Experience Summary
I recently completed graduate work in English at Texas A&M University, where I studied primarily in the digital humanities and digital pedagogy: I wrote my master's thesis on the new role of images in digital studies and worked on a project dealing with the integration of blogs and wikis in composition classrooms. I obtained assistantship positions for both of my two years at Texas A&M, first working as the assistant editor for Kosmas, a peer-reviewed journal, then teaching two sections of English 104, a composition class for college freshmen. My GPR in graduate school was 4.0. I received my bachelor's degree from a small yet renowned liberal arts college, the University of Dallas, to which I received a full tuition scholarship. I tutored, reported for the campus newspaper, and worked for the school library during my undergraduate years, and graduate cum laude with a degree in English.
Teaching Style
I love teaching -- standing in front of a class of students, feeling the pressure of their attention and responsibility for their education -- but I think I enjoy tutoring more. Even when I was teaching a class of twenty-five college freshmen, I tried to move things in that direction, giving my students incentives to come by during my office hours (hard to do with such busy students). In the classroom, I made good use of the SMART boards (interactive computer displays), although I also enjoyed just talking to the students: I made the classroom a place that was relaxed and open to free discussion, but one which also had a purpose (basically, to learn to write).
I enjoy teaching and working with children: my parents adopted my two little sisters when I was a teenager and decided to home school them, so I helped out with their education.