Responding to Nancy's Extended Anaylsis Project

Nancy, 

I particularly enjoyed your last paragraph when you say, " Research has shown that students who identify as readers are more empathetic, and have a larger referential knowledge base.  Reading is certainly a way to experience many lives that do not belong to us, and is thus enriching beyond measure."

I  think this is crucial as a part of defining your teaching philosophy. I would like to have read something similar to this at the start of your philosophy. While I haven't read hundreds of teaching philosophies, I've never come across one that references another source the way you did. I think this really makes your philosophy stand out among the hundreds of others that a school would receive when looking for a candidate. 

But as Dr. Rice stated in class last week, schools read hundreds of philosophies in a matter of minutes, and will typically read the first and the last paragraphs and maybe skim the rest. This is why I'd like to see you add the sentences I mention to the beginning of your paper too.

It's difficult to comment on your values, because, well, they're YOUR values. I don't disagree by any means, and I would say that your values align with mine, but if I had to choose just three major values, I can't say if I would use the exact ones you do, not because they're good or bad, just different. But that's really the point of a teaching philosophy, to tell others what YOUR values are, not what they want to hear. 

I want to focus on your second value:  Writing and reading as a way to connect, both to the internal (self) and to the external (the outside world).    

I really like this idea, as well as the way you word it. I've thought about this idea myself, but I've been unable to put it into such concise and clear language as you do. -- I might have to steal this. :)

You say, "Writing and reading allow access to our most private selves, and much of the curriculum of creative nonfiction operates on the belief that we don’t truly know what we believe until we try to write these beliefs." This is so true. I can really appreciate this value and idea, because as you said later, writing can be therapeutic. I would however, liked to have seen a bit more on writing and reading as a way to connect to the external. You mention it in your last sentence:  " we connect to people we have never or will never meet in person" but I want to know MORE! Why does it matter if we connect to the external world? Long ago, I was taught that writing is personal, writing is for my eyes only, unless I want to share it with others. But in my creative writing class as an undergrad, I was told that no one would read what I wrote, so I opened myself up and poured my heart out. But then my professor duped the class and made us share. With no names on papers, he read aloud our writings. I felt violated. embarrassed. terrified. But I was the only one who knew that what was being read was mine. My professor didn't even know. While many students felt the same as I did, my professor explained to us that we first needed to learn to write freely and without constraints before we could write something that we knew others would read, because when we begin with the idea that others will read this, we consciously, or unconsciously censor our writing. 



We received feedback on our writing from our classmates and professor after he finished reading our work, and the comments my classmates made about the anonymous work presented to them, helped me become a better writer because I was able to hear what other people thought about my own ideas and thoughts. While still feeling violated, I also felt invigorated. I connected with the external world, and I didn't even know it until after I had finished writing. I heard comments such as "wow, I feel the same way," "I thought I was the only one who thought that," "it's like the writer knew me!" 

This is why I'd like to see you add a little bit more to emphasize how writing and reading help student connect to the external more. Sure I can see how reading helps us connect to the external, reading newspaper articles and such, but what about writing? How does my writing help me connect to the external? 

Anyway, I enjoyed reading your philosophy, and I am encouraged by it.