Principles that Guide my Teaching

Each semester, students in my message analysis classes complete group capstoneprojects. They can choose from seven assignments, including collaboratively writing a paper. Each group writing a paper analyzes a single text, using multiple methods, to apply course concepts, balance production with criticism, and craft an argument about the text’s rhetorical, political, and social work. For example, the group who analyzed Ghost World (the graphic novel pictured at right, image by Daniel Clowes) examined how the text constructs the banal space of a nostalgic diner using whiteness, critiques gender norms with its artwork, and represents people with mental illness and disabilities in an empowering fashion. Filtering the text through their own lives, the group debated what they could learn from the text. They conclude, “Because we see three different people with different personalities suffering from similar problems, we are asked to reflect on our society and to ask how we fit within the complicated social and political structure of our own society.” By choosing a text they found intriguing, interrogating it closely, collaborating on criticism, and reflecting on how the text relates to their own lives, the students gained an understanding not only of the text but of how the identities and forms in mediated texts influence who and how they can be in our culture.

This example demonstrates the two major principles that drive my pedagogy: 1) eliding the division between the classroom and everyday life, and 2) helping students to form an exploratory agon. I ask students to bring their existing knowledge and expertise into the classroom, help them to engage those ideas in new ways by introducing them to theoretical prompts and provoking them to explore ideas collaboratively, and encourage them to take what they learn and apply it, both inside and outside of the classroom.

Principle 1: Erasing Classroom Walls

I value my students’ existing knowledge, and I honor the skills, abilities, and knowledge they bring with them into the classroom. For example, in my public speaking classes, students complete engagement activities. They select from five possible activities, including attending lectures on campus or in the community, delivering speeches in public, analyzing the presentations in their other classes, sharing relevant clips of mass-mediated material, and experimenting with the course concepts. Students have reflected on the challenge of speaking about intensely personal experiences at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, come to appreciate what about a well-structured lecture enhances their learning, invested time talking with speakers in free speech zones around campus, and discovered that nonverbal communication, such as eye contact, reinforces interest in all types of conversations, not just in speeches. I invite students to take material from outside of the classroom, both from their daily lives and their other courses, to bring it into the classroom, and then to take it out again.

Students choose their projects based on what they care about, what they know about, and what they are interested in. Over the years, I have had students create public service announcements, music videos, songs, magazines, photographic essays, analytical papers, and long-term relationships with the community in service organizations. Our class discussions are enriched and our learning enhanced when students link the concepts we explore in a course with their existing knowledge and passions.

Students say that this integrative approach helps to enhance their learning. For example, a student in a recent section of my message analysis course reflected, “Professor Jones’ enthusiasm for and knowledge of course content was apparent throughout the semester. She gave very helpful feedback on all major assignments and identified specific problem areas that students could work on for future assignments. She effectively linked the course material to its importance in the world outside the classroom. Her lessons were engaging, well-planned and enriching. The diversity of materials used (journal articles, blogs, music videos, TV clips, textbook) helped to sustain my interest. The participation component of this course (online engagement activities) ensured that all students engaged with the material in a variety of ways outside the classroom. Overall, a very effective and talented teacher!”

I demonstrate to my students that I value their contributions by getting to know them as individuals, taking time to talk with them outside of class, emphasizing individual improvement as a grading criterion, providing a flexible (and fun!) classroom atmosphere, and weaving their comments into our discussions. Together, we create a body of shared knowledge.

Principle 2: Conducting, Not Inducting

I approach the classroom as a conductor. My role is not to write the music, nor to dictate what the final result sounds like. Instead, students produce the music, and my task is to help them to engage with one another and with the sheet music. Sometimes they craft harmonious music; sometimes they prefer dissonance. My aim is for them to grapple with the ideas, collaborate and converse with one another, and practice civic engagement in a proto-public space.

In other words, I help my students to craft an exploratory agon. Like the Greek agon, my classroom provides a space in which they can wrestle, but in class they tangle with ideas. To foster our conversation, I prepare numerous prompts and provocations for each lesson, and I design these question to promote exploration. We follow the threads that students find the most salient and that advance their integration of each day’s content into the larger course lessons. We often vote about what discussion thread to pursue, what text to analyze, and what topics we will pursue.

For example, the day we discuss ability as an identity, I offer the students prompts such as Finding Nemo, Modern Times, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The students consider how each text constructs different forms of ability. As the conversation evolves, they inevitably start to ponder the ideology each text constructs. For example, Modern Times argues that industrialization drives us mad. Students often discover comic and tragic framing as they consider how Chaplin’s story, which presents the systemic forces that lead to his mental illness, differ from the stigma more frequently attached to representations of ability.

Students report that this principle also facilitates their learning. One student shares,  “It was very interactive and kept my interest. Hillary related the material in multiple ways that apply to real-life situations or to pop culture. She allowed us to send our outlines to get feedback and let us pick our own topics. It was very independent but she provided lots of constructive support if and when we needed it.”

I am proud of the work my students do, and I am dedicated to helping them to succeed. I often hear from students they found my course one of the most helpful from their college education because of its salience to their everyday lives. I hope to have such productive relationships with students for years to come.