Find your voice in English: Lessons with a professional writer, story making coach and university instructor (online or in Lisbon)

Teaching Statement.

I believe that to understand something you must understand its context; and, as an admirer of William Carlos Wiliams’ and his phrase, no ideas but in things, I feel contextual understanding lies in detail. In the context of writing, there is a need to communicate details clearly and effectively. As such, effective writing must be aware of its context, and I find it necessary for students to have a basic understanding of the forms and genres within which they communicate. This is equally applicable to creative communication as it is to academic settings.

Through generative prompts and workshops, students can be expected to explore language and forms of writing as they find what works for them and their context. This type of active learning and collaboration through criticism can hopefully create an environment where students take a more critical approach to their work; my hope is that by exposing them to a variety of techniques and avenues they may reverse engineer what we’ve done in their field of study/area of purpose.

Through lessons focused on the whys and hows of a genre or style, students can begin to appreciate and maintain an awareness of their work within a context, and I hope that this critical awareness aids them not only as writers but as thinking beings.