Teaching

In every course, my pedagogy is centered around empathy. I believe that students learn best when they have the resources — in and out of the classroom — to do so. Yet, so many students come to college without these systems of support. Recognizing that, I emphasize to my students that they are humans first. With flexible office hours and attention to self-care in the classroom, I help students access the resources that help them best learn. We each bring our experiences to the class as we challenge ideas about equity, justice, and cultural value.

Check out how this functions in a selection of my syllabi and assignments below.


Pedagogical Values

Accessibility

Created with guidance from resources including Ann-Marie Womack’s & Tulane University’s Accessible Syllabus and the universal design for learning guidelines, I work to make my classes as diversely accessible as possible. My syllabi often include images of required or suggested texts, alt-text, live links to sources, and my preferred pronouns. I provide plain text versions, too, which more readily run through screen readers or translation software. I simultaneously provide students with versions of the syllabi that are legible by screen readers.

Expanding the Canon

In each of my courses, students reflect upon our course’s selected texts and consider how various ideas shape how we determine whose ideas and voices are worth reading. In literature-based courses, students and I use class discussion and their assignment to question the construction of literary canons and the effects of representation. 

Care

I recognize that the work of the course cannot be siloed within the space of the classroom and that the work of the college student inevitably abuts and erupts into students’ personal lives as humans. Embracing pedagogies based in caring and advocacy, I structure classes to encourage student engagement in the course. 

Critical Reflection

In my writing classes, I bring the students back to their own work as the site of critique. By examining writing we ourselves have written we are often able to grasp the “moves” we make — and then see how to strengthen them. 

Revision

Revision is a key part of my writing courses. Students write at least two drafts of major compositions, but we often revise pieces of them more than that. In this way, the recursive practice of writing becomes a craft we can practice and continually develop. 

Student Agency

Writing is intensely personal, and I urge students to see their writing as exercises of their own authority as a thinker and advocate. In class, I model this behavior by valuing students’ work as models for the class — using Google Slides and other digital platforms to host student ideas, questions, and remarks during discussion. This becomes a way of framing the students as themselves sites of knowledge. 


Sample Assignments