My experience includes a teaching assistantship at Knox College for Beginning Fiction Writing course under Professor Barbara Tannert-Smith. I have led numerous classes, workshops and discussions in undergraduate and graduate study. My subjects include English, college essay writing, -creative writing, public speaking, literature, Essay editing, expository writing, grammar and mechanics.
My hope is to foster calm, confidence, success, and most importantly, unexpected joy to the students I will be working with. Reading and writing (both creatively and analytically) can be overwhelming, intimidating, even boring. I want to battle that stalemate. I want to help students find what works for them in terms of study habits. I want to help students recognize their strengths in order to conquer their perceived weaknesses. Conquering a subject, or subjects, that frighten or breeds indifference to a student, can be one of the most invigorating and propulsive experiences possible. I will work to my utmost ability to make that happen with calm, humor, and listening to those I meet.
Literary scholarship and the many facets of writing have interested me since I was a child. My father and I would make up stories together when I was about three years old, and my passion for storytelling, its methods, and its power has never ceased to amaze me. As my scholarship continued, I came to admire and respect the mechanical and stylistic elements of not only creative writing, but also expository/persuasive writing. The latter was much more difficult for me. Upon finding my voice and my strength to make an engaging case in essay-writing. I discovered a wellspring of respect for myself, and hope that I could continue to learn about language, and refine my skills in the process. I am not just interested in reading and writing in an academic sense. One of my favorite sources of analysis and pleasure comes from the story-telling of the nouveau Golden Era of television (Mad Men, Deadwood, Better Call Saul, et cetera), and also the story-telling of professional wrestling. I find these multimedia examples especially useful in trying to crack difficult concepts and craft choices in print literature and writing. I think extrapolating such concepts, frameworks, rules, and methods from other disciplines (television, video games, marketing and PR strategies) help illuminate literature and writing in accessible, exciting ways.
