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Caitlin Martin

Teaching Philosophy
After a year of teaching first-year composition, I understand that my teaching philosophy and classroom management are highly influenced by my experiences as an undergraduate writing consultant at my universitys writing center. In this capacity, I learned the value of one-on-one instruction; I realized how I can work with students to help them find intrinsic motivating factors to improve their writing. Most importantly, though, I saw learning happen in my experiences as a writing consultant. I believe all students are capable of being successful communicators and writers, and I approach my classes under that assumption. I feel that the most important tools FYC courses can teach are critical thinking strategies. I plan my courses in a way that uses a process-based curriculum to help students understand the function of language and writing both in the university system and in our current society. By creating a student-centered classroom that integrates technology with a curriculum based in genre awareness and writing-about-writing pedagogy, I seek to instill in students the importance of critical thinking and the role that writing can play in reading and engaging with the world. I strive to create a student-centered, enthusiasm-driven classroom where I am more of a mentor that coaches writers of varying experience levels than an authoritative figure that assesses them. One of the key ways I try to implement this is using one-on-one meetings and small group work. Whether they are formal conferences or short conversations during independent work time in class, these one-on-one conversations allow for a stronger, more comfortable rapport with students and a level of engagement that I believe leads to greater student success. Pairing this strategy with small-group work has helped students form the bonds that are so imperative to education success. I want students enrolled in the classes I teach to feel a sense of community and solidarity, and I believe this is best fostered through individual and small group interaction. I also integrate current technology to help students critically engage with aspects of the world they encounter daily, and I feel this strategy is a driving force in the composition classroom. I assign writing projects that are both more traditional, academic essays and writing projects that allow for greater freedom to choose the genre, medium, and mode of delivery. One assignment that fuses the academic goals of FYC with a more public goal is to ask students to research a public issue (often resulting in an annotated bibliography and an essay that synthesizes that research), then craft to persuasive texts that are targeted toward specific audiences that could have some effect on changing or solving this issue. This assignment has prompted a variety of responses, including posters to persuade high school and college students to stop using social networking sites and letters to public officials about SAT testing and underage alcohol consumption, in addition to pamphlets, fliers, and PowerPoint presentations. This

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particular assignment has created a sense of excitement among students while still discussing important tools that they can use across the university, such as research and source evaluation, source integration, and academic integrity. Finally, I believe that students are capable of recontexualizing the tools and concepts learned in FYC in other writing and learning settings. I use a fusion of genre awareness and writing-about-writing pedagogies to help students not only understand the conventions of FYC discourse, but also to help them develop the knowledge necessary to recognize conventions in new contexts. I use both rhetorical and process based terms used in composition theory to help students develop a lexicon for discussing their writing, while also placing a focus on overall learning outcomes for the course and individual assignments. I also integrate daily reflective writing in the form of a process blog and assign writers letters that accompany all major writing projects. Both of these tasks ask students to engage with decisions theyve made in class activities and writing projects, to refer to material from their own work to show growth, and to explain struggles theyve encountered and the ways theyve dealt with them (or, conversely, assistance they need to deal with these struggles). I explain to students early on in the semester and continually remind them that these reflective writings are not only a key to contextualizing their major writing projects, but are also a venue for understanding the writing process and how theyve developed as writers throughout the semester. I believe that this writing is a very strong tool for students to use, especially when it comes to promoting transfer of FYC tools to other writing contexts, a key goal of my composition class. While I have illustrated here the ways that I aid my students learning and writing development, I believe that I, too, learn from them. I continue to refine my teaching strategies and pedagogical decisions based on my experiences in the classroom. I believe that an effective teacher will tailor his or her approach to specific classes and groups of personalities. While doing so, I continue to hold to my educational values. By using a student-centered, process approach that draws on genre awareness and writing-aboutwriting pedagogies, I feel that I strongly engage individuals in my class as students, as writers, and as educators in their own right.

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