NFE Reflections Dugan 2008-9
From CTLpedia
MCC New Faculty Experience Reflections
Jeanne Dugan
English
Mesa Community College
Contact me (mailto:jdugan@mcc.edu)
Contents |
Teaching
Courses Taught 2008-9
English 101; English 102
My Teaching Philosophy
Statement of Teaching Philosophy
Jeanne Dugan
The sublime part of teaching writing is that it gives you the opportunity to synthesize all the parts of your life: the scholarly, the personal, the social, the political. The not-so-sublime part is all those papers to be evaluated. Because of the nature of the courses I teach, my students are diverse in every way possible. Teaching is, of course, a rhetorical act in itself; and I want my teaching to shift, change, evolve according to the diversity of my students: all undergraduates but of different ages and states, goals, majors, genders, races, backgrounds, competencies, and senses of humor. My approach to teaching writing derives from these premises:
□ Writing is difficult for all, student and professional alike;
□ Writing is construction of meaning (without writing there would be no critical thinking);
□ Writing is a social activity, not one reserved for the lone man in the attic on a rainy day;
□ Writing acts and writing successes are defined differently according to individual writers and to varying rhetorical situations, purposes and audiences;
□ Learning to write is simply a life-long process, not a semester-long process;
□ Writing requires confidence from the writer, especially to develop voice(s) and authority
To reflect these often competing demands, my courses use a variety of pedagogies, ranging from short lectures to long collaborations. My goal is to construct a writing course that offers both flexibility and rigor to undergraduates. I want to create as de-centered a class as possible so that students can learn actively and cooperatively. Since learning to write is a life-long process, I offer each student one more way to approach writing. Of the many strategies I reveal to them, each student will find 1 or 2 or 10 that she/he can incorporate into her/his own evolving processes and changing rhetorical situations. The degree to which I emphasize certain approaches depends on the discourse communities served by the particular course. My methods include various social epistemic approaches like collaborative projects, small and large group work, student-led class discussions, peer reviews, and student-teacher conferences. I add other invention processes to these: focused-free writing, looping, outlining, mapping, individual and group revision, zero drafting, and student-led teaching.
Students often come to college with the nasty habit of writing five-paragraph “themes” which betray no evidence of a human writer with a voice and point of view and which appear to be written to no one in particular. Identifying audiences—always shifting—is a large part of the task, while identifying a writer’s voice is another. This means that students must quit being afraid of committing words and ideas to paper. So I encourage them to argue, read, rethink, reveal, and revise. Writing takes confidence, and sometimes my role as teacher includes encouragement and praise. Too often university students have had naysayers sitting in their stands which results in writer’s block. Part of my job is to help students overcome writer’s block so that they can discover what they think and mean. Furthermore, a curriculum based on cultural studies approaches and principles helps students to find content, to learn to argue issues and to think critically, and to overcome the misplaced emphasis on “form” they may have experienced in many of their writing courses.
Technology can be used successfully in writing classrooms, but only if its use is based upon sound, well considered instructional goals. Too often I see teachers rush into computer mediated classrooms or develop online courses for no particular reason. It is not my wish to do that. I wish to introduce computers when they enhance the learning goals unique to a course. I have taught in computer-mediated classrooms, I have studied how better to design and make use of computer-mediated classrooms, and I have used “out of classroom” technologies like Blackboard. My goal is to combine the best of both worlds: to work in a well designed classroom with computers for every student, but computers that can be ignored when group discussion is necessary. My goal is also to use technology in such a way that it does not create another elitist barrier to education; I have been in the uncomfortable position of teaching computer mediated courses to students who did not know the course was to be such and who did not have home access to a computer (as did the majority of the other students). I use technology when I can use it fairly and wisely; I use technology when it enhances cooperative and active learning strategies.
An important guideline for me is George Hillocks’ view of teaching writing as a reflective activity, research which foreshadowed more recent writing theory and pedagogy. Hillocks’ work emphasizes the reflective work necessary to both students and teachers in writing courses. It also develops the concept of the zone of proximal development, a concept I stay conscious of in each course I teach. Reaching and maintaining the right balance—not too difficult, not too easy—in meeting needs and abilities of students are keys to effective learning. My success in teaching depends upon my ability to anticipate my audiences’ profiles (which can vary from term to term even in the same course) and to adjust to unanticipated audiences. Furthermore, I have been influenced heavily by the discipline of cultural studies, particularly the work of Barry Brummett, who emphasizes the need for practical, civic-based pedagogy and theory in rhetoric-based courses. Consequently, my writing courses combine process approaches, including reflections of teacher and student; topical structures of writing assignments and reading materials; and the production of increasingly difficult and increasingly public discourse.
Professional Development
Professional Development Activities 2008-9
LIST/DESCRIBE VARIOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES YOU PARTICIPATED IN 2008-9
Attendance at College Composition and Communication Conference. San Francisco, CA, March 2009.
“Facing the Dead Line: Teaching Drugs and Alcohol to Middle School, High School, and College Students.” Arizona English Teachers Association Conference, Mesa, AZ, October 2008.
“Making the World: Moral Choices, Pedagogy, and Civic Discourse.”Rhetoric Society of America Biennial Conference, Seattle, WA, May 2008.
Numerous presentations at local high schools and churches as a volunteer representative of the Arizona Partnership for a Drug Free America. Speech delivered at the AZ PartnerUp fundraiser event. Discussion of Arizona drug issues on various local television programs.
1. If Summer Project grant is approved, I will focus on the question of "Whiteness" in terms of race theory. I would like to develop a conference presentation and a journal article based upon this research, particularly in terms of how whiteness influences classroom assumptions about and discussions of race.
2. Funds permitting, I will attend the Conference on College Composition and Communication as well as present there if my proposal is accepted. This is a collaborative proposal related to unusal courses that can offer students more interesting and motivating ways to learn to write. I will be discussing the course I developed on The Culture and Rhetoric of Sports. (I would also like to bring a version of this course to MCC).
3. I will submit a conference proposal to Rhetoric Society of America again; I will attend that conference.
4. I will continue to stay abreast of new developments in the fields of rhetoric and writing through reading.
5. It is my hope that I will be able to expand my course offerings.
Reflection on my Experience in the NFE Community
Link to PowerPoint presentation uploaded at SlideShare
Understanding of MCC Culture Gained through NFE
I became aware of the many resources offered to students to help them succeed in college and I was introduced to many positive, proactive college leaders.
Impact of NFE on my Approach to Teaching
It was interesting to hear about others' issues in the classrooms; this made me aware of the variety of issues in the variety of disciplines represented. However, the pedagogies I have adopted over the years tend to be specific to writing environments as are the theoretical underpinnings to these courses; these are often different from other teachers' needs and approaches.
Reflection on My Future as a Member of the MCC Community
I have put my name forward to become a Faculty Senator, and I hope I may contribute to the college mission via this representation. I am now participating on a hiring committee in my department, and I hope to be able to contribute in that way in the future as I bring to the college a great deal of experience in this area. As a member of the English Department Literature and Culture Committee, I will--with a colleague--draft a proposal for some curricular changes in the department; we have chosen to write this proposal this summer. As a member of the English Department Composition Committee, I am actively involved in revisions to the MCC Writing Certificate. I have also joined an ad hoc committee looking at possible "zero tolerance" policy changes in order to propose new ways to deal with threatening, abusive, and/or potentially violent students.
Categories: NFE | 2008-9
