Blake Wilder

Statement of Teaching Philosophy

On May 2, 2011, Osama Bin Laden was killed. Ohio State students celebrated by jumping into
Mirror Lake, a tradition usually reserved for the schools biggest football rivalry. A week later, I
showed my class the student newspapers video coverage of that celebration alongside a piechart of the casualties of the American war on terror. I prompted my students to relate the us
versus them rhetoric that we had discovered through our course theme of Violence and
Identity to the idea of American imperialism. Students wrote their first thoughts down on paper
as a starting place for greater reflection. As students shared their perspectives with the class, one
students response highlighted the importance and the challenge of tackling such difficult topics
in the classroom. Her words, coming fast and loud, conveyed intense emotion as she declared
that if they hadnt attacked us, we wouldnt be over there now. A few weeks later, that same
student showed a willingness to re-examine her own preconceptions as she connected the course
material to her own life in a reflective essay. She wrote: with a very Republican father, I was
brought up to hate all liberals, to believe war was good and these people in other countries
needed our help, and that democracy was the only way. While democracy is a great thing, I have
come to realize that every country has their own culture and way of doing things and America
should not enforce on them our political and cultural views. This student was able to recognize
the value of diverse perspectives at the same time that she gained confidence in articulating her
own point of view. Although there is a tension between these two learning outcomes, they are the
overarching goals of my teaching in both writing and literature courses.
To encourage students to listen to each other while also finding their own voices, I structure
classroom activities that prompt them to engage in discussion and active learning. In one
scaffolded classroom activity called notice and focus, I use a music video to pique student
interest and guide them through the steps of interpretative analysis. After watching the music
video for Michael Jacksons Beat It, students compile a list of any and every detail that they
possibly notice. As students call out details, I write them all over the board in no particular order.
Then, one by one, students make tally marks next to the three most important details. The final
list often shows consensus on one or two items, but multiple possibilities vie for the third spot.
As students discuss the list and important details in light of what their classmates thought was
important, they begin to make interpretative claims, supporting their ideas by pointing to specific
evidence from the video. These sorts of scaffolded activities help students internalize the
incremental steps of developing an interpretation and can be especially helpful in the first year
writing classroom where novice students often look for the instructor to tell them the right
answer. As students struggle with learning that interpretation is about more than just a right or
wrong answer, hearing each others ideas helps them practice articulating their own perspective.
In this way, structured classroom activities turn the diversity of student populations into a
strength that helps every student. Hearing from different viewpoints about race, gender,
nationality, or religion might not influence the interpretation of a Michael Jackson music video,
but it is absolutely crucial when discussing topics like American imperialism or the literary
representations of race.
Encouraging active student engagement also allows me to gather feedback and adjust my
teaching methods to meet students where they are. The first time I was teaching Introduction to
African American Literature, it became clear that I had overestimated the literary skills that

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students were bringing with them. In response, I offered more definitions of literary terms as part
of my lectures, but more importantly, I developed new scaffolded classroom activities to help
students practice the basic skills of literary analysis. After reading Zora Neale Hurstons Sweat
and Rudolph Fishers City of Refuge, students got into small groups to fill out guided
worksheets that asked them to identify basic features of literary analysissuch as setting, pointof-view, and symbolism. Working in teams, students were able ask their peers if the snake in
Sweat was actually a symbol, and if so, for what? A students comment that the worksheets
were helpful because they broke down the text into many parts that they could then analyze
individually in order to add it all up together to get the big picture idea shows me that the
guided practice of such worksheets helps students succeed at the incremental steps of literary
analysis. Although I had not planned the worksheets at the beginning of the semester, adding
them in gave students a structure to develop the skills of literary analysis that I had initially taken
for granted.
While I value scaffolded activities that allow students to learn through active inquiry, the
complexities of race in America necessitate that I rely on my research expertise to help students
succeed. Through readings and lectures, I provide the theoretical perspectives and historical
contexts students will need to develop an interpretation of important texts and issues. When
Johnathan Ferrell was shot by police in September 2013, I shared a blog post with my African
American Literature class that explained the recurring shooting of black men by engaging the
idea of stereotype threat from Claude Steeles Whistling Vivaldi (2011). I explained that the title
of Steeles books comes from his habit of whistling classical music as a way make white people
feel safe around him. After this introduction, we turned to the end of W.E.B Du Boiss Of the
Coming of John, where the main character sings lines from a Wagner opera as he is waiting to
be lynched for defending his sister. This connection helps students to recognize how Americas
racial history is still relevant today, and Du Boiss story enables them to see the world from
Johns perspective. Armed with the appropriate critical perspectives, students are able to
consider problems of structural racism by engaging Johns frustration with the choked and
narrow life available to him.
When students are given the critical tools they need and supported through structured classroom
activities, they are able to articulate insightful interpretations and recognize the need to engage a
wide range of perspectives. Just recently, a student from my first semester of teaching e-mailed
me to thank me: for pushing [her] boundaries [and for making her] a better writer. Prompted
by a Facebook status reminder, she shared how she had related the war in Syria to writing about
the war in Uganda [during her] freshman year of college and specifically remembered me
telling her to dig into WHY these atrocities make people so uncomfortable. Relating what she
had learned in my class in 2009 to the world events in 2015, she had told her friends that: The
truth is-- you should feel uncomfortable. This is what spurs change. If we choose to ignore what
is happening in the world and the horrific events that take place every day-- how will we ever be
motivated to change whats happening? By providing scaffolded activities that enable students
to encounter uncomfortable truths about the world in a productive way, my approach to teaching
instills a willingness to listen to others and gives students the confidence to believe that what
they say can change the world.