Writing as Discovery, Voice, and Community

In my own life, I have experienced writing as a means of discovery, insight, and critical awareness about myself and the world around me. I don’t expect students to share my love of writing (although a few usually do!), but most students respond to the enthusiasm, joy, and sense of humor I bring to the classroom. I want learning to be something we do together, with plenty of laughter and cheer along the way. My goals are to help students grow as readers, critical thinkers, and writers through writing projects that are meaningful to them and that support transfer of knowledge to diverse contexts. It is important to me that my students feel seen, heard, and cared about, and I am committed to creating welcoming classroom spaces. Ultimately, I hope students experience, in some way, shape, or form, writing as a source of insight and grow more confident in their writing voices.

Teaching Writing in the Age of AI

Given the profound and evolving societal impacts of AI technologies, AI literacy is now interwoven throughout my courses. I want students to gain an understanding of how generative AI may be used in helpful ways, such as tutoring-style assistance, while also understanding the very real risks it poses to their learning, depending on how they use it. But AI is just one of many technologies impacting learning—and our daily lives. Because I believe it’s valuable for students to learn about these technologies from a variety of perspectives and for them to write about trends shaping their daily lives, my first-year writing courses are now organized thematically around the relationship between digital technologies, human relationships, and learning. By the time students complete my courses, they’ve gained knowledge of these topics, had a chance to critically examine their own views, and considered how they want to relate to these technologies moving forward.

Courses Taught

• First-Year Composition
• Second-Level Composition / Research Writing
• ALP / Co-Requisite Writing Support
• Developmental Writing
• Literature
• Creative Writing

ALP/co-requisite writing support courses are taken alongside first-year composition and provide students with additional instruction and support.

Teaching Experience

I have taught composition and rhetoric, accelerated learning, developmental writing, literature, and creative writing across community colleges, universities, open-enrollment institutions, and online and remote learning environments.

• Clark State College, English Instructor, 2024–present
• Columbus State Community College, Adjunct English Instructor, 2020–2024
• Academy of Art University, Liberal Arts Faculty, 2008–2024
• Ohlone Community College, Adjunct English and Gender & Women’s Studies Instructor, 2007–2018
• San Francisco State University, Lecturer, English Department, 2010–2011
• Chabot Community College, Adjunct English Instructor, 2008

Assignment Examples

These representative examples illustrate approaches I have used across teaching contexts; assignments and materials are adapted to individual courses and institutional requirements.

The Braided & Multimodal Literary Analysis

Course context: Second-level composition and literature

Focus: Literary analysis

In this assignment, students are asked to take an exploratory approach to understanding a literary work by asking questions to which they don’t necessarily have answers but that can help illuminate interpretive possibilities—rather than focusing on a single interpretation. They are invited to incorporate personal experience and experiment with structure. Students are also asked to incorporate a multimodal element, such as visual images, video, or audio, and to reflect on the significance of this element to their exploration. To inspire ideas, students listen to poetry podcasts and read examples of the creative nonfiction “braided essay” form, which supports both personal reflection and deep analysis. I find that this approach to literary analysis lessens the pressure to come up with a “correct” interpretation and instead helps students to develop confidence in their own ideas and voices, which is what I ultimately hope students will take away from my classes.

Students practice:

• exploratory literary interpretation
• personal reflection and textual analysis
• multimodal composition
• writing beyond the traditional thesis-driven essay

Critically Evaluating AI Output

Course context: First-year and second-level composition

Focus: Writing process and feedback

I don’t just want students to understand the potential benefits and risks of AI for learning in an abstract sense. I want them to have a chance to use it in the context of the course so that they can practice critically evaluating its output. Students request AI feedback on their writing and reflect on it in relation to feedback from peers, tutors, and instructors. They are asked to consider AI as one of several sources of feedback and to practice making decisions about their own writing, or put another way, to take ownership of their revision process and their writing. By the end of the semester, after observing how AI sometimes offers helpful feedback but sometimes misunderstands the writing context or assignment or makes suggestions that would alter their own voice or ideas, I find that students approach the AI feedback more critically and are more likely to consider which suggestions would help and which would not. Ultimately, this is what I’m hoping for—that they will not trust AI implicitly and demonstrate the skills to think both rhetorically and critically about AI output.

Students practice:

• rhetorical evaluation of AI feedback
• comparison of feedback from peers, tutors, instructors, and AI
• revision decision-making
• attention to voice and assignment context