Teaching

I have acted as instructor of record for multiple English Literature and Writing Composition courses throughout my graduate career. Regarding the former, I am able to teach courses dealing with both 18th and 19th century literature. Regarding the latter, I am especially experienced In teaching introductory courses about college-level writing practices and long-term research projects. My approach to teaching Is deeply Informed by anti-racist pedagogy. In her recent article, Kyoko Kishimoto states, “Anti-racist pedagogy is not about simply incorporating racial content into courses, curriculum, and discipline. It is also about how one teaches, even in courses where race is not the subject matter.”[1] Her words serve as an inspiration for the student-centered, humane, and inclusive classroom that I strive to create, which has everything to do with how academic content is framed and delivered. 

When I design courses, I am always mindful of the population I am serving. I tailor my course content and assignments to meet my students at their unique learning and life stage, all while simultaneously challenging them to grow. As a WRT101 instructor serving a freshman population in their first semester of college, I know that my pedagogy two distinct purposes. One is about the academic transition from High School writing practices to College-Level writing practices. My students will be using writing across multiple disciplines, and so I am mindful of that part of my task is to help bridge formulaic understandings of writing like “the 5 paragraph essay” to college-level writing and research. I work from students' pre-existing knowledge basis with compassion, presenting material that is accessible yet undoubtably challenging. The other purpose has to do with the unique social needs of freshman populations. When I teach WRT101, I am cognizant that my students are not only making a big academic transition, but also a big life transition. I tailor my WRT101 courses to be more social and replete with group activities, as they will in all likelihood want to build a new personal as well as academic community. I intentionally make my class an ideal space for building that sense of community.

I customize my teaching persona and the learning atmosphere to get the best out of the unique constellation of students in my classroom. At Syracuse, I taught a required 8am WRT 101 class made up of almost entirely of D1 football players. In order to get the best performance out of them, I had to adopt an authoritative, coach-like persona, and provide clear rules and expectations for how to improve their writing. This authoritative approach was very different from my afternoon WRT205 section, made up of mostly junior and senior theater majors. They were a lovely bunch; the class was full of extroverted personalities. I leaned into their willingness to share and made a research-driven course (which is typically suited for more lecture-based pedagogy) primarily discussion-based. Likewise, my persona had to shift when I taught Duke students for the ENG 290 course titled "Inventing Childhood." Duke students are highly motivated by grades, but that also means they are more likely to be looking to ‘check all the boxes’ to get an A in the course. I wanted these students to become comfortable with less rigidity, and to encourage creativity and playfulness in their thinking and assessments. I adopted a more theatrical persona myself and included many playful yet intellectually stimulating low-stakes in-class activities.

My teaching has a fundamentally humane element to it; by this, I mean that I see my students as human beings before academics. From the first day of class, I make it a priority to get to know each one of my students on a personal level—their names, hometowns, hobbies, and exciting life events outside of class. In a mutual gesture, allow them to get to know me as a person. In my experience teaching the humanities, students will likely respect the time and effort they put into your course inasmuch as they respect you as a person and instructor. I believe that establishing this reciprocal humane atmosphere pays dividends for academic student engagement In and outside of the classroom. I foster camaraderie and community by encouraging informal chatter before, after, and sometimes even during class (except during lecture presentations). I get to class early so that I can contribute to this chatter, and so that I can set up music for students to walk in to. The music serves two purposes. First, the music serves as white noise to encourage students talking before class starts, as they are much more likely to talk to their peers over music than over silence. Research has demonstrated that if students talk in the first 5 minutes of class, the likelihood of them continuing to talk and contribute to class discussion increases exponentially. Second, the music serves as a low-stakes springboard for the concepts we will be discussing in the readings due that day for the students who quietly attend to Its lyrics. For example, playing Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In the Wall" before teaching John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education allowed students to think about education as tool for forming “good” citizens.

My literature courses are generally discussion-based. I believe that an openness to various interpretations and changing responses to literary texts is an essential component of building an inclusive English classroom. Hence, I see my job In an English classroom as more of a discussion facilitator. My goal as facilitator is to empower students to negotiate the significance of the literature that I’ve assigned them. This is not to say that I do not challenge my students to think differently or think harder. In class discussion, I will often ask students kind-spirited follow-up questions to encourage a more rigorous analytical response. In my follow-up, I might draw attention to textual evidence that gives friction to their analysis or prompt them to consider more data. In order to effectively facilitate class discussion, I regularly assign blog posts alongside our readings of literary texts in order to gauge student interests; the purposes of these blog posts is to give students an opportunity to think through what they think the text is doing ideologically and artistically. I read the blog posts in preparation for class, looking for trends. I prepare my lesson plan accordingly. Sometimes I supplement discussion with a lecture about relevant historical or contextual information.

For instance, let's say I was teaching Jane Eyre, and the majority of student blog posts indicated that they wanted to discuss Mr. Rochester’s controlling persona and seductive power over the relatively powerless Jane. In order to help them think critically about their interpretive or affective responses about the power dynamic, I would be sure to do a brief lecture about the socioeconomic realities of the 19th century governess, the Victorian era’s ‘separate sphere’ gender ideology, and a commentary on why this novel has been considered canonically feminist in the 19th and 20th centuries. Having this contextual information would then empower the students to consider shifting historical gender contexts and the feminist (or non-feminist) implications of Jane Eyre's marriage plot. All the while, I would be careful not to determine the content or stance of their analysis. As an Literature instructor, my goal is always to create a room full of capable, independent critical thinkers.

[1] Kishimoto, Kyoko. “Anti-racist pedagogy: From faculty’s self-reflection to organizing within and beyond the classroom,” in Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(4), 540.

Duke University

• ENG 090 - Intro to Poetry, Thomas Pfau (Fall 2021)

• ENG 090 - Art of Attention, Sarah Beckwith (Spring 2022)

• ENG 246 - Jane Austen, Charlotte Sussman (Spring 2023)

• ENG 368 - Science Fiction Film, Priscilla Wald (Fall 2023)

Elon University

• ENG ___ - Writing and AI (Spring 2025): “Synthesizing Research Findings”

• ENG 2704 - Applied Literature: Health and Business (Fall 2024): “Sympathy in Frankenstein”