than simply conveying knowledge. Teaching has the capacity to impact the life and learning of students, to open minds to new ideas, stimulate civic responsibility and respect, generate meaning making, and encourage students to pass on their intellectual inheritance to others.



• Students are more than empty vessels to be filled. Students come into a classroom already possessing experiences and skills that contribute to the learning community. I am committed to tapping into these resources because they are just as valuable as any other text.

The nature of writing

• All writing is rhetorically situated.
  
  
• Rhetoric is impacted by people’s understandings of race, class, gender, and ethnicity.
  
  
• I believe that writing is a process and peer reviews and drafting are foundational to composing. Therefore, I stress process, peer collaboration, and drafting in all writing assignments within my class.
  
  
• I strive to be open with my students about my own writing process and ways that I overcome challenges. I find that if pretenses are dropped and students know that all writers have to work to make meaning, their willingness to work, the quality of their work, and their attentiveness improves. I also find that if they are comfortable in my classroom they are receptive to new ideas.
  
  
• I believe that writing is multimodal; meaning making takes place in more ways than words on paper. I try to account for this reality by assigning multi-genre and multimedia writing assignments, incorporating extensive group work that employs sound, color, design, and web authoring, and by stressing the multiple intelligences that students bring with them.
  
  
• Writing within specific disciplines is an important aspect of any composition course. Students need to understand the mode, voice, vocabulary, and audience of their chosen profession. I try very hard to offer writing assignments that allow students to explore their chosen discipline and make connections between the assignments in class and their everyday lives.

Classroom Practices

• The syllabus operates as a contract between me and my students. It allows students to know what I expect of them, and it allows students to know what they can expect from me.
• A classroom should be a co-constructed learning community. All class participants, including the instructor, create an environment for learning.
  
  
• I believe in hospitality and respect for my students. My classroom is an open and accepting place of all people and I expect that students should treat each other in the same way.
  
  
• The classroom should be a place of open conversation about differing ideas including social, political, and personal.
  
  
• Assessment is part of the learning and writing process; hence it is ongoing throughout the course.
  
  
• Technology is useful in teaching and learning about writing so long as it is used in ways that compliment course objectives.