Teaching Interests and Philosophy
Primary Areas of Teaching Interest and Experience
• creative nonfiction and memoir, including controversies over genre
• fiction writing
• multi-genre creative writing (combining nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and/or drama)
• twentieth-century American literature, especially modernist and contemporary
• literature, medicine, and disability
• women’s literature/women’s studies
• southern literature and culture
• composition, including freshman English, technical writing, and business writing
Statement of Teaching Philosophy
At the core of my teaching philosophy—and my teaching activity—is a belief in the potential of individuals and the value of active learning, thinking, and experimenting. Although there are many limitations in today’s classroom (a wide variety of students, large class sizes, and so forth), I always try to remember that my students are individuals who can learn and improve no matter what their level of ability and skill, high or low. In order for them to do so, however, they must become actively engaged in discovery and analysis of their own. My courses are, therefore, always as discussion-based as possible and incorporate assignments designed to foster independent thinking.
For instance, in an introductory Post-Civil War American Lit survey course, I asked each student to sign up for a different literary quality or feature (optimistic v. pessimistic, realistic v. idealistic, purple or plain style, narrator type, etc.) and to follow that quality through all forty-some writers we read. At the end of the semester, they all presented poster graphs of their findings so that we were able to compare what they had observed to the critical definitions of various periods. This not only introduced students to the fact that historical and stylistic classifications can be somewhat arbitrary, but also boosted their own confidence in their ability to see as the critics see, to read on their own and discover the qualities of pieces of literature. I frequently invent such innovative assignments.
This leads me to the second thing that I believe makes me a strong teacher: flexibility. Although I am an inveterate planner, I am also open to change on numerous levels. The first of these is with individual students, and at that level I often allow students to propose their own projects or topics, to do variations on assignments that I have provided, and to adapt assignments to their particular skill levels and interests. This allows them to be more invested in their work and to do work that is appropriate for them. At a second level, my syllabi—whether for creative writing, composition, literature, or American studies courses—are well-structured but never static. Although I never begin a course without a syllabus, I try to build in some flexibility for the class as a whole, so that student feedback can shape at least some of what we do. Different classes have their own personalities, so to speak, and I have found this approach much more effective than trying to force round groups into square holes. Lastly, I continually redesign and refine the courses that I teach more than once, responding to student and colleague comments and to my own sense of changing times and variable success with certain texts and assignments. Beyond the obvious “corrections” that happen this way, it also keeps the class content alive for me and, I believe, gives classes greater excitement and energy.
In addition, I include as part of this process of development a meta-discourse about the decisions I make about teaching as one means of modeling what learning is: continuous, open-ended, uncertain, risky. When students see me willing to try something new, then they are willing to try what I ask of them, even when they feel some resistance due to habits of passive learning. We become collaborators, and this allows me to use my authority gently, only as necessary, and not as an end in itself. Students then are willing to seek me out with any subject-matter problems they may have and to maximize their learning by frequent use of office hours and e-mail contact.
One of the things that my students comment on over and over is their sense of my availability and desire to really help them. While it is not possible to become a role model for every student, I find that this is a function I often fill. Often this goes beyond the narrow confines of the course that a student is enrolled in: I might give a copy of “All at One Point” by Italo Calvino to an astronomy student or an Annie Dillard essay to an environmental resources major in one of my technical writing courses. Or I might help a literature student with her graduate school applications the following fall. Because I have had a wide variety of experience working for magazines and publishing as well as teaching, many students also ask me for informal career advice, which I willingly give. My office hours are highly attended.
All of this is rooted in my passionate attitude toward language and literature, my deep faith in the crucial and fundamental value of what I offer (what our field offers) and an ever-present awareness of the vastly complex and nonformulaic nature of language and communication. I maintain an abiding goal, and that is to effectively convey a life-long respect for and interest in the English language, for I know its power to illuminate, to render sensible, and to transform the chaos of experience. Students come in the door with inchoate feelings and vague impressions of the world; I hope they will go out taking steps toward understanding of themselves and others. I myself am a lifelong learner and writer, and I hope that they will leave my classes with the idea that this is a wonderful way to live and that they will continue to try to do so. |
