Year 1 Reflection

I am always surprised by what I can learn and how much I can change in a year. As I have moved from clueless outsider to legitimate peripheral participant in the field of writing studies, I have transformed. That is to say, I have done exactly what I hope to help my own students do, and I continue to do so. This portfolio is an opportunity to pause in the middle of this process of transformation and look back and forth: at where I came from, how I got here, and where I might go.

 

I came here wanting to teach, and I still do. I was unsure about whether I wanted to pursue a future in academia, and though there have been moments where I felt that I did, I am still unsure. I came here loving writing centers, and I finished the year disillusioned and discouraged but not entirely dissuaded from pursuing writing center work. I came here curious and excited, and I still am, each new concept I learn raising new questions and sparking new ideas. I wrote in my September 2018 goals statement that “I imagine it will take much of my first year to answer these questions [about areas of interest] and narrow down the possibilities,” and I think that was an understatement. When questions were answered and possibilities winnowed away, new, more specific questions and possibilities bubbled up to take their place. After a year, I don’t feel any more certain; I feel like the soupy mess of biomatter rearranging inside the chrysalis. Learning is a hell of a drug.

 

But I see threads and I can pick them up and follow them, and I can weave them, and I can create my own path from this cloth.  I see teaching writing as not so different from teaching language, because each new discourse we enter is much like a new language and culture. I see teaching face-to-face as almost always improvable by the best practices of teaching online, because clear and explicit instructional text, personal engagement with students, and accessibility could benefit any classroom. I see practices for equity and justice designed and advocated for the few as beneficial to all, as when universal design interventions like video captioning serve not only hearing-impaired students, but also those doing their homework on the train without headphones, or when clarifications and resources meant to help enculturate first-generation students clear up misunderstandings for others. Not only do I have the knowledge and skill to observe these connections, but I am also prepared act on them: to create and teach lessons arising from them, to design research questions to find evidence to support or revise them, and to write and design documents that embody my beliefs and values.

 

I chose the five projects included in this portfolio both to demonstrate the ways in which I am meeting learning outcomes and to try and knit together the work I’ve done involving tutoring, teaching, and writing studies into some kind of cohesive narrative or persona. Tidy narratives are usually false, and presenting a cohesive persona has never been my strong suit. But emerging from the piles of paper and PDFs is something like a teacher-scholar, committed to helping all students develop their theory and practice of writing, in the classroom, in the writing center, or online. Though I know that this year I will pursue the TESOL certificate and further study of rhetoric and discourse, I’m not sure what the future holds for me beyond that. I do know, however, that I will strive to act based on my commitment to learning and literacy, as well as my own curiosity about what and how writing is and does for each and all of us.