teaching statement
My teaching practices stem from the same questions that drive my research: How do artifacts, technologies, people, and institutions mediate writers’ rhetorical work? More specifically, what kinds of texts can we make with available tools, and what are the variety of practices we can engage in to make them? My research involves “opening the black box” of computer technology, and in my teaching, I expand this analytical frame to include a myriad of black boxes—from writing technologies like Microsoft Word and Instant Messenger, to generic forms like citation styles and thesis statements. As a teacher, my main goal is to encourage students to “open the black boxes” of their own writing practices and products, and see how they can be deployed within larger systems of meaning—in school, the workplace, the public arena, and other areas in which they find themselves.
In order to help students see writing as reflective activity, I begin assignments and class work from a place of inquiry. Rather than treating, for instance, the specifics of Microsoft Word or the genres of academic citation as givens, my students and I attempt to see how they work. We generate lists of the various ways we use Word and then create a wish list of features we’d like to see, reflecting on how Word differs from our sense of how, and what, we write. In computer writing classrooms, I extend these discussions through activities that ask students to contrast the varying features of different writing environments (word processors, IM, web browsers). With citation, we contrast the various practices of different disciplines by examining scholarly articles in order to see what kinds of knowledge is privileged, and how the formal elements of the bibliographic style represent that privileged knowledge. Most recently, students have extended these discussions by sharing their use of various online bibliography tools and quickly generating the same works cited page in varying styles.
I believe that a focus on inquiry and reflection prepares students to participate in diverse activities in rhetorically savvy ways—activities such as writing academic texts in future courses, learning new genres in corporate environments, and experimenting online with juxtaposing video, sound, and text. Rather than limiting the focus of class to narrow definitions of writing as printed, or even alphabetic texts, my goal is to expand students’ experiences with rhetorical activity across different media, genres, and means. Having both created texts and reflected on the production, content, and distribution of those texts, students are empowered to make decisions, and weigh the consequences of following generic guidelines, using a variety of tools, and choosing the media for presentation.
Learning to see a genre as a way of making and disseminating knowledge and ideas, rather than a set of formal rules strictly developed as constraints, helps students see themselves as participants in rhetorical activity, rather than passive learners banking facts. Additionally, such reflection on genres helps students learn them better, and innovate within them to convey and shape their ideas. One particular activity that addresses a genre typically taken as a given is class discussion of evaluative comments on essays. Students read several essays produced by students in previous courses, then during class I project my comments on these essays, as well as responses written by past students for peer conferencing. Through discussion of these comments, we find that people have different expectations about the purposes and value of such texts, both as producers and receivers of comments—such as justifying a grade, playing devil’s advocate, questioning assumptions, giving praise, and suggesting changes for revision. After these expectations are clear and explicit, I am better able to shape my comments in ways that students will more likely understand and value, and students produce evaluative comments of their peers’ essays that address more than surface features.
In addition to making generic conventions and expectations visible, I believe there is much to be gained from explicitly addressing reading and writing practices. To make writing practices more visible and available for reflection, a worksheet accompanies every major writing assignment, asking students to discuss their planning process, particular activities in or out of class that they found helpful or detrimental, the varying media employed (Word, pen and paper, instant messenger, Web tools), and specific parts of their text that don’t quite match their goals. Halfway through the semester I find that students anticipate their answers to this worksheet by actively reflecting on their previous processes to determine what changes might be effective for upcoming assignments. By assigning final portfolios, I also encourage students to reflect on their processes throughout the length of the course, asking them to articulate their learning over the range of assignments.
Finally, I believe in participating in a community of teachers to keep pedagogy and teaching practices innovative. As an advisor to incoming writing instructors, I saw how successful assignments and lesson plans from other teachers and textbooks were modified in smart new ways. During the weekly discussions with my group of advisees, I understood my role to be helping these graduate teaching assistants adopt techniques and activities that complemented their evolving teaching styles, and matched the institutional goals of the course. As we developed and led the weeklong orientation, the other advisors and I demonstrated how teaching styles and methods may vary, but ultimately achieve common curricular goals. Such experiences have led me to appreciate the value of addressing the curriculum at large, rather than focusing on one particular course or section. These concerns were highlighted in my participation in an interdisciplinary working group between Writing Studies and Art and Design instructors where we discussed issues related to a new course that was team-taught and combined writing with video. Our group positioned the course within a larger curriculum addressed at facilitating students’ growth as citizens adept at participating in our mediated culture. In supporting such aims with computers and video cameras, I saw the importance of linking pedagogical goals more broadly with institutional and infrastructural supports and constraints. Such projects cannot be easily accomplished alone, and communities of teachers and scholars can make crucial changes to writing instruction and the university at large.