Pedagogy | Writing The Journey

Teaching Philosophy and Resources

Teaching

Whether I am teaching a Composition course on first-year writing, an Introduction to Literature seminar, or a workshop in creative writing, I believe in empowering students to find their own voice and realize the potential of writing. Students know what to say far more than they realize they do. They just need the chance. Many have been told all through their schooling that they're bad writers. There is no such thing.

In Composition, I encourage students to reflect on pop culture and how much it influences our society--and vice versa. They write argument essays on its role using examples of their own and from research. I have them create a Wix website very much like this one in order for them to write a film or series review blog. After the project, they now have a website of their own they can develop professionally throughout their college career as they prepare for the job market. Their final project can continue their review analysis or pick a new film or series which they analyze with scholarship to make an argument for its cultural significance (or lack thereof). Such theories that I encourage them to consider to get started are those such as minority representation, disability studies, feminist theory, political commentary, and more.

In Literature courses, I enjoy working with narrative theory and pairing "texts." We consider literary terms first via examples they already know through film and other stories, and then use those examples to apply narrative terms to as well: story, narrator (limited, omniscient, etc), main character, flashback, summary vs scene, and more. We sometimes practice with Poe's "The Oval Portrait" since it is short, yet packed with analytical potential. Texts that get paired are those such as The Odyssey and The Hobbit (thematic adaptation), Beowulf and Grendel (narrator adaptation), The Great Gatsby and the 2013 Baz Luhrmann film (media adaptation), and even A Christmas Carol and Lee Bermejo's Batman: Noël (graphic novel adaptation). When we read Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus, they have to find and analyze their own adaptation, whether it be music, film, series, art, etc.

In creative writing workshops, I stick with the Iowa workshop style, using a circle table where everyone must contribute, while the one being workshopped remains silent and takes in the responses. Students host each other's workshops, starting by having the author read a section, and then going through various topics, such as conflict, pacing, voice, character, etc. At the end of each workshop, we do a quick round of "little things" we liked: a description, a bit of dialogue, or even a simple word choice. I emphasize that we are workshopping the piece and not the writer. In reading outside stories, poems, or essays, they are reading as writers to analyze what the author is doing to make the piece work--whether or not they personally enjoyed the piece. They must analyze their own chosen story, poetry, or essay collections and give a research analysis, including what techniques they would like to steal from the author. It is important to me to try and provide various voices and diversity in the authors that students read so that they can grow in empathy and gain understanding of experiences other than their own.

In all of my classes, learning by example is the greatest technique I lean on. Reverse outlines of sample MLA essays from OWL Purdue or research databases help them see how the author has composed and ordered their work. Group discussions in literature seminars provide fodder examples from their peers themselves. And, of course, creative writers must be good readers, and so the more examples they themselves can accumulate, the better.

And while I respect the canon, most students and young writers are just getting into their interests, so I encourage them to read whatever they find interesting. It doesn't have to be High Brow, but we do need to know what those authors are doing. Whether it's a Composition student who "hates" reading, but will engage in the award-winning Persepolis or try their hand at an audio book, or whether it's a fiction writer who wants to workshop that high fantasy story, they should feel free to explore and investigate as many nontraditional methods as they can.

Fiction workshop

Besides editions of Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories, these are resources I have found instrumental in both my own craft and in the planning of Fiction courses:

How Fiction Works by James Wood

The Art of Fiction by John Gardner

The Art of Fiction by Henry James

Fitzgerald’s Craft of Short Fiction by Alice Hall Petry

“On Writing” by Raymond Carver

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

Living by Fiction by Annie Dillard

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing by Alice LaPlante

Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form by Madison Smartt Bell

The Psychology of Creative Writing by Scott Barry Kaufman and James C. Kaufman