Teaching Philosophy

Carey Millsap-Spears

 

 

Teaching is more than making syllabi and lecture notes; it’s a hands-on job that requires a great deal of personal dedication and toil. And for teachers of English it is that and more because students are intimidated by English teachers. Students fear red marks on their papers because of past failures, so one of my main goals as a teacher is to make my students feel comfortable with writing. I want them to embrace writing as a way of thinking and to learn the basics in the process. I want them to learn how to use simple, concise writing styles that will benefit them in other courses and life in general. “Good prose is like a window pane,” George Orwell tells his readers in Why I Write, and I want my students to create many clear panes over the course of their academic careers.

 

To accomplish my goals, I encourage class discussion of writing and collaborative work consisting of peer review and group presentations or activities. I bring in copies of student work to serve as examples of good and sometimes bad prose. In my developmental classes, students learn basic sentences, paragraphing, and essay structure as well as standard written English and grammar, while freshman composition students learn a variety of rhetorical modes including problem/solution, cause/effect, and argument along with MLA citation.

 

My basic pedagogy was influenced by my teachers and mentors as well as published works including Border Talk: Writing and Knowing the Two-Year College by Howard Tinberg and A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers by Erika Lindemann. I agree with Tinberg’s assertion that writing is conceptual and therefore can be molded to fit different situations. He advocates perspective, point of view, thesis, and voice as the main components of good writing, and so do I. When I begin teaching writing at any class level, I strive to let my students find their own voices. I keep my comments positive, and at the same time, point out any potential problems with evidence, logic, and overall correctness, thereby helping the students fit their own perspectives into sentence, paragraph, or essay form.

 

I teach paragraphing and basic essay structure in a lively, pain-free setting. I take Lindemann’s advice: “The study of English doesn’t need to be distasteful for our students, if we can prevent them from constantly associating their use of language with mistakes, penalties, and humiliation….” To that end, students get personal one-on-one time with me every class meeting either during peer review, invention, or drafting, and I let them know that I am available outside of class as well. I push revision and journal writing as a basis for overall good prose, and I use as much technology as is available to me including Smartlabs and the Internet.

 

I endeavor to create a friendly atmosphere because I can remember what it was like to be a first-generation college student, as many of my current students are. I financed my own education and faced many personal challenges in the process. I understand what many community college students tackle; many of them juggle work, school, and family concerns, so I try to help by making them look forward to our weekly writing routines.

 

Writing, like teaching, is a journey, and I spent six years learning the trade of writing. I wrote for newspapers, consumer publications, and trade books. Even with all the excitement and deadline-driven adrenaline, I felt my career lacked purpose and meaning. I found that meaning, however, in the faces of my composition students when I picked up an adjunct position almost four years after leaving graduate school. I was able to use my skills as a writer and editor to help those students. From that point on I knew what I was meant to do: Teach.