I've taught a range of classes, at every undergraduate and graduate level, from developmental-writing to writing skills for dissertators; English as a second language, literature and film courses, and of course, comics studies. My central teaching goal is to help students take ownership of their own education, by presenting them with complicated issues and encouraging them to challenge their thinking. In the classroom and in one-on-one office hour visits, my students share their backgrounds, their ambitions and their insecurities. To enable students' ownership of their learning, I tailor my lesson planning, my written feedback and my interactions to building confidence. Because my pedagogy is grounded in the belief that practice is the better part of aptitude, I guide students to recognize the skills they bring to my courses and model ways to adapt those abilities for academic contexts.
     Critical empathy is the foundation of my pedagogy. My pedagogy is grounded in the belief that as much as humanities study enables students to answer difficult questions, our discipline encourages the critical empathy necessary to appreciate problems that cannot be solved via one "right" answer. Critical empathy, likewise, informs my approach to the teaching of writing. Beyond composition courses, I always assign essay writing that includes revision, and I emphasize to my students that persuasive argumentation is about finding understanding with other viewpoints. This means unpacking one's own assumptions and searching for commonalities with competing ideas. A favorite exercise of mine is to ask students to write summaries of two opposing arguments; inevitably the most strongly held beliefs are the ones for which students are least capable of identifying counter-arguments. Students develop these skills through lesson plans and assignments targeted to assessing evidence and imagining stake-holders, which in turn prepares them to perform nuanced analysis with their intended audiences in mind.

Current Courses

At Antioch University, I currently teach Writing 6110: Writing in Psychology for Masters Students. Designed for first year masters' students in Psychology, this course targets research and writing at the graduate level. Students learn to reflect critically on themselves as writers, as they position themselves as part of the Psychology discourse community. Students regularly revise their course writing in a final portfolio using feedback from me, their instructor, as well as their peers. The term culminates with research papers, in which students develop expertise on a topic of their own choosing, that's relevant to their future work in counseling.

At Shoreline Community College, I currently teaching English 101: English Composition, "In the News This Week." An introduction to college writing, this class is themed around following and interpreting journalism. To begin, I select news articles for the class to read by searching for the weeks' "most read" articles. Students analyze the content of those articles and interpret why so many people have read them, practicing their summary and analysis skills. Students will then choose and research other the ways other contemporary events appear in the news. Students regularly revise their course writing in a final portfolio using feedback from me, their instructor, as well as their peers.