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Teaching Philosophy

In Teaching Writing, we drafted teaching philosophies for our midterm portfolio, then completed them for our final portfolio. For the midterm version, we were asked to respond to simplified versions of Fulkerson's (2005) four questions  for understanding composition pedagogies:

  • Axiological: what makes writing good?

  • Process: how do texts come into existence? 

  • Pedagogy: how does one teach hs/college students effectively? 

  • Epistemological: how do you know that?

For the final version, we were provided with more guiding questions, suggestions, and models, but few requirements or specifications (see full assignment below). Our goals were to cover three areas--goals and mission, teacher/student roles, and responding to/evaluating student work--and to include specific details of assignments and activities demonstrating our philosophies. 

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Below, I've included both versions, in chronological order.

The final teaching philosophy responded to this assignment:

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WRD 540 Teaching Philosophy

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As a quick perusal of job ads will reveal, employers rarely provide specifications for a teaching philosophy beyond identifying constraints on length. Most often, teaching philosophies are between one and two single-spaced pages. Given that norm, it would make sense for your final teaching philosophy to adhere to the 1-2 page limit. If you are planning to submit an application for WRD TAP program (open to MA students in WRD only), keep in mind that you are required to submit a 500-750 word teaching philosophy. 

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In addition to perusing the sample teaching philosophies available on the ePortfolios I've linked to and here, you might also consider the following points as you shape your teaching philosophy into a "final" draft: 

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Prepare a Teaching Philosophy

Your philosophy needs to be coherent and organized, but still personal and thoughtful. There is no particularly “right” way of organizing material, which might cover the three areas below and/or might include other content. What's most important is that you provide specific details and/or examples so that your reader(s) get a good sense of what students might experience in your writing classes. 

 

Goals and Mission

  • What do you see as your purpose as a teacher in liberal arts education and in the world of language?

  • How do you want your class to impact your students as writers, students, and/or individuals?

  • What concepts, theories, and research inform your teaching plans and goals?

  • What sorts of activities will take place in your classroom, and how do they support your classroom goals?
     

Teacher-Student Roles

  • What concepts, theories, philosophies, and/or ideas influence you as a teacher?

  • What experiences, positive and negative, have influenced you as a teacher?

  • How do you see yourself as a teacher? What roles do you want to take, when and where and why?

  • How do you see yourself changing as a teacher, from any kind of teaching experiences you’ve had in the past, to now, and in the future? Why and how do teachers change?

 

Responding and Evaluating

  • What are your styles and philosophies of responding to and evaluating students, and where do they come from?

  • What’s the difference or the relationship between response and evaluation/grading?

  • How do you decide how much to respond, when to respond, and in what form to respond?

  • What’s the ideal connection between teacher response and peer response in a writing course? What are the roles of teacher as responder and peer as responder?

  • What’s the primary goal when responding to student work? What are the second, third, and least important goals?

  • Where do individual conference and oral response to student papers and student performance fit into your overall philosophy of response?

In reflection...

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My final teaching philosophy represents neither my best writing nor my current teaching philosophy. Just five months after I wrote it, this teaching philosophy is already a bit outdated, lagging behind my learning and development. I already knew I'd want to revise my teaching philosophy before using it to apply for jobs, so I didn't try that hard to make it perfect, just to make it accurate. And it was mostly accurate to my beliefs at the time that I wrote it, for my final portfolio in Teaching Writing. There were already pieces missing, as you can see from the difference between my midterm and final versions, elements of passion and compassion that are crucial to who I am as a teacher but that I couldn't seem to fit with my constraints on length and other content.

 

In addition to those elements, my sense of myself and my goals as a teacher has expanded and deepened through taking Teaching Writing Online, working with Hannah Thornby to present a roundtable about assignment writing at the Teaching and Learning conference, and studenting with many teachers. It's hard to articulate exactly what I would change about this statement and what I would keep: that's why I need to write a new one. I retain my commitments to overt instruction, to agency, to practice, and to teaching students strategies for rhetorical independence and creativity. But I would add commitments to access and equity, to evidence, and to ongoing reflection and revision. Likely before I complete another draft, even further considerations will emerge. Keep an eye out for the next installment!

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