Experience Summary
From January 2006 through August 2008, I worked part-time as a freshman composition instructor, writing lab tutor, and teaching assistant for the English department at UNT. As an instructor, I taught two classes per long semester and one, intensive summer session. During the fall semesters, I taught Composition I, which introduced students to a variety of writing concepts, such as the personal essay and the visual text. The students wrote five papers, three to five pages in length, with each paper designed around one of the concepts. For those exercises, I emphasized the importance organization, grammar, and syntax rather than content. During the spring semesters, I taught Composition II, which required the students to develop critical reading and thinking skills as a progression toward a final research paper. The students prepared two papers covering assigned works of anthologized literature before completing a research project, including a final, undergraduate-level term paper. As a tutor, I assisted undergraduate and graduate students with the completion of technical writing exercises, term papers, theses, and dissertations. As an assistant, I helped administer and grade quizzes and exams for large enrollment (100 cap) summer sessions of short story and world literature courses.
From August 2008-May 2010, I worked part-time as a composition instructor and teaching assistant for the English and Environment and Natural Resource departments at UW. During the fall semesters, I taught one course of freshman composition. The course implemented a departmentally-designed text that compiled interdisciplinary readings from undergraduate courses at UW. During the course of the semester, students completed a variety of exercises that helped them develop undergraduate-level reading and writing skills, such as critical thinking and reading, research, organization, grammar, and syntax, before completing a final, undergraduate-level term paper. Although I was unable to pursue the opportunity due to limited section availability, I was recommended to teach a composition course for conditionally admitted students. During the spring semesters, I assisted for a second-year Environment and Society course, which explored the history of societal attitudes about the environment with the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries as a primary focus. For both sections, the course was team-taught by two instructors—one from the Environment and Natural Resources Dept. and one from a complementary department, such as Economics or English. In addition to grading papers, exams, and projects, I lectured and helped develop a course reading list.
From 2011 to 2013, I worked as the Graduate Reader Assistant for The University of Southern Mississippi Graduate School. As a member of the Graduate Reader’s office, I edited theses and dissertations for compliance with USM Graduate School guidelines. Since the Graduate Reader’s office receives documents from a variety of disciplines, I routinely referenced the following style manuals: APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, and ACS. In addition to editing theses and dissertations, my Graduate Reader responsibilities included editing the Graduate School thesis and dissertation guidelines, editing policy guidelines for the Office of General Counsel, assisting graduate students with thesis and dissertation revisions, proofreading Graduate School event programs, and assisting faculty members with any student issues.
Teaching Style
I take a servant leadership, customer-oriented approach to my responsibilities. I routinely try to answer the following question: What can I do to help students achieve their goals? For research papers, I encouraged students to pursue their own interests, such as a subject related to their major, in order to give them a better opportunity to enjoy the research process as opposed to merely fulfilling an exercise requirement.