At York, I’m currently teaching ENG 272, World Englishes, and a section of WRIT 302: Writing and Research for Science, Mathematics and Technology. In this course, we’re focusing on writing review articles, as part of my continuing effort to bring authentic academic genres into the writing classroom. In Spring 2022, I’ll be teaching ENG 311, our department’s theory course, and I’ll be working with my students on narratology and story (re)telling.

Teaching at York 

ENG 125 Composition I: Introduction to College Writing

ENG 126: Composition II: Writing about Literature

ENG 270 Introduction to Grammar and Syntax

ENG 272 World Englishes (I designed and originated this course)

ENG 311 Critical Studies in English

ENG 370 Advanced Grammar and Style

ENG 371 History of the English Language

ENG 375 Sociolinguistics

ENG 399 Special Topics: Women’s Language and Writing

WRIT 302 Research and Writing for Science, Mathematics and Technology

WRIT 303 Research and Writing for the Professional Programs

WRIT 304 Research and Writing for English Majors

ENG 410 Seminar in English: Investigating our Canons

Various Independent Study courses mentoring advanced undergraduate students, including English Honors students. Topics included Jean Rhys’s portrayal of “intersectional women” in the context of imperialistic master narratives, and Narratives of Masculinity, focusing on Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues, “Immigration, Education and Generational Conflict” and “Language, Class and Education.”

Courses at Rutgers (2001-2007)

Basic Composition 100; Basic Composition with Reading 100R; Expository Writing 101; College Research and Writing 201; Writing Center Internship 356.

Teaching Philosophy

As rewarding as it is to think about how far our students come as their pursue their college studies, my teaching philosophy is centered in the idea that it is our general education classrooms where the real transformation that public, undergraduate education affords begins to take place. Whether it is in a first year composition course or an introductory course in a discipline, it’s in these spaces that students are first introduced to the multiplicity and complexity of academic ideas, discourses and writers; it is in these spaces where our students realize “I could do this, or be this,” often shifting far beyond what they and their families imagined for them as they entered college. My teaching philosophy and practice is thus built upon providing our students with a rigorous, respectful and diverse experience in our general education classrooms, which they can pursue as they move towards the completion of their degrees. This diversity and rigor might come from the genres of texts that students engage with and produce, or it might come from the voices and languages that they encounter among students and texts in those classrooms.

At York College, alongside teaching our first-year and junior-level composition courses, I have also originated the design of several of my own courses across writing and grammar studies, applied linguistics, and literary theory, including my courses “Introduction to English Grammar and Syntax,” “World Englishes” and “Critical Methods in English.” In the World Englishes class, which I am currently teaching, I provide low- and high-stakes contexts in which students explore their linguistic identities, drawing in methods and theories from Sociolinguistics, TESOL and Post-Colonial Studies to frame my students’ writing assignments, which include literacy narratives, short stories and theorized reflections. In the Spring 2019 semester, I will teach a seminar to our graduating English majors on Canonicity, using speculative fiction texts as the subject matter alongside theories of the canon from literary studies. In this course, we will explore what makes a canon, and examine how what is excluded plays as great a role in constructing our canons as what is included. This way of thinking—of paying attention to what is absent as well as what is present in the constructions that govern our academic lives—has informed my teaching in all my courses.