Teaching Philosophy
My pedagogy is based on some related premises about the significance of literary criticism. Narratives in their myriad forms, from novels to television shows to music, invite us to adopt certain values or paradigms for how to live. Too often people unthinkingly accept these invitations without real consideration of their influence in shaping how we view the world and ourselves. As literary critics, we are trained to identify how basic elements like plot, theme, and so on contribute to the coherent meanings of a story, which change over time on the basis of our evolving cultural codes. Equally important, this training invests us with the obligation to critique the ethical vision of the narratives we consume. The primary genre for literary criticism is the written essay, both a product of analytical interpretation and also a manifestation of it; in other words, writing is thinking. Argumentative writing tends to produce the most substantive ideas, but other forms like exploratory and creative writing can also contribute to this process.
No matter the subject, I encourage sustained critical engagement in my classroom by focusing on just four or five key texts over the entire semester. This restrained approach gives us the time to thoroughly examine them, have detailed conversations about complex metaphors and difficult passages, explore unfamiliar contexts, etc. Our activities both in and outside of the classroom revolve around ‘problems’ in the narratives that we attempt to answer. Each student keeps a journal. Before every session I ask them to respond to a prompt – e.g. “Why is this character, who is negatively characterized throughout the story, the only one to maintain his integrity in this scene?” – that we use as a starting point for further our study for that session. I alternate among lectures, group discussions, and writing exercises, all of which relates to the issues we consider that day. For example, when I ask students questions I let them write down their thoughts in their journal before we continue so they have a chance to compose themselves. I usually require two different forms of graded assessment. Short creative essays might involve re-writing a scene from the perspective of a minor character to help them make sense of narrative points of view. Argumentative essays are a multi-stage, semester-long project. Students choose from a selection of argumentative prompts. I assess their first drafts for ideas and argumentation. They peer review each other’s drafts and then prepare an abstract of their revised essay. Only after these stages do they submit a final version of the assignment, along with their notes, drafts, etc. My goal here is to help them view essays as the product careful planning and revision.
Of course, my students’ inherent abilities, learned skills, and previous experiences at university vary widely. In practice, this means I must simultaneously help students who struggle with literary writing in English to make sense of figurative language, work with under-prepared students to master the basics of textual analysis, and also challenge more advanced students to refine their critical practices. Is my pedagogy effective? One way to determine so is through course evaluations; students rate my performance on average at 4.74 out of 5.0 as a tenure-track lecturer. Anecdotally, the quality of student writing in my courses has improved significantly as my pedagogy evolved into the present form. I try to remain flexible to respond to changes in student needs and the nature of university itself. Literature changes too – most of the genres I teach are relatively new to English department curricula. Nevertheless, for as long as narratives continue to influence our worldviews as they do my primary goal remains to help students recognize and evaluate these invitations.
Assessment Philosophy
Forthcoming.
Technology Philosophy
Forthcoming.