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Creative Writing Course Instructor, Georgia State University, Fall 2017 to Present

 

ENG 3150b: Introduction to Creative Writing, Fiction 

 

For this course, I focused on discussing elements of effective story writing, including character, plot/tension, language, point of view, and setting. I led full class workshops to prepare students to turn in a final fiction portfolio at the end of the semester.

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Lower Division English Course Instructor, Georgia State University, Fall 2016 to Present

 

ENC 1102: College Composition

 

This course is an extension of 1102, with emphasis on breaking away from the standard five paragraph essay and learning how to present information in its most effective format. Students also continue to learn how to incorporate outside sources into their writing, as well as engage with more difficult texts for rhetorical analysis. Papers include a personal narrative, a rhetorical analysis of a place, and a persuasive argument.This class was themed around Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, and students wrote papers that included interviews, manifestos, and narratives.

 

ENC:1101: College Composition

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This course functions as a introduction to college writing and research that follows the theme presented by the university’s choice for first year book. These have included Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson and Evicted by Matthew Desmond. Students learned how to read, write, and analyze rhetoric in addition to writing research papers that required MLA formatting. Papers include a manifesto, a profile and interview of a local non-profit organization, and a personal narrative analysis.

 

English Instructor, Life University’s Chillon Project at Arrendale State Prison, Fall 2017 to Present

 

ENG 212: Novels About Identity and Otherness

 

This sophomore level college literature course provided incarcerated students the vocabulary to process how we construct our identities by way of a variety of aspects, including socio/economic circumstances, racial constructs, and national narratives. We read five novels, including Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, and Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. Students responded to these through literary analysis, as well as a range of creative pieces, including dramatic scenes, creative memoirs, poems and flash fiction stories.

 

COMP 101: Introduction to College Composition

           

This course was a foundational part of an associate’s degree that Life University offers students incarcerated at a maximum security prison in Alto, Georgia. I taught a three part course covering personal narrative, rhetorical analysis, and cultural critique. We also covered grammar and basic research techniques.

 

COMP 102: College Composition

 

This course extends from the Comp 101, focusing persuasive argument. The three assignments included the instruction essay, the rebuttal argument, and the grant proposal. Students were given the opportunity to choose their own topics for research, conducted by outside volunteers.

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Writing Instructor at Clark Atlanta University, Fall 2018 

 

CENG 105

           

This class serves as an introductory college English course and aims to build a foundation of college writing and research for students. Students wrote and revised three analytical research papers alongside scaffolding assignments that included article annotations and summaries. Readings were chosen from Clark Atlanta University’s Anthology of African American and Caribbean Literature. Major writing assignments include a personal narrative, an illustration essay, and a compare/contrast paper. 

 

CENG 106

 

This course is an extension of 105, with emphasis writing with sources. Students also continue to learn how to incorporate research into their writing, as well as engage with more difficult academic texts for rhetorical analysis. Papers include a cause/effect analysis, a literary analysis, and a persuasive argument.

           

Composition Instructor, Tallahassee Community College, Fall 2014-Spring 2016

           

ENC 1101: College Composition                                                              

           

This class serves as an introductory college English course and aims to build a foundation of college writing and research for students.  Students wrote and revised three analytical research papers alongside scaffolding assignments that included article annotations and summaries. 

 

ENC 1102: Argument and Persuasion 

 

This class fulfills the second foundational writing requirement, focusing on how to compose engaging academic arguments.  Students hone their research skills and must demonstrate a developed critical lens. Assignments include rhetorical analysis, refutation argument, rogerian argument, and a position paper.

 

Upper Level English Course Instructor, Florida State University,  Fall 2013-Fall 2015

 

CRW 4120: Advanced Fiction Workshop

           

I taught a senior level workshop with 18 students.  We read the The Anchor Book of New American Short Fiction, edited by Ben Marcus and Naming the World, edited by Bret Anthony Johnston.  Students workshopped two stories with the entire class and revised one at the end of the semester.  A primary goal of this class was to inspire the students to pursue their writing after they graduate, either by preparing them for publishing or applying to graduate programs.

 

LIT 2020: Introduction to the Short Story in America 

           

This class shows students how to read and analyze literature through a critical lens. Our texts consisted of short stories by American authors written between 1820 and 1999.  We reviewed basic literary terms and social context of each story in this discussion-based course.

 

LIT 3383: Women in Literature

 

My most recent course at FSU used Laura Mulvey’s theoretical “Male Gaze” as a framework for discussing how different authors portray women in their literary works, such as The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides and Sula by Toni Morrison. Students were required to gather critical texts and apply them to their own theoretical framework, which they presented an interpretation of one of the course texts.

 

Composition Instructor, Florida State University, 2010-2013

 

ENC 1102: Global Perspectives—Writing, Reading, and Research

 

This course helped students improve writing skills in all areas: discovering what they have to say, organizing their thoughts for a variety of audiences, and improving fluency and rhetorical sophistication. Students wrote and revised three papers, devised their own purposes and structures for those papers, wrote exploratory journals, worked directly with the audience of their peers to practice critical reading and response, and learn several new writing techniques.

           

ENC 1142: Personal Narratives and Researched Essays 

 

This class centered on two main goals: to help students become more comfortable with writing and to learn how to read as a writer. We read several published personal essays by authors including (but not limited to): Patricia Hampl, David Foster Wallace, Sarah Vowell, and Barry Lopez.  Students wrote three essays of their own, each requiring four drafts.  Writing assignments included a personal narrative, a researched interview, and an imitation essay which required students to apply writing techniques revealed in the readings.

 

Graduate Instructor, Miami University, 2008-2009      

 

English 111: “Writing and Place” 

 

English 111 is a Miami Plan Foundation course that emphasizes four goals of developing critical thinking skills, understanding context, engaging with other learners, and reflection.  We discussed what it means to have a global perspective while simultaneously building an awareness of the specific environments that have shaped and continue to shape our points of view. We also discussed place in a wider context, exploring its various dimensions, including memory, virtual space, and place or rank in society.

 

English 112: Composition and Literature  “Stories of Native America” 

 

Similar to English 111, English 112 is a Miami Plan Foundation course. Throughout the semester, we read stories and essays written by and about Native Americans.  Major reading assignments included: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie, Sacred Heart by Diane Glancy, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, as well as selections from  Native American Voices by Susan Lobo and Steven Talbot, and Todorov’s Conquest of America. Class discussions, writing assignments, group work, and notebook responses helped develop critical thinking skills and understand the context of reading assignments. 

 

English 226: Intro to Creative Writing 

 

This class met the prerequisite requirement for Miami’s undergraduate creative writing major.  The English department chose me as the only graduate student to have the opportunity to teach this course. Each segment ended with a round of full-class workshops. Throughout the course, students examined the fundamentals of poetry and fiction by reading published work through the writer’s lens. Texts included: The Scribner Anthology of Fiction, Second Edition, The Practice of Poetry, Bret Anthony Johnston’s Naming the World.