ePortfolio, Auburn University

My experiences as a graduate student, journal editor, discussion leader and teacher of record have shaped my belief that the study of writing is, by its nature, an interdisciplinary experience. In my writing as well as in my pedagogy, I draw upon a wide range of genres to inform my understanding and direct my approach, because in a global age of information, all knowledge is inseparably interconnected. I am committed to helping students understand the classroom as an ecological community, in which responsibility is the core value. This is why I believe that the student writer’s needs are best served by participating actively in an academic discourse community. This means that in my classroom I encourage students to display professionalism in their writing assignments and academic life, develop reading and editing groups, to converse and collaborate on certain assignments, but most importantly to create realistic expectations for their writing and participation in the classroom.

 

​I don’t believe the job of the instructor is to inculcate students with epistemological knowledge but instead to cultivate an environment in which students can grow as writers and thinkers by giving them the technical tools they need. I draw from a rich array of texts to introduce concepts of Disso Logoi and other rhetorical techniques and devices. In The American Scholar, Emerson said that college educators “can only highly serve us when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires set the hearts of their youth on flame.” And I see the role of the instructor as one who encourages and invigorates student interest. Emerson's notion of self-reliance informs my pedagogical philosophy...​ [click here for full teaching philosophy]