Sheila Morton

A statement of pedagogical interests and philosophies

In an article in the very first issue of Pedagogy entitled Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Teacherly Ethos,
Marshall Gregory writes that most faculty members invest enormous amounts of time planning and
organizing the curriculum for their courses, but frequently fail to reflect on the pedagogical methods
and reasons for that curriculums implementation. As teachers, he cautions, we must take a critical
look at not only what we teach, but why and how we teach it. The following statement, then, is my
attempt to critically reflect on the why and how of my own teaching.
The why is easy: my reasons are a combination of (often) genuine altruism and utterly
unabashed selfishness. I teach first of all because I truly like students and like working with them. I
like watching them learn to appreciate a powerful essay or write a thoughtful paper; I like hearing
their thoughts and ideas, and encouraging them to think even more and even better; and I like
helping them gain in confidence and ability. I also like having my own mind challenged and made
keener by working with them; I like having daily interaction with people from cultures, interests, and
backgrounds different from my own; I like talking about my ideas and research and trying these
ideas out on a hopefully interested audience, then listening to their ideas in return. The reason that I
teach, then, is because I believe that through good teaching, both students and teachers can become
better thinkers, better readers, and better writers. Even better people.
The how is more difficult. Making my practice conform to my ideals is complicated both
by the reality of interacting with other human beings with their own agendas and ideas, and by my
own developing, as-yet-unperfected teaching methods. But while my methods continue to develop,
the goal remains consistently to help both my students and myself to become more conscientious
and reflective consumers of texts and more responsible producers, and to further our enjoyment and
confidence in these abilities. I work toward these goals, then, in a number of ways.
First, I find it essential to engage the different learners in the classroom through activities
that appeal to different styles and intelligences. Because I genuinely like my students and want them
to succeed whatever their preferred learning style, I am willing to turn my classroom into the
occasional art studio, science lab, or music room. For example, I frequently ask students to begin
conceptualizing a piece of writing by sketching out their ideas first, thus appealing to their visual
literacies. Or I help them to visualize the developing organization of an essay by mapping it out.
Ive asked students to perform their drafts in short, scripted role-plays. Ive organized walk-andtalks, where students with kinesthetic leanings can talk out their ideas. And I often bring music (or
let them bring music) to class when they are focused on drafting or small group discussion to
stimulate the thinking of musical learners. By implementing activities that appeal to multiple
intelligences and literacies, I believe I can help more of my students to successfully navigate both my
class and future academic venues.

Sheila Morton
My classroom reflects this emphasis on active,
engaged pedagogy. By the end of any given block, my
students and I have decorated the walls of our classroom with
projects that have helped us work out a piece of literature, or
explore an academic article, or plot a piece of writing.
Collages (such as those in the picture on the right), for
example, help students to put in visual format their feelings
about a character, an argument, or an idea.
The picture to the left shows another experiment. In
attempting to encourage students to see their claims and the
evidence for those claims as a chain of logic, I had them literally
create chains, each loop containing supporting evidence for a
claim. We discussed the importance of linking these pieces of
evidence together with strong transitional bonds, and circling
them back to the claims which they support.
Likewise, the picture below shows the web of historical
connections between literature and other areas of art, science,
architecture, etc. of the nineteenth centurythe topic of one of
my writing courses. Students were assigned short research
projects to complete the web. These were then used to foster a
discussion about the interconnectedness of all writing to its
social and cultural situation.
I feel that these kinds of visual and kinesthetic
activities serve both to engage students in the learning
process and to provide visual reminders of the things they
have learned. Students thus become co-creators in the
learning and teaching process.
Moreover, with Peter Elbow I believe that liking
students, desiring their success, also means learning to like their developing scholarship. I, too,
believe that students need a place where it is safe for them to make mistakes as they are initiated into
the mysteries of academic language and scholarship. They further need a teacher who enjoys
watching and encouraging these sometimes tentative, often remarkably astute, forays into new ways
of thinking, reading, and writing. For this reason, grade-free projects are an important part of my
pedagogy as well. I have students do frequent freewrites, sketches, and responses to readings, all of
which are credit-rich but grade-free. I also read and discuss student papers several times before
assigning a grade. Because I think it is more important to be innovative and creative than it is to be
correct (although correctness must come into play at some later date in the readers/writers
development), I want to encourage students to be free to take risks, knowing that if their risk doesnt

Sheila Morton
work, theyve lost nothing. And I make sure that each student receives my personal attention and
respect as writers and scholars, demonstrating this through frequent one-on-one conferences about
their work.
My fondness for my students does not mean, however, that I do not demand effort or
evaluate rigorously. One of my favorite comments on a student evaluation was given last year: You
are kind like a mother, the student wrote, but also tough like a professor. Kind and tough. That is
exactly what I aspire to be.
It is my desire, then, to combine academic rigor and high expectations with student support
and pedagogical inventiveness. To this end, I am constantly seeking new ideas and experimenting
with new methods. Many of my experiments fail. However, I emphasize to every class the
importance of being a life-long learner, and I seek to model that philosophy.