• Winner of the Edward Peck Curtis Award for Teaching by a Graduate Student in May 2016.

• Experienced teacher of First Year Writing, Creative Writing, and 20th-21st century literature.

• Experienced stand alone instructor of more than 20 courses.

• Teaching evaluations and teaching videos are available on request.

ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

First Year Writing Courses

Course title and description to come.

Semesters Taught: Fall 2020

SAINT JOHN FISHER COLLEGE

First Year Writing Courses

Gender and Media

Course description to come.

Semester Taught: Fall 2020

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER

First Year Writing Courses

RAGE!: Voicing Frustration and Constructing Rage

What makes people angry? How is an individual’s anger expressed differently than a group’s? When someone voices their rage, what response are they looking for? In this course we will examine the tools artists use to express their thoughts and experiences in essays, poems, art, and film. We will read excerpts from The Iliad and from Claudia Rankine’s award-winning text Citizen, watch Get Out, and read essays from the philosopher Martha Nussbaum. In a series of short papers, we will critically engage with the methods of these accounts, and through peer response and self-reflection we will determine the effectiveness of our writing and reflect on the writing process as a whole. We will culminate the semester with an 8-10 page argumentative research paper on a frustrating topic of your choice.

Semesters Taught: Summer 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019

Searching for Self

What does hiking up a mountain have to do with meditating? What does making art have to do with driving across the country? All of these activities have been talked about as methods for finding our truest selves. In an effort to answer whether we make ourselves using inner resources or find ourselves out in the world, we will read Romantic poets and vagabond roadtrippers who pack up their lives and head into the wild. We will watch films like Lady Bird to investigate if we become ourselves as we come of age, and read Claudia Rankine’s literary sensation, Citizen, to think about how racial identity is constructed. In a series of short papers, we will critically engage with how we define, make, understand a “self.” Through peer response and self-reflection, we will determine the effectiveness of our writing and reflect on the writing process as a whole. We will culminate the semester with an 8-10 page argumentative research paper on a topic of your choice.

Semesters Taught: Fall 2018

From Self to Selfie

What do a robot, a Sylvia Plath poem, and your selfie on Instagram have in common? They are just some examples of the constructed identities we encounter every day. In an effort to interrogate the distance between constructed identities and the selves who made them, we will think about questions of authenticity, and question the ‘categories’ we often try to place identities within (racial, sexual, etc.). We will look at portraits, read confessional poets, engage with popular articles about contemporary issues of identity, and follow the complexities of artificial intelligence. In a series of short papers, we will critically engage with the methods of these constructions, and through peer review and self-reflection we will determine the effectiveness of our writing. We will culminate the semester with an 8-10 page argumentative research paper on a topic of your choice, and try making constructions of our own identities in a multi-modal project.

Semesters taught: Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Summer 2016

Into the Wild: In Search of the Sublime

Why do we keep visiting the Grand Canyon? What do the Grand Canyon, a yoga class, and a symphony all have in common? Throughout history, people have tried to capture and make sense of the moments that make them feel larger than life. In this course we will watch films like Into the Wild, read poems by the Romantic poets, look at works of art, and dive into the diaries of long-distance runners and martyred saints. We will explore how the act of capturing thoughts and experiences in writing (in art, in music, in film) helps us better understand them. In a series of short papers, we will critically engage with the methods of these accounts, and through peer review and self-reflection we will determine the effectiveness of our writing and reflect on the writing process as a whole. We will culminate the semester with an 8-10 page research paper on a sublime topic of your choice.

Semesters Taught: Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015

English Literature Courses

Modern & Contemporary Poetry

Poetry has the reputation of being difficult and alienating, and yet we turn to it in times of joy and crisis to explain our experience. Why do we try to find our experiences reflected back to us in the content of a poem? Why are we drawn to find ourselves in a poem’s “I”? In this survey of twentieth century British and American poetry, we will read Pre-Raphaelite poets who make poetry aesthetic and character-driven; modernist poets who claim poetry should be impersonal and difficult; postmodern poets who confess to deeply personal, taboo content; contemporary poets who situate their individual voices in larger social discourses; and other poets along the way who apply different pressures to the “I” in a poem and the “you” reading along. This course fulfills the post-1800 requirement for the English major.

Semesters Taught: Summer 2019

Creative Writing Courses

Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry

Poems, as William Carlos Williams once said, are machines made out of words, and in this advanced poetry workshop we will work on making the most gorgeous, gripping, and efficient machines possible. To that end, we will read both one another’s poems and poems by established authors, in either case paying attention to the ways in which the authors harness aspects of their medium, the English language: syntax, diction, rhythm. The poems we write may take any shape, any form, but we will work towards understanding why a particular poem must take the shape it has; we will pay attention not so much to what the poems say as to how they say it. Requirements: weekly writing and reading assignments, revisions of assignments, devoted participation in class discussions, a final project.

Semesters Taught: Spring 2016

Poetic Forms Workshop

Poetic Forms is a creative writing workshop dedicated to the practice and exploration of writing in form. Previous experience in writing in form and meter is not required, but previous coursework in creative writing is suggested. Open by instructor permission only and limited to fifteen students. Email instructor with a poetry sample of 3-5 pages. Applicable English Cluster: Creative Writing 

Semesters Taught: Fall 2012

EARLY CONNECTION OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM COURSES

American Rhetoric: Communication and Conflict

This course is designed to prepare students to meet the demands of college-level academic writing, exposing them to writing strategies and resources that needed throughout their years at the University of Rochester. This course will introduce the writing process and types of assignments that you can expect in First Year Writing in the fall semester. This course explores the complex relationships between speech, identity, and community in American culture. The diverse array of course readings will provide interesting and engaging topics for us to consider as we practice and discuss strategies for becoming more confident and effective academic writers. The course will emphasize the writing process, incorporating self-reflection, peer review, and revision.

Semesters Taught: Summer 2014, Summer 2018

College Study Skills

This course is designed to help students to get the most out of their academic career. We will work towards the following: Identifying and setting your academic goals; Improving a student’s self-understanding and self-management; Exploring how to manage time most effectively as a student; Improving learning skills and study strategies; Introducing students to the many opportunities, resources, and facilities available at the University of Rochester. 

Semesters Taught: Summer 2017

WRITERS & BOOKS LITERARY CENTER

Multi-week Poetry Writing Workshops

Poetry Crash Course

Description to come

Poetry Writing: From Form to Free Verse

Lamenting the turn away from formal verse, Robert Frost said that free verse poetry is like playing tennis without a net. In this course, we will learn from form how to build nets in free verse. Each week we will focus on discussing a particular form of poetry (sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, etc.), concluding with free verse-learning lessons about how poets use each form differently to construct tension and drama; and we will workshop newly generated poems. Students will learn the generative value of formal constraint, and learn how to incorporate those constraints in their writing practice.

Single Session Poetry Workshops

Ode to Odes!

Most poets turn to writing odes at some point in their careers. Odes offer an opportunity to praise and offer appreciation for life’s huge experiences, like love, but also for life’s smaller pleasures, like ripe plums. But odes are more than thoughtless happiness, they provide an opportunity for careful thought and examination of what makes life pleasing, meaningful, and fun. In this workshop, we will read all kinds of odes–classic odes translated from the Latin and more contemporary odes to avocados. We will examine our sample poems to learn what makes an ode empty and what makes an ode gives readers a new appreciation for the person, place, or thing being praised. Participants will have an opportunity to start writing their own odes during the workshop.