Statement of Personal Teaching Philosophy

Although I'm still an aspiring teacher, teaching has been a core part of my academic activities and goals. From working as a tutor in multiple subjects at a high school to being an SI leader for freshman English courses at California State University Northridge, I've always found the process of helping students to be deeply rewarding. It's exciting to ignite interest and passion in an academic setting, creating a space where everyone can share their own unique perspectives. But beyond the joy of getting to geek out about everything from Jane Austen novels to the rhetoric employed by a social media campaign, teaching is so satisfying to me because I treat it as an opportunity to utilize education as an equalizer. By centering marginalized experiences and challenging existing norms, more students can see themselves represented and be motivated to bridge the gaps that are often found in their education. My personal favorite experiences were in the SI program, where freshmen who didn't always feel prepared to be college students went from hesitant and unwilling to eager to engage and learn because of the work the professors and I did. Thus teaching can either worsen the inequalities found in the classroom, or it can improve them, and knowing that if I do my job right I can accomplish the latter makes me certain that this is the career for me. 

 

My goal as a teacher has two components: an academic one and a more general one applicable to daily life. Academically, I want to give students confidence and power in the classroom. The classroom will be a democratic safe space in which ideas can be explored and shared, with an understanding that all of us come from different backgrounds and thus bring something unique to the table. I want to allow students to focus on their own identities in relation to academia and the works we look at, and to see themselves as valuable writers. Ultimately, I want to personalize my course in such a way that as many students as possible can see growth in themselves after a semester working together. More generally, however, I also want to teach people how to be critical thinkers. When it comes to the dissemination and interpretation of art and knowledge, I feel many students are failed by the education system. My aim is to teach students how to examine and comprehend all types of information, approaching every text in an analytical manner, to improve critical thinking skills. 

 

In my own classroom I would utilize a multitude of pedagogies, with my focus being on: process, literature, and new media pedagogy. I would have students examine various types of text and media, and learn to identify how each form of composition comes with its own elements, expectations, rules, and unique strengths and weaknesses. Students would both look at traditional texts, particularly novels, as well as various forms of new media. I think preparing students for the myriad of careers that involve traversing online space and online composition is very important, but I also don't believe the novel is a wholly irrelevant form or one that isn't worth thinking and caring about. My hope would be that by looking at a diverse range of texts, students would internalize the ability to adapt their analysis to whatever future mediums they come into contact with, since once class cannot cover everything. Before students finished the course, I would want to ensure that they were familiar with visual, textual, and audio analysis. 

 

Process pedagogy is relatively new to me, but incorporating it in the classroom is definitely an important part of achieving my teaching goals. Focusing on the process of writing rather than the product, I'd aim to include lots of low-stake assignments and meta writing for self-reflection. I'd want students to look at their writing from the perspective of a growth mindset, with plenty of opportunities to revise. The goal would be to view the writing process not as a series of failures to be avoided and feared, but a learning process in which mistakes lead to improvement and better understanding. 

 

To achieve my goals and be true to what I believe are the best pedagogies, I would design my classroom thusly: The course would begin with the close reading and analysis of an accessible book, voted on by the students from a selected list. We would read certain sections together, so I could demonstrate what a close read looks like. There would be low-stake assignments where students would write about and reflect on the reading. While reading the book, I would begin teaching the basics of analytical writing, as well as how to write essays. How introductory my explanations are would depend on the class. After the first essay is submitted, we’d take a pause on looking at texts and discuss editing, revising, and how to do peer review, before taking some time to work on revisions, often working in groups. With a meta-writing assignment, I’d ask students to consider their own writing process as well as the elements the novel utilized to convey its message. Once the novel module was complete, I’d move into a visual module, in which the conversation naturally shifts from the elements a novel could utilize to the elements that more visual mediums can. Depending on time allowances, we would watch a film or two, and some commercials. Students could then choose to write a compare and contrast essay between two of the texts we examined, or do a close reading of one in particular. These would also have a revision process, but that might need to happen outside of the classroom. The third module would be on digital media. We’d have a conversation on social media, how knowledge and ideas are spread, and read a couple of studies; some of which were about social media, and others that are often spread on social media but used incorrectly. At this point I would introduce the concept of an ePortfolio. I’d have students do their third major assignment as a blog post, encouraging them to experiment with format, include visuals, and even potentially film themselves and incorporate it into the assignment. This might be too ambitious in terms of time, but the final assessment would be asking the students to pick the best of their work, including the reflections, revise them, and either create a physical or digital portfolio, each with their own set of expectations. While I believe most students would be more interested in creating an ePortfolio, I think having that option for a freshman class who has varying levels of comfort with technology would be fair. 

 

My personal goal as a teacher is to create a classroom that is as equitable as possible. When it comes to grading, deadlines, and various classroom expectations, these can be difficult to manage for students in complex situations. I want to balance giving the class as many opportunities to succeed as possible, while still ensuring there is a level of accountability and motivation on both my part and the students’. My hope is a democratic approach that focuses effort and growth over product will ensure the best outcome for students and create a healthy learning environment, but I’m also ready to adjust my approach as I learn more from teaching.