Teaching Philosophy
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My college education was a transformative experience. Attending Miami Dade College
and Florida International University introduced me to a new culture, one in which critical
thinking, diversity, and engaged citizenship were valued and promoted. My professors not only
taught me content and skills, but they helped change my values and the way I related to others.
My understanding of my role as an educator is rooted in my experiences and my beliefs in the
purpose and potential of a college education. Toni Morrison, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and
teacher, has told her students: “When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.” Morrison’s words
encapsulate my motivation for teaching and the foundation of my approach to teaching Writing & Rhetoric courses.
In many ways, a writing course is a thinking course. It is an opportunity for students to
pay more attention to their own thinking and explore the ways in which rhetoric can change a
person’s thinking. I ask students to practice analyzing rhetoric, explore different perspectives,
and reflect on their experiences as consumers of information. I also emphasize that learning
about one’s writing process and skills, much like learning another language, requires practice
and experimentation. More importantly, it is a process that happens gradually. As my students
experiment with their writing, not only do I serve as a teacher to the class, but as a mentor for
each student. I believe that these one-on-one relationships are crucial in shaping how my
students think about their writing. Class discussions and workshops are essential to my teaching method, as I believe that by speaking, students can engage with their thoughts in greater detail, and in turn, they can hear how others respond; thus, getting a better sense of how their words affect an audience.
I emphasize to my students that writing is a way of organizing their thoughts, of figuring
out what they think. As composition scholar Andrea Lunsford points out, writing is epistemic – it helps us know what we know. Through speaking and writing, we examine and revise our
thoughts in an attempt to make them clear to ourselves and others. I also place importance on
revisions as part of the drafting process. I want students to experience writing fully, with its
breakthroughs and frustrations, which is why I scaffold every writing assignment with lowstakes assignments, drafts, and reflections, so students can return to their drafts with a different perspective.
Overall, I try to teach the importance of writing and rhetoric in today’s world. Once we
see the power of rhetoric around us, we can be more careful and intentional with our thoughts,
words and actions, and we can make better choices about how we engage with the world. I hope that my students will take Toni Morrison’s advice and use their knowledge to not only free
themselves, but to free others as well.
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