Long before I considered pursuing teaching as a career, education came to life for me through the lives of my teachers. Every day, from high school through graduate school, my teachers approached the curriculum passionately, posing thoughtful questions, generating discussion, encouraging ideas, and modeling lives of integrity and character. Through their influence and example, not only did I find myself drawn to the ideals of wisdom and understanding, but I also found a vision for the woman I wanted to become: a teacher who cares for her students, inspires them to embrace challenges, and displays, through her own actions, a vigor for learning.
          My position as an English instructor has allowed me to learn and grow as a person, instructor, and aspiring academic. Over the past three years, I have taught and mentored students of varying age, academic ability, economic and ethnic background, and academic track, all the while cultivating my love for the breadth and beauty of liberal arts. I have sought to build mutually engaging classroom environments in which students are encouraged to contribute and consider a diverse range of opinions. I challenge my students to adopt a rigorously critical position, but encourage them to approach all ideas and learning opportunities with enthusiastic attentiveness. While I ask my students to engage in traditional tasks, including close readings, argumentative essays, and so forth, I also challenge them to experiment with alternate forms of textual response that include experimental essays, poetry, and various forms of performance. By engaging with literature in new ways, students are encouraged to discover the approach to learning that best suits them, and to actively transform the challenge of literary analysis into a personalized opportunity to improve their analytical abilities.
          In building mutually engaging classroom environments, I often seek to incorporate both innovative and unexpected exercises into my course curriculum. These exercises provide students with an opportunity to take risks in their work, thereby encouraging them to interact with literature in new and exciting ways. For example, in teaching Greek tragedy, I have asked my students to stimulate courtrooms in order to form critical arguments related to language, character, and plot. Such an exercise requires students to serve as either the defense or prosecution team, waging a case for or against a tragic hero to establish his or her guilt/innocence. In building these cases, students must work together to effectively analyze and integrate textual sources, gaining crucial reasoning skills in the process. Students also learn how to articulate their arguments in a courtroom setting – a lesson in performance that is often overlooked in literary study.
          Having learned the substantial role that teachers play in shaping students’ lives, I hope to imbue my students with the same sense of enthusiasm and openness that has helped to shape mine. To become an effective teacher, we must first be willing to engage with students in new ways – in ways that excite and inspire them, and at the same time, challenge and provoke them. It is imperative to remind students that growth comes with uncertainty, and with growth comes a new opportunity for learning. Such is the attitude that I hope to instill, and one that will continue to drive my teaching in the years to come.