Teaching

Teaching Experience

Courses Taught at the University of Oklahoma

First-Year Writing Part I (English 1113: Principles of Composition I)

Students learn to prepare effective and engaging writing and speaking assignments
Students build skills that empower them to become active and respectful participants in civil discourse and develop informed citizenship
Students practice rhetorical analysis and productive communication

First-Year Writing Part II (English 1213: Principles of Composition II)

Students learn to engage in an issue of public interest through effective writing and speaking
Students build research and synthesis skills
Students practice rhetorical listening and participate as active and courteous participants in civic discourse

Courses Taught at Children’s Development Centre in Mae Sot, Thailand

High School English and Civics

Students develop a foundational understanding of the English language, including vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar
Students examine the structures of government systems and how they function
Students study the rights and responsibilities of citizens and develop ideas about how to be active members of their communities

Teaching Philosophy

On my first day teaching at the University of Oklahoma, one of my students shared with me that she felt she “didn’t belong” in college because of her learning disability. It was my goal throughout the rest of the semester to not only lead her in developing writing and reading skills, but also to encourage her that her unique perspective is valuable in a university setting. It is my genuine belief that we all, instructors and students alike, are collectively better when everyone is given an opportunity to succeed. Therefore, I lead with engaged pedagogy in the spirit of bell hooks, which “makes us better learners because it asks us to embrace and explore the practice of knowing together, to see intelligence as a resource that can strengthen our common good” (hooks 22). However, there are some barriers to the practice of “knowing together” inherent in academia. I’ve experienced these barriers myself, and I know my students experience them too.

Disability studies scholar Jay Dolmage puts forth a visual metaphor to illustrate academic ableism: steep steps at the entrance of a university, so intimidating and challenging that only the truly able and fit will even attempt to scale them (“Mapping” 17). When I consider my classroom and my pedagogy, I envision myself at the bottom of these steps next to my students, rather than perched at the top. If language, and knowing how to use it effectively, is power, it is my job as a composition instructor to equip my students with the skills and the desire necessary to climb those steps. I truly believe that every student can do so, and I walk alongside them until they believe it, too. I incorporate this philosophy in the classroom by implementing pedagogical practices informed by disability studies and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. UDL guidelines are about “building opportunities for agency;” they are truly a “way to move” (Academic Ableism 118). This pedagogy makes the classroom more accessible for everyone, not only students who choose to register with the official accommodations system, and emphasize designing multiple means of engagement, representation, action, and expression.

My students and I work together to create collaborative rubrics for major assignments, and they each design a personalized rubric category that reflects their personal goals for the course, which gives them control and agency within the classroom. I also endeavor to distill complex concepts into more accessible lessons. Further, I strive to represent a diversity of perspective in the texts I use in class, which invites students to challenge their views of “normalcy” regarding culture, (dis)ability, and experience. We have engaged with spoken word poetry by Hanif Abdurraqib, writings by Malcolm X., and even analyzed the building our class was held in through a disability justice framework. In this way, students are exposed to perspectives that may or may not have been visible to them before, and they can situate themselves among these voices and realities.

My teaching is always collaborative and communicative; I regularly ask for feedback on what’s working and what isn’t, listen to what my students have to say, and make appropriate adjustments. To me, this is the most important part. What my students have to say matters, to me and to the world, so I act accordingly. After receiving feedback about timed writing exercises and students struggling to meet deadlines, I adjusted my practices to reflect what Tara Wood calls “crip time,” I designed more scaffolding for larger projects and extended deadlines for in-class writings to the end of the day so students could return to what they wrote and adjust outside of the timed boundary.

Language, and writing especially, is for everyone; it belongs to us. Every day, I strive to include students in their own composition journeys, to empower them with communication and analysis skills so they can better advocate for themselves and their beliefs and climb the “steep steps” of academia, and to, most importantly, feel like they belong, because they do.

Works Cited

Dolmage, Jay. Academic Ableism: Disability in Higher Education. University of Michigan Press, 2017.
Dolmage, Jay. “Mapping Composition: Inviting Disability in the Front Door.” Disability and the Teaching of Writing: A Critical Sourcebook, edited by Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson and Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008, 14-27.
hooks, bell. Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom. Routledge, 2021.
Wood, Tara. “Cripping Time in the College Composition Classroom.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 69, no. 2, 2017, pp. 260-286.