Teaching Philosophy

As teachers, we carry into the classroom the influence of our experiences from both inside and outside of the academy. My upbringing in a Latino family, middle-class education, and ten-year hiatus from the academy after my bachelor’s degree have as much to do with how and why I teach writing as does the research I’ve done on good pedagogical practice in Rhetoric and Composition. Because I recognize that my whole person influences my teaching, as a writing teacher I am dedicated to considering the whole person sitting in my classroom. For many students, it can be a monumental task to balance work, home life, and schooling. With this disposition, I make efforts to learn about my students and to create opportunities and advantages for all students, regardless of their economic, social, educational, and cultural backgrounds.

Achieving equitable and just teaching practices begins with developing and utilizing course materials that explicitly address the role of writing and the transformative power of education. I often start each semester with a few theoretical texts about the function of writing and language politics—articles from Bad Ideas About Writing, chapters from Rhetorical Communities, or videos such as Jamila Lyiscott’s “3 Ways to Speak English.” Students engage the rhetorics of these issues in order to understand the rhetorical situation, the power of writing and public speaking, and how to analyze a text for its argument, purpose, audience, context, and appeals. We read shared texts for both content and structure, treating each reading as an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the moves authors make.

Assessment is both a research area of mine and a pedagogical centerpiece. Understanding its power to dictate the direction of a class, I invite students into the conversation: we talk about the function assessment plays, and students are given space to voice their anxieties and even criticisms about the evaluative criteria we use. I provide many opportunities for students to generate writing that is not assessed but that moves them closer to a major project. As the work of Asao Inoue, Kathleen Blake Yancey, Peter Elbow, and others shows, providing space for low-stakes writing lessens anxiety and offers students time for drafting and practicing new tasks.

Placing assessment at the center of my teaching foregrounds the learning outcomes for each project and course. I invite students to design and reflect on their own desired outcomes for major projects and for the class overall. Student-led outcomes have increased engagement and de-centered the reflex to figure out what the “teacher” wants, focusing instead on what the learner wants and needs. To support this kind of meta-cognitive practice, I use a Work and Grade Agreement significantly based on the Labor-Based Grading Contract (Inoue).

Teaching is not confined to the classrooms we teach from; it extends to our departments and administration. For just over four years I served as the Writing Program Administrator at USF, developing professional development and curriculum for our department. I approach my leadership roles—as WPA and now as Co-Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence—with the same care and generosity I bring to the classroom. Teaching writing is a complicated task, but no matter the challenges I face, I aim to meet students and faculty where they are and provide the support they need to succeed.