Courses taught

Role: TA, 2020-2021

Foundations of the English Major is just that: a foundational survey for English undergraduates to time travel a broad history of English literature. For this course, I worked closely with two faculty in fall 2020 and spring 2021 (during the Covid-19 pandemic) to sustain an explorative, engaging, and collaborative pedagogy. On a weekly basis, I met with my twenty-four students to digest and discuss the week’s readings; I also met with these same students to discuss paper topics and then graded their four separate close-reading assignments over the course of the semester.

About:

This course introduces three core English major activities: 1) close reading, 2) critical writing skills, and 3) a comprehensive knowledge of literary history. We will read and write about an array of texts that belong to key genres (poetry, nonfiction and the novel) and hail from disparate periods in literary history (medieval, early modern, enlightenment, romantic, modern, and postmodern). We will devote special attention to the category of “the human” as it emerges in English literature and has been rethought over recent years by post-humanists. We will consider our own understandings of what it means to be a human, what it means to live the best human life, and the role of literature in fostering such a life.

Texts read:

• Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

• Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

• Toni Morrison, Sula

• Nella Larson, Passing

• J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians

• Nnedi Okorafor, Binti

• William Shakespeare, Sonnets; Richard III

• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

• Poets: Yeats, Toomer

Role: Lead instructor, 2021-2022

Rhetoric is often defined as the art of persuasion. In a world saturated with verbal and visual media, we are constantly encountering effective (and noneffective) arguments. Arguments are everywhere. In this course, students focus on arguments and persuasive techniques and the extent to which they inform our perceptions of the world around us. We engage with as many forms of media as possible (including, but not limited to, essays, speeches, ads, visual art, and music) throughout the semester. Our ultimate goal is to hone three crucial skills—mindful thinking, writing, and speaking—while learning to be persuasive. More specifically, we will aim to evolve from passive participants to active agents in understanding forms of persuasion in and out of the classroom.

About:

The environmental movement is one of the most relevant and vital movements of our time. In this particular moment in history, we are being asked to make choices about the future of all living beings. And the urgency of this movement—particularly regarding the realities of climate change—is significantly communicated through the power of rhetoric. As such, examining rhetoric through an environmental lens results in engaging with some of the most powerful and pressing rhetoric of our time. Narrowing our focus to arguments about environmentalism and returning to overarching ecocritical themes will help us understand the number of ways that rhetoric appears in our daily lives and affects our everyday decisions.

Texts read:

• We are the Weather, Jonathon Safran Foer

• Everything’s an Argument, Lunsford

Role: Lead instructor, 2022-2023

About:

Rhetoric is an art—and art is rhetoric. In ancient Greece, Aristotle first and foremost called rhetoric, or arguments, an “art” form. Today, rhetoric thrives across a range of art forms, whether it is a poster or a painting or a public speech. In this section of Rhetoric 1030, we focus on the artfulness of rhetoric and how all forms of art bring rhetorical arguments to life. We read Ali Smith’s Artful to guide many of our conversations on art and life—and everything in between. We also visit the University of Iowa’s new Stanley Museum of Art for a gallery tour and a visual laboratory tour. Across assigned readings, visual studies, and museum tours that focus on art, we explore the number of ways that rhetoric brings meaning to our lives and how it affects our everyday decisions.

Texts read:

• Artful, Ali Smith

• Everything’s an Argument, Lunsford