I believe that teaching literature is more than an entertaining and engaging conversation about texts; it is a way of teaching students to think, speak, and write clearly and critically. I want my students to get excited about the texts they are reading, about what texts can reveal about the world in which they are produced, and the world that we, the readers, inhabit.

I run a Socratic classroom. The moment a teacher stops asking questions, of herself and of her students, is the moment a seminar or a lecture loses momentum. I love teaching historical texts, because we, as a class, become part of a tradition; we study Beowulf, or Hamlet, or Paradise Lost, as our peers and parents did before us. It is a privilege to get to participate in a conversation which started long before I came, by those wiser than I, and I hope will continue after I've stopped talking. There is no material too sophisticated or too popular to bring into the classroom; the simplest texts can sometimes elucidate the most theoretical. I have used Star Trek episodes to comment on Louis Althusser's division of the ideological apparatus, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to comment on the idea of the hero. I adore the moments when students see those texts in their own lives, in the pop-culture which swirls around us like light-bugs, then trying to get them, with their new glimpse of understanding, back into the historical moment which produced the text. When students get a chance to act out a text, or participate in group work which they have to present to the class, they get a kind of engagement where they own their knowledge a little bit more - they've thought about their roles and their theses and they have a stake in their performances.

I dislike giving students tests. There is too mush pressure -- too little time. They are a good way to wrap up a class, and sound way to display of learning, but the thinking in them can often be too rushed. The essay really is the moment when thinking happens. It is the hardest thing to learn and as I always tell my students the thesis is the thing. If you have a compelling argument, a real reason to argue something, can find a new way into the text, one that you can at least, as a thought experiment, care about -- that is where the essay is born. Getting to 'so what' is a hero's quest in and of itself. It is struggle to write a good paper. It is hard to care about something you were assigned, it is frustrating, time consuming, and gives us all a head aches sometimes. Sitting in front of that blank screen, trying to come up with a new way of approaching an old text is daunting indeed. It is hard for me too, so I do empathize. The most effective time to help students is when they are in progress, questioning their directions and their capacities. In looking over drafts and discussing papers, I can help students forge connections, and locate places where there are logical gaps to fill and pieces of evidence to hunt down. Writing is one of the most productive processes for student learning. The more writing the better; then the more editing the better; an essay is a bit of art. One needs to produce it with conviction and passion, only to finally let it go.

When it works, teaching is a pleasure. I have had some classes which could have been better and students who have made no secret of thinking my teaching style was overly enthusiastic and my marking overly hard. However, I've always found something to like about all of my students, and have always tried to reach and help them all. It may be because I have been every one of those students at one time or another. I have been the keener in love with the class, the student so confused she could weep, the one who thinks the class is a colossal waste of time because I had to take it for my major. I wonder if the point of taking all of those classes as an undergrad and a graduate student isn't just about the course content, but also subject position -- an education in empathy as well as in literature.

We are all throw together in a classroom, for better or worse, to share a small bit of time. Sometimes I feel like a person in a heated debate at a diner table; sometimes I feel like a cat wrangler. I have had my share of frustrated students fighting back tears across the desk from me, but still, often I feel the one-on-one teaching that can happen in office hours, when I can see the idea develop across a furrowed brow, and break into a tentative response, followed by a relieved smile -- that is the best it gets. Other times, I am captured by those rare occasions when the class takes off on an idea -- they bunt opinions around, sometimes like moshing, sometimes like volleyball, but they lose their shyness in a moment of real critical engagement. Synapses firing, the class becomes a 'happening' and we are all present in the text. Ultimately, I think teaching is about negotiating competing student agendas, goals, and skill levels. It is about learning to view texts through new and differing perspectives. Teaching forces me to express myself clearly, challenges me to find new ways into texts, and constantly prompts me to reevaluate my audiences and my persuasive skills. If I can convince myself and my students, there is a good chance my peers can be convinced as well.