courses
My teaching practice reflects my belief that understanding and utilizing technology is an important part of university education and that utilizing internet technology is an important facet of writing and communication. Therefore, I use various technologies as teaching tools, including wikis, discussion boards, and content management systems. As often as it is practical, I also use open source technology in my teaching, professional, and personal practice (as a matter of fact, this website was built based on an open source design template).
I also believe strongly in an open, discussion-based classroom that is student-centered and process-oriented. Mastering writing is a lifelong process, not something that can be memorized in a sixteen week semester. I aim to give students tools, approaches, and understanding that will hopefully complement their previous and future learning, so that they can eventually have a toolbox full of writing techniques appropriate for any situation. I prefer to teach through a combination of modelling and workshopping to give students access to both masters and their peers.
Here are some courses I have taught:
- Composition I: I have recently designed a course on space and place. Students write several essays, including one that analyzes how their home's space, design, and usage reflects the values of their family; they also visit South Beach to complete a Situationst dérive that analyzes the psychogeography of South Beach (with a grant from the Office of Civic and Community Engagement). They are compiling their results into a Multimedia Project that will be archived in the Richter Library's Special Collections.
- Composition II: My current Research and Writing course focuses on the Disney Corporation. Disney has pervaded popular culture since the company’s inception in 1923. Producing the first-ever animated feature film, Disney has changed the way we think about many aspects of culture—among them film, television, music, vacation, theme parks, consumer products, and customer service. Through analysis of academic writing about Disney as well as primary and secondary research into the world of Disney, this course takes a multi-disciplinary approach to expose the vast influence of Disney on popular culture.
- Composition II: I previously taught a second-semester Composition course that uses HBO's "The Wire" as a primary text, along with "The Corner," the ethnography written by "Wire" authors David Simon & Edwards Burns. My colleague Zach Hickman and I designed the course together; one assignment asks students across classes to blog about their response to watching episodes of "The Wire".
- Advanced Composition: I designed an Advanced Composition course where students utilize blogging to explore the various roles of technology in our culture. During the second semester of teaching this course, I also integrated etxensive wiki writing into the course more fully.
- Advanced Business Communication: In this course, I assign students to record interviews with individuals who have a career the students are interested in pursuing. Then, students work in groups to create a comprehensive podcast about similar careers.