“The classroom with all its limitations remains a location of possibility."–bell hooks
“As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence.”–bell hooks
All of my syllabi contain at least one of the quotes above. Throughout the academic calendar, I work to make my pedagogy clear to my students. My teaching philosophy is informed by an ever evolving constellation of scholars, writers, and practitioners.
bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress
Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
John Holt’s Unschooling theories
Sally Nuamah, How Girls Achieve
Eve L. Ewing, Ghosts in the Schoolyard
My father, an educator for over 25 years
I have carried what I have learned in teaching the K-12 classroom to the English as a Second Language college classroom to the community college classroom and to the university classroom. I believe, as bell hooks notes, that classrooms are experimental and collaborative “location[s] of possibility.” They are places of trial and error. They give space for excitement and nourishment, wonder and curiosity. I consider my classroom to be a shared space between myself and students, in which knowledge is reciprocal and learning is a communal process. The classroom exists beyond the four walls where my students and I meet--it extends to their dining halls, conversations with friends, during a walk through the commons. Learning and engagement happen throughout the day, and I actively encourage my students to take note of the learning that continues beyond our classroom and to seek out new avenues through which they can foster engagement with one-another and their community.
In addition to teaching classes on Poetry Studies, World Literature, and Black Studies, my classes cover topics related to the digital humanities, race and nationality, civic engagement, post-colonial studies, current politics, anti-nationalist resistance, and ethnic avant-gardes. I have taught first-year students, advanced undergraduates, ESL learners, and adult learners.
COURSE DESIGNER AND INSTRUCTOR ON RECORD
Learning Where You Live: Leadership and Service in Tompkins County, Spring 2020
Writing Across Cultures: Poetry as Cultural Critique, Cornell University, Spring 2020
Writing Across Cultures: Poetry as Cultural Critique, Cornell University, Fall 2019
First Year Writing Seminar: Great New Books, Cornell University, Spring 2019
First Year Writing Seminar: Great New Books, Cornell University, Fall 2018
Beginner Reading and Writing, Worcester State University, Summer Session 2017
Intermediate Listening and Speaking, Worcester State University, Spring 2017
TEACHING ASSISTANT
GRAPHIC NOVELS! INFO COMICS! TRANSMEDIA KNOWLEDGE!, Cornell University, Fall 2020
Personal Narrative, Cornell University, Summer 2018
Introduction to Literature, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Fall 2014
Individual Enrichment Program: Introduction to English Language Arts, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Summer Session 2014
DESIGNED BUT YET TO TEACH
21st Century Transnational African (American) Poets
World Literature and the African Diaspora
Contemporary Experiments in Ethnic American Poetry
Finding Where I Belong: Narratives of Migration, Immigration and Travel