philosophy of teaching

I believe that passion and enthusiasm in a teacher can transform reluctant students into participating students. In assignments, I encourage writing which will serve my students in their own fields of study and/or areas of personal interest, whether that be through creative or technical/professional writing. Learning from my own experience as a writing student, I promote real-world application for writing done in the classroom, such as writing for publication or field use, to create a greater sense of ownership and autonomy. I show students my passion and enthusiasm for writing by regularly writing and submitting my own work – both academic and creative – for publication and participating in department and community readings; by doing so, I model my dual role as both passionate teacher and happy, dedicated writer. Students participate in class as writers and thinkers of our own community as a class and the greater community of the university and society; this necessitates attendance, energy, and effort. In an email, a student told me, “You are really working me through every step of the way.” This email is affirming to me as a new teacher, and reminds me of how much I appreciate my own teachers, and colleagues, for working me through my own challenges as a writer and writing teacher. I believe writing can be taught, and I do my very best to teach it.

my life in six words

Dr. Cadle gave me the following prompt:
Completely off the subject, you've been tagged for a meme. Why? Because we all need more writing fun right now. See Can your sum up your life in just six words? (a meme) to see how, then as a part of your post, tag at least six others.

After some deliberation, I think I can sum up my current life with the following:

I type one handed while nursing.


Watch out, 'cause i'm tagging six of you people with this tomorrow ...

think outside the workshop

In an interview at the Stanford Writing Center, Andrea Lunsford talks about collaboration: "I believe that all writing is collaborative. . .No matter what you’re doing, even if you’re sitting by yourself at your computer you’re collaborating with somebody, something you’ve read, or some voices you’ve got in your head, or your friends, or something, there’s some kind of collaboration going on.” I love this idea of collaboration existing outside of what we normally see as collaboration in our classrooms, i.e. the Workshop. (dum, dum dum dum DUM. . .) I hope that workshopping is more pleasant for other teachers than it is for me. In my class, it's a day when most people don't show, everyone seems a bit bored, and every technique I've tried has seemed to fail. (Though the reading-out-loud exercise was at least exciting in terms of sheer volume!)

If I teach composition again in the future, I think I'm going to try a different approach and teach my students about collaboration as defined here by Lunsford. I might give them a text in class, have them read it, and then rewrite their freewrite. I think this could be really effective! I do something similar to this in my creative writing class (writing after reading a very distinct style and seeing how that style, simply by reading it, can infuse into the writer's own style) and I think it could be effective in 110. I also think I might encourage some collaboration with another 110 class, perhaps working with another TA to swap drafts and let our students respond to each others' work. I think this could be fun and also establish a sense of community amongst 110 students.

I get so stuck in the workshop rut, and I think my students feel the same. This may have been obvious to other people, but when I've heard the word "collaboration," I always think of this workshop scenario. I simply love this idea of collaboration as communicating with multiple disciplines, medias, people, ideas, and even "voices in my own head." (I'm collaborating right now with the episode of "Seinfeld " playing in the background. . .gotta love it.)

embracing the i-search

I read a great quote today from David Bartholomae in Inventing the University: "When students are writing for a teacher, writing becomes more problematic than it is for the students who are describing baseball to a Martian. The students, in effect, have to assume privilege without having any. And since students assume privilege by locating themselves within the discourse of a particular community--within a set of specifically acceptable gestures and commonplaces--learning, at least as it is defined in the liberal arts curriculum, becomes more a matter of imitation or parody than a matter of invention and discovery."

When I read this quote, I immediately thought of the I-Search, which was by far the most enjoyable unit to teach/grade this semester. In the midst of the Position Paper unit, although it seems to be going well, I find myself wishing for those happy days of teaching/brainstorming/discussing/drafting the I-Search with my students.

The I-Search, in my opinion, is a way to circumvent students' instincts to "imitate" the traditional research paper. Because of its unique approach to the process/reporting of research, the I-Search commands what Bartholomae articulates as "invention and discovery," two practices I think we can all agree we wish our students will experience in our classes. The I-Search's structure leads students to examine their experience researching, which includes an honest, evaluative reflection of current knowledge and assumptions, the process and practice of finding and evaluating sources, the discussion of findings and results, and reflection on predictions, unexpected results, and revelations. I taught this paper as a "written documentary" and I think this clarified what I was looking for. (I showed my class the documentary "Supersize Me" as an example of mixing personality/personal voice with facts, findings, and interviews. It works wonders.)

This semester, I required each of my students to interview a source for the I-Search; one student ended up interviewing the top official in charge of environmental concerns for the state of Missouri (the official title escapes me) for his paper on "Going Green." One student interviewed a professor on campus about his best friend's experience living in a commune for her paper exploring the benefits of communal living. With maybe one or two exceptions (and these were the people who never came to class), the I-Searches were provocative, reflective, insightful, and interesting! They described their experiences in the Missouri State library using descriptive language, articulated their frustrations with web sources and their elation when they found, and I quote, "the motherload of articles on my topic." One student commented, "I learned how to do an interview for this paper which was quite helpful." I submitted one of the I-Searches on the Aurora Borealis to Dr. Cadle for consideration for publication in Composing Ourselves; in this paper, my student discussed her journey in changing her topic from a scientific approach to the phenomenon to a study of different cultures' perceptions of it. It was incredible. I could actually see my students "inventing" and "discovering" because they were documenting their journeys step by step. This paper was not only fun to teach, but I learned what was working with my students in terms of their passions and approaches to the writing process.

Bartholomae is right on the money when he distinguishes between "imitation" and "invention." I'm not saying that there isn't a place for the teaching of a traditional research paper, etc. but these basic essays (traditional research, position paper, critical analysis) can be enriched, deepened, and made more effective when they follow such a writing/researching journey.

freshwater mussels, semiconductors, and shakespeare

I spent this morning with Megan Keadle, Hannah Dutko, Craig Meyer, Mary Maupin, Charity Gibson, and Dr. Cadle at the graduate interdisciplinary forum. I checked into the forum around 8 a.m. with Lucas and Ethan (my husband and little baby) after braving a walk in what the weather people like to call a "wintry mix." (read: cold as all frickin get out.) Was it worth it? I would have to say yes. (Ethan and Lucas split after my reading ... I stayed for the duration.) It was interesting to see the variety of presentations (see my title of this post) and read the various abstracts.

I chose to read a short story from my thesis -- I was the only fiction writer to present. I have to be honest and say that I don't think it was necessarily what the "judges" were looking for (yes, there were judges for this, which was a little strange) but I'm glad I did it -- "represent" the fiction crowd, so to speak. Megan presented a piece about her experience with a basic writer, which was amazing. Hannah presented about the advantages/disadvantages of personal writing in composition - fascinating! Craig presented on the effects of text messaging on quality of writing. A student named Landis presented a piece on Hamlet, which was picked as a finalist for the forum. Mary and Charity presented poster presentations from their papers in Dr. Weaver's class last semester. All in all, the English department showed, in my opinion, a nice reflection of those of us that haunt the halls of Pummill.

Craig Meyer and Mary Maupin received awards at the award ceremony -- Craig for Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant and Mary for Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant. Go English peeps! :) I think it's pretty awesome that out of the three awards given to graduate students, the English program received two. (I think that's right, at least -- don't quote me, I have to admit by then I was hungry and the cheese cubes weren't quite cutting it.)

I would recommend this forum to those of you who didn't submit this year -- it was a nice day, and there was a great energy in the PSU, especially in the room full of poster presentations. It just feels good to be around people who care about what they study as much as I do. The best part was listening to what my friends/colleagues had to say. I'm continually inspired and challenged by you amazing people. OK, now I'm off to enjoy my baby! It is Saturday, after all, even for a graduate student.

Dialogue and "Maus: A Survivor's Tale"

I want to talk about one assignment which draws upon my experience in my specialty area of fiction writing (and my passion for the comic book genre). In teaching the memoir (which, in my opinion, is the closest related assignment to writing fiction), I decided to elaborate on the discussion of dialogue. When I asked my students how many of them had written with dialogue in the past, every student raised his/her hand. When I asked someone to come forward with ideas about how/why dialogue is used to propel a story and contribute to characterization, I was met with silence. When I asked some specifics about formatting dialogue, I was met with silence. (I get the same thing when I ask students about writing MLA. Everyone has used MLA, but no one can tell me anything about citation. This cracks me up.)

Anyway, so I started out what I like to think of as my "dialogue unit" with a reading from Maus: A Survivor's Tale, a graphic novel written by Art Speigelman. This graphic novel (and I'm very much oversimplifying here) is about the author's father's experience during WWII and the Holocaust, and also about the author's own experience interviewing his father and writing the novel. Needless to say, it is fascinating. With this reading, I establish the power of dialogue as used to propel plot, to enhance characterization, to establish conflict, to create mood, to establish setting/region/time period, etc. I like to point out the specific dialogue that provides information without seeming to provide information, and dialogue with dialect to establish characterization and voice.

After they've read these excerpts, I have an in-class writing exercise. First, I give them the following prompt:

Joe and Beth are friends sitting in a restaurant in New York City. They have been friends for a long time. Joe wants to tell Beth he’s moving away, but is scared she’ll be upset. He’s nervous. Meanwhile, during the conversation, Beth is excitedly telling Joe about her new job as a waitress. She has no idea something’s going on with Joe. Joe interrupts her to tell Beth he’s moving away. Beth reacts.

I then challenge students to write this scene using ONLY dialogue (no narrative passages and no tags) and to try to infuse as much of the setting, exposition, and mood they possible can. This exercise is SO FUN -- students are very creative! After they're done writing, I'll ask students to volunteer their dialogue and then I have two students read it aloud (kind of like a script). After the reading is over, I try to encourage students when I see them attempting characterization; for example, students might try to show Joe is nervous by having him say, "Um" or stutter a bit. I'll praise this technique. I use this exercise in my 215 (creative writing/short story) class, and it's just as effective. This is also a great exercise to get students involved and to interact with each other. After this is over, I ask students to use the same approach to create a scene from their memoir. I found in both semesters that students will usually use this freewrite in their papers.

Now that I've taught ENG 215 for a bit (just this semester), I've come across a number of activities/lessons I'd like to incorporate into ENG 110 with a little tweaking. I've also come across a number of readings I'd like to hand out to my students as substitutions for some I'm using from A Presence of Others. I love working in my own skills/passion/experience in writing/reading fiction in the 110 classroom, but I haven't done it too much quite yet. To be honest, I wanted to familiarize myself with the curriculum first to get a better feel of what elements of the papers could be manipulated. Now that I do feel more confident, I'm excited to see what else I can do to make the class more interesting, not just for me but for my students as well.