Teaching Philosophy
No matter what class I’m teaching, be it a fiction workshop or a composition class themed around mass incarceration, when I call attendance, I ask each student to answer a question: What is the first movie you saw in the theater? What were you afraid of as a child? I do this partly because I want to hear their voices; by encouraging participation from the start, my students are more likely to feel comfortable contributing to our discussions. I also ask these questions because I want to show them that their perspectives matter, not only to me, but also to the world outside of the classroom. This, I believe, is the most important aspect of teaching students to write. By inquiring into how our experiences shape our perspectives, we might then learn how to articulate those perspectives into insightful creative work.
With the same spirit in mind, I design introductory creative writing workshops to promote comradery instead of competition, encouraging students to view their exchange of creative work as a way to connect not just to readers, but to other writers. They learn to view the creative exchange of stories and creative essays as an opportunity to improve their writing and help others to do the same, looking for points of encouragement, through the lens of how to improve the work instead of how to tear each other down. In the end, I view the workshop as a student’s first step into entering a literary community.
My curriculum emphasizes two major aspects of writing that I welcome into my own practice: language and form. The first thing that sets writers apart from others is their fascination with language. I read poetry out loud to my students and have them listen to broadcasts of authors reading their writing; I also encourage my students to read their writing to each other. No matter which class I’m teaching, I invite my students to engage in exercises that emphasize rhythm and image, and say that in order to be a writer, one must not only have knowledge of their subject matter, but also knowledge of how to convey that subject matter in a way that catches and sustains the reader’s attention.
I incorporate the second aspect, form, by showing my students how to read like a writer. Our reading assignments help us to recognize a variety of forms and techniques that we can incorporate into our work. The ability to recognize and incorporate another writer’s form and technical tricks is not something most of my students bring with them on the first day of class. I teach them to read this way, passing on this knowledge through discussion and reflective writing assignments. In the personal narratives course I designed and taught for four semesters at Florida State, I required students to choose one reading from the semester to utilize for an “Imitation Project,” which allowed them to demonstrate how their reading practice reinforced their writing practice.
Every class I teach emphasizes integrity as a way to ensure that my students get the most out of their writing courses. My pedagogy requires that I don’t fail or pass students, but allow students the agency to pass or fail. I know firsthand the frustration of calculating an instructor’s subjectivity into my academic performance, particularly in the fiction workshop. What could be more irritating than having an instructor scramble to justify a score on a writing assignment? In consideration of my students, I take seriously the transparency that comes with grading integrity. I also make an effort to maintain awareness of the biases and assumptions that may affect the way I grade. This is why I emphasize the use of a clear rubric, addressing each aspect of it during the class. Later, I ask students to respond to each other’s drafts in peer review by using the same grading criteria I will apply to their papers or stories.
Another way I maintain integrity as in instructor is to stay in search of ways to improve my assignments. I also give students agency by using a point grading scale, allowing my subjectivity little opportunity to interfere with the grading process. I organize the course around a 1000 point scale. Students earn most of these points by completing scaffolding assignments. While I do take the time to comment on these, I don’t take points away. Their purpose is to prepare students for writing final drafts, which are the only assignments from which I might remove points. Students can keep track of how many points they have during the semester, and if I notice a student is lagging, I am able to prove to them, numerically, what they need to do in order for them to pass the class.
My experience has taught me that oftentimes, a student’s performance hinges on the amount of confidence they have in their own writing and their ability to do well in the course. I also understand that much of this hinges on whether they sense that I have confidence, as an instructor, in their ability to succeed. For this reason, I make sure to announce on the first day of class and before each major assignment is due, that I am looking forward to reading their work, and that I want to see every student do well with their writing.
There’s a saying in Tai Chi that I picked up in college: if you do it every day, you’ll be able to. I teach writing in this manner, encouraging students to understand writing as more than just getting through an assignment or hitting a word count. Writing is a practice, much like meditation or Tai Chi—an activity that, if participated in regularly, shapes the way we view ourselves and those around us. The writing practice encourages us to be present, observant, and interpretive, making use of all details, pleasant or unpleasant, from all aspects of our lives. In short: writing allows us to view the world through a more generous lens.
Ultimately, I emphasize that writing, in all forms, serves as a contribution to a larger narrative that we are in the process of telling about ourselves and about the outside world. In the meantime, I encourage my students to adopt an attitude of enthusiastic inquiry about their experiences. This, in turn, is what keeps me writing: to approach others with a joyful curiosity. As a teacher and a writer, I work hard to sustain this attitude as a lens through which I articulate my perspective. I encourage my students to do the same.
