My Teaching Platform

In the education, composition, and literature courses I teach, the focus often moves toward issues of knowledge-making and empowerment. Many of the skills we work on in class involve lifelong learning, so we begin with critical thinking and reading strategies they can apply as citizens and in any course work. We may not master these challenging skills in a short semester, but my hope is that their importance comes through. In contemporary America, people are bombarded with advertising and other persuasive messages. Without critical thinking, I believe people are too easily manipulated.

Growing up without a lot of money, I recall school shopping at the community college where I work. (Choices were limited for a teenager!) My first date with my wife involved going from Colgate back to Syracuse University, where I still had borrowing privileges after having graduated, so that I could get books for my new semester. Borrowed—not bought. I could not afford the texts. So I’m aware of text costs and have developed fourteen OERs and a handbook for students’ use. They not only save money, but also allow me to pair and customize in powerful ways that work against the corporate structure. (I also teach an education course, so a name like Pearson has about the same positive connotation as Goldman Sachs in 2008 or Pendant Publishing from Seinfeld.) I like the idea that we are countering the increasing worship of the business model, the corporate, in contemporary America. I recently created OERs for ENG 100 and ENG 243: Science Fiction & Fantasy. I’m creating an African-American Lit course paired with an OER.

Science and the ways it models knowledge fascinate me. Since people often misunderstand words like “theory” or “truth,” one of my tasks is to get people past the static notion that they are “correct just because they think so.” Academic arguments are public, with recognized moves. While they make up a sort of game, it is an important one for students to know well. Often, my classes feature analysis of words’ connotations and origins as we look at argument and persuasion. Many students entering these classes have been left out of the process—or have absented themselves. By trying to show the stakes involved, hopefully I am able to work with them to get them taking themselves more seriously as learners.

I try to add humor and contemporary examples into lessons and units and then show how those relate. I try to demystify something like ancient rhetoric to show how, through some of the structures we assume are normal and obvious, our methods may be contingent. They didn’t have to occur the way they did, but they serve a social function nonetheless. Obviously, with fewer common texts and experiences in our digital culture, this approach can seem challenging to many students whose education has not featured a lot of connections or even exercises in relevancy. Whether we are working on an in-class discussion or a capstone project, students are turning reading into writing and practicing application, analysis, and synthesis skills that get beyond easy evaluation and summary. Of course, summary is by no means easy! Students struggle with answering “What?” without adding their voice/views. We work constantly on critical thinking and academic expectations and how, though they may be a game, they are an important game for them to master. My approach focuses on getting them to realize when to use critical thinking in personal, academic, and professional settings. So that is a broad, lifelong objective.