Teaching Philosophy and Strategies Essay
My goal as a teacher is to encourage students to become lifelong, independent learners. I do this by connecting the classroom to students’ real-life experiences, by creating a context of engagement and participation, and by modeling myself as a passionate lifelong learner.
I believe that students learn by doing and that the more writing assignments can be connected to real-life contexts the more engaged they will be as learners. I employ a multiple-draft process pedagogy, in which students are encouraged to think of their writing as an ongoing process rather than a virtuoso performance. To encourage the transition from description to analysis, I often begin composition courses with a personal, autobiographical writing assignment. Students quickly come to see what they have unconsciously always known-that the world is a system of signs which we are constantly reading, interpreting, and analyzing. Since students are often more “visually” than “textually” literate, I also incorporate advertisements, media images, films, and television into my teaching, to encourage the attitude that analysis is not something English teachers make students do to short stories, novels, and poems, but a basic, fundamental attitude toward life, a way of understanding oneself and one’s culture.
My development as a teacher has involved a gradual movement away from a traditional, teacher-centered approach to a “classroom as workshop” approach, in which I balance the roles of leader and facilitator. I still enjoy lecturing and leading discussions and these definitely have their place in my teaching approach. As I have gained experience in the classroom, however, I am able to yield some of my control, enabling a more fertile place for innovation and student participation. In my experience, the more students make their own choices and pursue their own goals, the more they become personally invested in learning. I tell my composition students that their classroom is a writing workshop which will be run democratically, and in which they will be called upon to play an active role each time we meet. I frequently divide my classes into groups of four for small-group work and discussion. Small groups encourage participation, and prepare students for the type of interpersonal communication they are likely to encounter in the world of work. I model or bring in examples of a particular writing concept-effective transitions, active vs. passive voice, or editing for wordiness, and then I assign students to edit and revise each other’s drafts with this as their guiding principle. Even students who feel they are weak writers come to see that they can recognize and produce clear, lucid, powerful prose.
In teaching argument and research, I encourage students choose topics which have some personal relevance to them and which they will be able to stick with for the duration of the term. At the same time, students need models and examples. So as students learn to narrow down and begin to conduct research, take a position and defend it, incorporate counterarguments and propose solutions, I model this process by choosing a central topic which is current and controversial. In the past, working mothers, welfare reform, affirmative action, and bilingual education have worked very well. Such topics allow students to distinguish between opinions and well-reasoned arguments, to think clearly through an issue and form reasonable, critical positions.
Finally, I strive to be available to my students personally to aid their writing process. I employ an electronic mailing list in every course I teach, which facilitates one-on-one communication and creates an alternative forum for class-wide discussion of course issues.
I hope that I have been able to convey my deep love of teaching and my commitment to and empathy for my students. I try to find innovative and experimental approaches to invest them personally in their learning so that they can achieve their goals and feel good about them in the process.
