As a writing instructor, I have two principal aims that underwrite everything I do in the classroom:​

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• encourage students to collaboratively engage in a critical reflection of the textual and material worlds that surround, inform, and shape them, as writers, and the writing they produce, and

• provide students with the opportunity to put their writing to meaningful action in their worlds through problem-based discovery, generation, and exploration.

 

My primary aim in the classroom is to help students relate to, understand, and navigate both their words and their worlds in more critical and personal ways. I work to accomplish these ends though the creation of multiple, mutually informing learning spaces brought about by collaborative but rigorous classroom practices and through course designs that are problem-based, relevant, and reflection-oriented.

 

I also work to create a collaborative, de-centered environment in all the classes I teach. Learning spaces, I believe, should not be narrowly defined: in addition to the teacher-student relationship, peer discussion and peer-response groups factor heavily into my instructional methodology. These aspects of my teaching create added spaces for student writers to engage with each other as well as interrogate their own selves and their own writing practices. Moreover, I do not take the collaborative aspects of my courses for granted; effective collaboration is a learned practice, and I actively teach students how to hold themselves and their peers to high standards. Through this instructional mirroring, students begin to see and practice how to more effectively navigate and negotiate their own languages and communities of discourse, better equipping them for their potential writing worlds beyond the classroom.

 

Finally, it's my firm belief that effective student engagement is directly related to students' perceived relevance of course content. All my courses, therefore, work to focus on writing issues that matter—personally, academically, and professionally—for students. Through an engagement with real-world situations in locations that are motivating, students can begin to grapple with and form a critical consciousness about the societal, ethical, and textual issues that make up the core of what I believe shapes the writing classroom. A final added benefit to place-based course content is the high level of fluidity it demands from me as the instructor. Rather than blindly relying on canonical course content or holding to an immutable class structure, I am forced to constantly re-evaluate and reflect on the effectiveness of my teaching practices to ensure that I continue to do my very best to engage students collaboratively, critically, and personally with the languages, communities of discourses, and issues that shape their identities as writers. 

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Below are links to recent course material that demonstrate my commitment to enacting the above principles in my teaching.