Teaching Philosophy

I coordinate any and all points of the universe, wherever I may plot them.
-Dziga Vertov

Truth seems to be the seeking of it.
-Christopher Howell

My writing emphasizes the ordinary and everyday. Small artifacts and simple interactions are among my most prized “possessions.” A snippet of conversation. The words of a road sign or a text received. A color. A map. The world of the small takes on mythic proportions and allows me to navigate and make meaning from the world in which I live. I model this same attention to everyday detail in my own teaching, placing value on the minutiae of ordinary existence.

Most of the students I teach assume that, because the events of their lives could not supply the plot of a best-selling novel or memoir, they have nothing about which to write or that their interests are irrelevant. They rely on their imaginative flair to fuel their writing. What keeps their work grounded and relevant, however, is an ability to write about their own thoughts and experiences in a meaningful way, and in a way that still makes use of their vast imaginative powers.

In order to generate ideas and harness those powers, I require all of my students to maintain a journal in which they document their various physical, emotional, or intellectual experiences on a regular basis. Through the practice of observation, students come to understand the act of writing as an organic extension of themselves and who they are as human beings. What they choose to notice and describe ultimately provides evidence of their connections to the environments in which they live. In addition to stretching students’ abilities to generate ideas, I utilize class time as writing time often. All poems benefit from spontaneity. In-class exercises help emphasize the potential sporadic, improvisational nature of poetry. I also emphasize revision in all my writing-intensive courses. For example, because poetry requires practice and craft, I ask students to provide several drafts of a single poem before and after workshop.

Living writers are integrated into all of my writing classes. Writing is relevant, urgent, a continuously created mutant organism, an amalgam of living human voices, an ever-shifting mass chorus into which students must contribute their own voices. In class, there are new things under the sun, simply by virtue of the fact that each person’s voice will add its own unique tenor, experience, and perspective. Living writers teach us to value all perspectives and voices.

I often ask students to investigate the contemporary controversies and conversations that are relevant to their respective academic interests. I encourage my students to utilize the writing assignments as a way to strengthen their rhetorical skills and research acumen, expand their knowledge related to their own specializations, prepare them to become members of professional communities related to their individual majors or areas of study, and begin to establish credibility as it pertains to their chosen fields. Publication is a goal I encourage students to strive towards early and often in my courses.

I make myself available to my students during our course and after. Since the act of writing is an act of vulnerability, it is crucial that students be able to confidently engage with me. During distance learning, I have had to alter my typical approaches to feedback to accommodate a virtual setting, scheduling virtual office hours via zoom calls. I continue to strive to connect with students as I did when teaching face-to-face, so that I can lay the groundwork for continued mentorship and continued learning.