Any articulation of my teaching philosophy, any description of my classroom practices, lesson design, or pedagogical scholarship, and any committed pursuit of continued professional development I make, must be understood as extensions of my conviction that a teacher is first and fundamentally a servant.  To be anything less, whether out of pride, distraction, or negligence, is more than a simply professional concern.  I don’t mean to use the term condescendingly, or in a manner that reinforces a quantitative power dynamic, however inverted.  To be a servant in the classroom is to strive for moments of truly radical encounter with other persons, a being-in-relation that cultivates inquiring minds and nourishes maturing characters with one’s own experience, training, and scholarship.  Against a contemporary academic milieu that considers a reduction in teaching responsibilities a reward for scholarly excellence, I hold this charism of service the core principle of my pedagogical approach and the lens through which I understand my role and responsibilities as an instructor.

Which isn’t to say that I get caught up in some kind of mystagogical reverie every time I step into a classroom.  In the eight years I’ve taught freshman rhetoric & composition, I’ve developed a teaching persona that runs toward the more performative end of the spectrum.  I’m naturally energetic, and I’m comfortable with the light, unobtrusive touches of spectacle in my daily lesson plans.  I’ve blended tuna with Pepsi to teach justification arguments.  I occasionally show up in a kilt.  I’m aware of the dangers of the cult of personality — becoming an object of study rather than a facilitator runs contrary to my pedagogical responsibilities.  Nevertheless I’ve acquired a very practical stance on the importance of a lively classroom.  Intentional performance, thoughtfully applied, can focus the attention of a class, build the rapport so crucial to class ethos, and help produce the comfortable environment essential for constructive engagement and peer collaboration.

Performativity also helps decenter the authority dynamic in the classroom.  Blurring the traditional authoritarian “teacher/student” model emphasizes a classroom environment that privileges each individual student’s experience and talents.  Even if students only arrive the first day because it’s a required course, I strive to demonstrate the value of rhet/comp study so they can see (and quickly internalize) its importance to their other classes and their lives beyond the academy.  This is why blurring the authority dynamic is so important.  Students should come away with a strong set of both inquiry and technical skills, but they should also be prepared to intervene effectively — beyond their native areas of expertise.  They should be comfortable with what Graff and Birkenstein describe as “enter[ing] a conversation, using what others say (or might say) as a launching pad or sounding board for [their] own views.”  To this end, diffusing the central authority into the class group — to facilitate discussions, to collaborate, to set their own goals and deadlines, to develop their own research & study plans within the general boundaries of the curriculum — cultivates the responsibility and self-reliance necessary to cross out of familiar territory and enter new conversations.

When I first began teaching first-year rhetoric & composition, my curriculum design paid comparatively little attention to the technical and stylistic features of writing.  Word- and sentence-level issues were more likely to be addressed in conferences and in evaluative comments than in the classroom.  Over the past few years I’ve incorporated modules into my syllabi that address these features as part of a holistic and recursive revision process.  Rather than relying on the old chestnut of grammar worksheets and syntax drills, I’ve found much success in applying concepts like Samuel Hayakawa’s ladder of abstraction (based on Alfred Korzybski’s structural differential), Graff & Birkenstein’s templates, and Helen Sword’s useful diagnostic exercises.  Weaving these conceptual models into practical revision sequences encourages students to take a conceptual approach to reworking their own material and avoid the traps of hunt-and-peck spot-check proofreading.

Finally, it’s important to observe that my pedagogical philosophy places an extremely high value on collaboration with my fellow teachers.  I occasionally joke that theft is the sincerest form of pedagogy, but I do mean it: not, of course, as a validation of intellectual piracy, but as a sincere acknowledgement of my debt to my colleagues.  Sharing ideas and materials, talking over best practices and listening to cautionary tales, and co-planning and co-teaching lessons are the necessary for continued development.  I believe that it’s critical to engage with and actively promote a healthy teaching culture.  Contributing to such a culture ensures my own professional evolution – I share my course documents freely, attend and present at planning sessions, experiment in new approaches with colleagues, and mentor new teachers.  Without these vitiating exchanges stagnation becomes inevitable.  The teaching we do – the service we render our students – justifies and enriches all that we invest in our small literary enclaves; it keeps us from getting mired in an echo chamber or confusing course releases with scholarly status and merit.  Any true pedagogical growth proceeds from this central charism of service: to my students, and to their continued development as individuals with the tools to express the authority of their own experience with confidence and skill.

 

Works Cited & Referenced

Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2010. Print.

Hayakawa, S I. Language in Thought and Action. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978. Print.

Sword, Helen. Stylish Academic Writing. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2012. Print.