Teaching Responsibilities, Philosophy, and Principles
Rachel Wolford
I learned a valuable principle several years ago that manifests itself in my mind when a challenge confronts me, and thus applies particularly well to teaching.
She who has the most passion wins.
Said another way, I attempt to remember on a daily basis that if I have more passion and energy to encourage my students to learn than they have passion to daydream or doze, then I will win the day with them in class, and they will learn some communication concept to take with them and hopefully make their own. This approach has worked in every course I have taught.
Teaching responsibilities
For the past four years I have taught many types of English courses at the undergraduate level, including Composition, Business and Technical Writing, Professional Communication, Speech, and an assortment of ESL courses at an English language institute in Florida. Prior to teaching undergraduates, I was a high school English and speech teacher for several years. Because I have loved the process of both teaching and learning a menagerie of English concepts – from subject-verb agreement to Julius Caesar to argumentative essays to proposal writing – I have gained tremendous respect and passion for my discipline as well as the learning process students must undertake in order to become effective communicators. This teaching experience, along with positive feedback from students and administrators, has reinforced my goal to share my love for English communication to students in the most positive, energetic ways I can.
Teaching philosophy
To me, the written word is all-powerful. It helps us name our world when we are small, gives us the vision for our dreams, and keeps our memories intact. Those who are limited in their capacity to artfully communicate their thoughts and points of view have almost a disability in my opinion, which causes them dissatisfaction and isolation as they struggle to succeed in work and life. I want to help eradicate that hardship. Yet communication skills, especially in writing, seem more difficult for students to master than ever. Traditional methods of teaching English cannot compete with lightning-fast visual rhetoric in which we are immersed as a technology-laden culture. Students have a significantly different way of thinking and learning now than I did when I took English in college. The entire culture has shifted into higher gear since then, and, tempting as it is to wish for it, I cannot expect my students to learn communication principles in the same way I did, by simply listening to a lecture, reading the chapter, and writing some essays. In order to help my students maximize their learning, I try to integrate the following three principles to encourage them to grow intellectually as capable communicators.
1. Meet them where they are.
To pique students’ interest in learning ancient rhetorical principles as part of the art of communication, I must gladly and genuinely meet them wherever they are beginning. For example, when introducing the concept of rhetorical situation, rather than bombard them at the outset with involved lecture and theoretical examples, I provide them with a brief outline of what audience, purpose, and context mean, and then ask them to go find their own examples. Additionally, since students are so attuned to popular culture, they are welcome to search out visuals and text from magazines or other sources they choose for which they can define a rhetorical situation. Then in class we examine their artifacts in small groups and corporately as they explain their choices.
This kind of scaffolding helps students apply an abstract concept to their own familiar context, so then we can move forward to understanding the rhetorical situation of more complex images and texts, and finally we move on to applying rhetorical principles to the students’ own writing. In English 104 we spend a significant amount of time discussing audience for the particular project students are working on. For example, in the problem-solution proposal students must write to the specific audience who would have the power to accept or reject their proposal. For many students, this is a brand new idea and one that greatly focuses and empowers their writing. One student wrote to me this semester: “Learning about writing to an audience beyond the teacher helped me write better papers because I was writing directly to that person!”
Progressing from a familiar context to new and more complex reading and writing situations will also help students as they move through both the first-year composition courses and into business writing and technical writing courses where they often role play real-world situations that have unique rhetorical situations. My goal and daily mantra for students is that they apply these communication principles to their own academic concentration courses. I have said more than once that if a professor ever tracks me down to show me a horrible paper from one of my former composition students, then I will hunt down that student, and she should expect to be verbally thrashed. I always wink at them when I say this, but I hope the message is clear: We are teaching them this stuff for a reason.
2. Expect professionally high standards.
Once students apply a communication concept to their writing, such as defining the rhetorical situation, that concept remains as part of the evaluation criteria for each subsequent project. I expect students to produce improved work as they develop their communication skills, and I try to explain this to them each day, lacing my pep talks with humor and enthusiasm, so at the very least they do listen to my advice and consider it as they decide how much work to put into their papers for the grade they expect.
My students are also responsible for learning new technology on their own. I explained to them that they must acquire the software skills they need apart from composition class because at a liberal arts university, my job is to teach them intellectual concepts, not technical skills, unlike a composition course at a business school. I told my students this in lab one day as they were developing brochures. After leading them to the brochure templates in Word, I said they were on their own with the technology. At first they seemed shocked, but then almost immediately they began figuring it out and helping one another as I discussed basic design principles and answered their individual questions. And by laying out these kinds of high expectations, most of my students delighted me with the creative, thoughtful brochures they created.
3. Let them practice.
To teach writing is to teach a process. My students work through two to three drafts of an assignment before it is given a final grade. They peer edit one another’s writing, based on the same evaluation criteria that I use for grading the paper. As with any complex skill, the more students practice writing, the better and faster they will become. I encourage them to write independently in a journal, and periodically we try this approach in class so they can see that something they write can be important, even if they simply write it for themselves. For example, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 I asked students to free-write about their own experiences the day the Towers fell five years ago. Several volunteers then shared what they had written, and I shared too, and it turned into a poignant several minutes of class time. Then I asked them simply to keep what they had written and explained that not all writing needed to be graded, but that sometimes it is important simply to write. In their final reflection portfolios, a few students mentioned the 9/11 entry as a significant class day.. Hopefully some of my students will re-visit that little memory at some point and realize that what they had to say about 9/11 from their own point of view really did have value.
In addition to practicing traditional writing, Iowa State students have the opportunity to practice communication skills through ISUComm’s WOVE principles. One of my course objectives is for students to practice Written, Oral, Visual, and Electronic communication throughout the semester. I have found these concepts very worthwhile, especially when students must try out new genres of communicating as part of the assignment. For example, several shy students gained confidence when they were required to interview an academic professional in their field. And some technology neophytes shined with a lovely brochure or report designed with headers and images as a result of those students simply practicing with software programs instead of remaining convinced they could never learn them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate how much I enjoy teaching. I believe that the more we give of ourselves to our students, the more receptive they will be and the more most of them will give back in their comprehension and application of valuable communication skills. I try to walk into every classroom with the passion turned on for my subject. I have seen repeatedly that it really makes an incredible difference to inject positive energy into students. They become engaged with the material, and I find that interaction with them immensely satisfying. Everyone benefits.