TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

Creativity is undeniably what I value most in writingwhich, I suppose, is unsurprising since I

am a creative writer. Nevertheless, teaching creativity will not be my goal in the classroom (it is
impossible to do so, anyway). Instead, I see it as my chief responsibility to impart students with
the purpose of composition as I see it, and as weve discussed extensively throughout these
summer training courses.
The kind of composition that I will organize my class around, whether in ENC 2135 or
ENC 1101, will be entirely process-oriented, with a built-in level of flexibility and working
grades that are not static, but subject to change if the student puts forth the effort to productively
revise. Like Peter Elbow argues in his piece, Ranking, Evaluating and Liking, I believe that
strict grade-based systems set up students to orient their work towards merely achieving a grade,
which is, inherently, only a token marker of success, and often does the students work a great
disservice. Having flexible grades for assignments will discourage the students from thinking
their assignments, papers, and compositions are merely means toward a grade. This, in tandem
with multiple revisions built into the semester, will contribute toward the students idea of
composition as process.
At each stage of that process there will be careful attention towards feedback as well,
both in class (through peer workshops) and out of class (conferences and office hours where my
students will be welcome to come and share their paper regardless of what stage it is in). These
varying levels of collaborationbetween students and between the teacher and the studentare
crucial toward developing an understanding of composition as a process.

This will carry over in equal importance to the kind of feedback I give my students, and
the kind of feedback I encourage my students to give each other. It goes without saying that
feedback ought to be encouraging and respectful, but on a very fundamental level it will be
important to myself to effectively communicate with the student on the terms of the composition.
With comments on papers, I will be sure to not use empty binaries like good or bad, but will
instead leave written feedback that is in line with the kind of language I expect the students to be
using in their own writing: clear, strong language that is not falsely trying to hide personality
behind artifice.
This written feedback, and the kind of conversation I foster in conferences, will not be
anomalous in my relationship with my students. In the classroom, too, I will always be working
towards group discussion and actual communication. These sorts of conversations will of course
oftentimes be bound in the context of the coursegenre, research and compositionbut I hope
to also enable conversation outside of the context of the curriculum, conversations about
humanity and life. These sorts of tangential conversations are not mutually exclusive from
compositionin fact, I believe they are are crucial towards bettering oneself as a composer.
That will be my first major goal as an educator: getting the students to think of
composition as communicationnot as an act of self-expression or an effort merely to receive a
grade. Communication is the purpose of composition. My second major goal will be to
demonstrate to the student that in order for composition to be effective, the composer needs to
have empathy. Whether it is for her subject, topic, or fictional creations, without empathy,
composition will always fall flat. I hope to impart this on students in tandem with the idea of
composition as process by maintaining a standard of respect, inclusivity and openness,
encouraging discussion about what matters both inside the classroom and outside the classroom.