Experience Summary
For the past five years, I have worked in Minnesota as a Technical Writer for a small healthcare company and informally tutored family members and friends. From January, 1993 through August, 2000 I taught Writing: 115, 121, and 122, Portland, Oregon's Community College English Compostition sequence. My students composed essays which supported a thesis statement through structure appropriate to both thesis and audience. Students learned to revise thoughtfully at all stages of the writing process, focus on developing expository and critical writing skills, and to synthesize, integrate and document sources used to support and sustain an argumentative thesis statement. I placed emphasis on individual contact, close reading practices, and developing powers of clear expression. In addition, I tutored women living in transitional housing while they prepared to take the G.E.D. exam. Assisted students having a wide range of difficulties with their composing processes, including grammar and mechanics. The first four years of my teaching career were spent teaching Introductory Writing at Philadelphia's Drexel University.
Teaching Style
My teaching career has afforded me the opportunity to work individually with students of all ages and from economically and culturally diverse backgrounds. I believe each student thrives when he or she is able to explore the writing process in a tutorial context, as a complement to the classroom setting, which cannot address individual problems as effectively. Many students, especially those having difficulty with composition, grammar and mechanics, need patience and encouragement from a tutor before their styles of learning emerge and they are able to identify and resolve obstacles to learning. I love to see students make connections between their experience and larger ideas, and to see how they reflect one another. I believe that, when we are first able to write, we fall in love with the process and can rediscover that passion with some assistance at any stage of life.