Teaching Philosophy
My goal in the classroom is to teach my student to make connections for themselves. I want my students to learn to read and write “beyond the words,” as I say in my Teaching Philosophy (PDF). In other words, I not only teach them about audience, rhetorical strategies, sound, and structure, but I also teach them to see connections between what they are reading and writing, and their daily lives.
This page features syllabi for classes I’m currently teaching.
English 299 is designed to prepare students for upper-division coursework in English. Using three major literary genres—fiction, poetry, and drama—students build their critical vocabularies and practice close reading and textual analysis. We also examine the aims and conventions of the literary critical essay. The two associated paper assignments develop the writing and research skills required of literary studies. Our goal is to better understand the nature and function of literature as well as the types of questions that literary criticism seeks to answer. Along the way, we become more creative and critical thinkers, more effective writers, and more resourceful scholars.
