Statement of Teaching Philosophy

I want my students to be aware of the world around them and to be able to examine their environment critically, but nothing I can teach my students—how to think critically, how to write well, how to interpret literature—has any worth if I can’t teach my students to care about what they are doing. I believe that there are only two reasons to care about anything: because it is interesting, or because it is useful. I try to inspire my students by choosing activities and projects that have meaning for them and help students recognize the ways in which our classroom activities can be translated to real life, practical concerns.

I believe that the first step toward doing well on a writing assignment is feeling connected to it, and I attempt to help my students connect to their writing in several ways. One strategy I employ is creating a free-writing exercise to precede each assignment. These exercises echo the requirements of the major writing assignment while requiring minimal or no outside research and are completed within the scope of a class period. For instance, to match an assignment in which a student is required to construct a well-researched ethical argument, I ask my students alone or in groups to construct a brief argument on an issue that affects them personally using all of the pieces of Toulmin’s Model of Argument. Students are able to concentrate on their writing because they have the information needed for this project already in their minds and they are already interested in their own lives. I also find that students who initially balk at the terms Toulmin uses automatically incorporate most of them into their arguments, and revealing their abilities in this way allows students to approach the major assignment with more confidence. One of the most valuable lessons I can impart to my students is that they should have confidence in themselves rather than rely solely on the guidance of their teachers. The ability to think independently is especially important at the college level, since students who have previously been dependent on parents and teachers will soon be required to function independently. I see my role as providing guidance for students as they discover their own potential.

In addition to drawing connections between the curriculum and my students’ personal experiences, I hope to draw connections between what we do in our class and what students will need to do in other classes, specifically in their major area of study. I strongly encourage my students to choose paper topics on areas that are related to their own chosen fields. Writing papers on topics related to their major helps students learn how to research within that area and allows them to increase their familiarity with concepts considered important within the major. Most importantly, however, I believe that writing papers in the areas in which students have chosen to major engages students deeply in their work. It is my strongest belief that when a student is interested in and excited about what they are doing, they perform at a much higher level than when they are only marginally interested. I encourage student investment by engaging students on subjects in which they are interested and proficient as well as on issues that relate directly to their lives. When I connect what we do in the classroom to my students’ lives, I engage them, elicit their interest, and create methods of exploration that naturally lend themselves to future application.

Facilitating on ICON

We've talked some in class about how teachers in ICON are facilitators. What do they facilitate? How is what they're doing similar to writing center approaches to teaching writing?

I always thought that all teachers were supposed to be facilitators of learning, on ICON or off. In a way, ICON seems a little more one-on-one than a writing center, since a student gets individualized feedback from a grader, has a chance to voice his or her specific concerns, and gets a chance to rate the grader's comments. On the other hand, students receive individualized feedback in the form of grades even if they only have one teacher. They may or may not get the forum to be able to voice their concerns beforehand or afterward. I suppose, too, that students are more likely to voice their concerns in a non-confrontational situation where they don't really know the grader or have to look the grader in the eye. It is also true that dividing up the grading (should) allow more time to be spent grading each paper.

I have to admit, although it isn't far enough into the semester to really be able to tell, that I prefer the way I taught at A&M. I had one class of 25 students, I learned all their names, I created all of their minor assignments myself and I gave my own version of the instructions for the four major papers, I read all of their work, and I got to know each one of them better through it. I feel like through ICON, you do lose some of that, because you don't get to follow each student through and keep an eye on all of their work. To me, not getting to walk the students through the whole way makes things less one-on-one and, honestly, makes me feel less ownership for my class.

Three Important Concepts

First, I think interest/relevance is incredibly important in writing. That comes in two parts: explaining to students (and demonstrating!) how what we work on in class helps them in the rest of their lives, and also giving them things to read and write about that are interesting to them. My TAMU students really shone when they chose paper topics that they were familiar with, and I really enjoyed reading them.

Second, I think practice is important. I get stuck sometimes on how to "teach" writing because for me it was something that was absorbed through years and years of reading and writing constantly on my own. You can't exactly go back in time and hand younger versions of your students books, but I do think that forcing them to read and write by doing in-class writing every class time and making sure they read by forcing them to engage with the assigned texts in class is important.

Third, I have to say I am a formalist as far as grammar goes, and I believe that teaching the conventions is incredibly important. I remember the first time someone actually explained to me the rule regarding when to use "who" and when to use "whom" and I think sometimes students actually need you to be dry and boring for five minutes to explain something that they may get wrong over and over again without really knowing why - I sure didn't get taught any grammar rules during my K-12 education! Obviously who/whom is a less useful example, but one I did use was the difference between affect and effect, which I still have to stop and think about myself.

So, to sum up: make it interesting, practice practice practice, and do it right.

I have to admit that I'm a little frightened as to how I'm going to eventually get my teaching philosophy made out of this. I did not get a good mark on the philosophy I constructed for my pedagogy class at TAMU, and I'm a little worried because there were all these little things we were told like to stay away from words like "skills," and I ended up feeling the way freshmen in our writing classes feel when we tell them something like "don't split infinitives" and they have no idea why or what it means.

First Post

This is my first post.