Teaching Philosophy
Ever-evolving rhetorical choices help us construct our identities and interpret our surroundings. Each new communicative situation requires writers to adapt to a unique audience, purpose and context, and requires writers to draw on their own experience to navigate these spaces. In my pedagogical approaches, my students are asked to analyze and reflect on the rhetoric of their surroundings, to engage in discerning how prior life experiences affect their current rhetorical choices as writers and students. Technology has impacted the way writers are able to engage with rhetoric.
To reach a variety of learning styles, I strive to adapt and excel at using multimodal (multimedia) opportunities in the classroom. Not only do I present activities in multimedia format (cultural documentaries, video clips, music), but my students also compose major assignments using multimedia/multimodal platforms such as Photoshop. Texts take on new rhetorical attributes in a virtual space, and through close analysis of existing new media and digital writing, students become more skilled at justifying their own rhetorical and writing choices. This also leads to a deeper understanding and consideration of audience. In order to optimize the benefit of using multimedia, I routinely assign short reflective essays that ask students to consider successes, challenges, and surprises they encountered during the duration of the project. The combination of composing in a digital space, and then writing reflections on the experience helps students carefully consider the “why” of rhetorical choices.
Varied rhetorics, such as multimedia, infiltrate almost every facet of students’ daily lives—from the name-brand infused private spaces of apartments and dorms, to the commercial repetition of billboards and businesses. In the past, I've incorporate units on public space and public art, which includes a short documentary titled, Creative Violation: The Rebel Art of the Street Stencil. It examines underlying social motivations and messages of street artists. Students are asked to analyze how the rhetorical/artistic choice of medium affects the message. Also in this unit, one of the most successful assignments includes a collection of photographs from my travels (I find fodder for pedagogical projects in almost any venture I undertake)—sand sculptures and bronze sculptures from the beaches of Puerto Vallarta, snow sculptures from the “Snow Days” event in Grant Park in downtown Chicago, photos of “Reincarnation,” a recycled sculpture garden in Michigan, along with the website of the astounding 3-D street chalk artist Julian Beever. We discuss and write about these works of public art and how the medium of “impermanent art,” something manifested in the world only a short time, differs from the medium of permanent messages conveyed by published writing and more “permanent” art.
In addition to interpreting message through various digital and written texts, I offer a focus on critical reading and annotation. In my own experience, especially in a PhD program, annotation during reading is the only way to recall any initial observations and questions about a text. This also relates to building confidence because a student who is more prepared for a class discussion is more likely to contribute. Digital and multimedia texts demand an immediacy in which students can easily become focused on “bells and whistles” rather than the true message of a piece. Annotation and note taking as part of the analytic process helps students better comprehend an author’s intended message.
To reach a variety of learning styles, I strive to adapt and excel at using multimodal (multimedia) opportunities in the classroom. Not only do I present activities in multimedia format (cultural documentaries, video clips, music), but my students also compose major assignments using multimedia/multimodal platforms such as Photoshop. Texts take on new rhetorical attributes in a virtual space, and through close analysis of existing new media and digital writing, students become more skilled at justifying their own rhetorical and writing choices. This also leads to a deeper understanding and consideration of audience. In order to optimize the benefit of using multimedia, I routinely assign short reflective essays that ask students to consider successes, challenges, and surprises they encountered during the duration of the project. The combination of composing in a digital space, and then writing reflections on the experience helps students carefully consider the “why” of rhetorical choices.
Varied rhetorics, such as multimedia, infiltrate almost every facet of students’ daily lives—from the name-brand infused private spaces of apartments and dorms, to the commercial repetition of billboards and businesses. In the past, I've incorporate units on public space and public art, which includes a short documentary titled, Creative Violation: The Rebel Art of the Street Stencil. It examines underlying social motivations and messages of street artists. Students are asked to analyze how the rhetorical/artistic choice of medium affects the message. Also in this unit, one of the most successful assignments includes a collection of photographs from my travels (I find fodder for pedagogical projects in almost any venture I undertake)—sand sculptures and bronze sculptures from the beaches of Puerto Vallarta, snow sculptures from the “Snow Days” event in Grant Park in downtown Chicago, photos of “Reincarnation,” a recycled sculpture garden in Michigan, along with the website of the astounding 3-D street chalk artist Julian Beever. We discuss and write about these works of public art and how the medium of “impermanent art,” something manifested in the world only a short time, differs from the medium of permanent messages conveyed by published writing and more “permanent” art.
In addition to interpreting message through various digital and written texts, I offer a focus on critical reading and annotation. In my own experience, especially in a PhD program, annotation during reading is the only way to recall any initial observations and questions about a text. This also relates to building confidence because a student who is more prepared for a class discussion is more likely to contribute. Digital and multimedia texts demand an immediacy in which students can easily become focused on “bells and whistles” rather than the true message of a piece. Annotation and note taking as part of the analytic process helps students better comprehend an author’s intended message.