Empathizing | Empowering | Educating
On Teaching
My teaching is informed by both dedicated mentorship from leading scholars in the field of rhetoric and writing, as well as salient scholarship and personal positionality. Teaching is an aspect of my academic identity that holds a significant amount of meaning for me, and my goal in every aspect of pedagogy, from planning to soliciting feedback, is to prioritize student learning, radically commit to my students, and center inclusive, student-centered practices. Scroll down to learn more, view my teaching philosophy statement, and an award winning teaching portfolio (including evaluations).
“Definitely the best [instructor] I have had at Virginia Tech and the best English teacher I have ever had.”
-Student Feedback, 2023
“As a student in this class, I definitely feel that Molly has our best interests at heart and cares for us as students more than any other [instructor] I've had.” - Student Feedback, 2022
Teaching is an act not only of education, but an art and a science that embodies care at the core. I see students as inherently capable of brilliant work and brilliant thought, and visualize myself as a guide and supporter to help them succeed in individual growth and learning. In addition, students are holistic, multifaceted individuals who carry high pressure lives and complicated intersectionalities. I seek to make my classroom a place of care and empathy, rather than stress and turmoil.
“Absolutely fantastic, you’ve showed care for the students and work around them. You care more about the work than the grade and help your students to improve their writing with feedback that will help them get better.”
- Student Feedback, 2023
In my courses, I participate in a form of ungrading (contract assessment) with the goal of circumventing and reclaiming many of the traumatic narratives that students bring to the college writing classroom. Writing, ultimately, is an act of profound self expression, an artistic pursuit of storytelling regardless if the genre is research writing or personal essay writing. I want my students to leave my course prepared to take on a variety of genres, with constructive feedback, and confidence in their ability to write to their individual strengths.
“Amazing experience, definitely the most caring and helpful [instructor] I’ve had thus far in college and in my academic career.”
- Student Feedback, 2023
Rather than hindering my students, I seek to position the writing classroom as a generative space of self discovery, particularly because many of my students are just beginning their college lives. My course gives students the opportunity to find who they are in the Virginia Tech landscape and beyond, and commits to helping them develop as scholars and humans.
Full Teaching Philosophy
The most centric tenet of my teaching experiences, whether the venue is the rhetoric and composition classroom, the graduate pedagogy workshop, or the competitive dressage arena, is mutually realized joy for instructor and students. One of my earliest memories of the college classroom involves me, age eight, on a day-off from elementary school, sitting in the front row of one of the Burrus Hall auditoriums during my father’s Introduction to Sociology class. Although I didn’t grasp any of the concepts, I was aware of the feeling within that space. The students were all focused so specifically on my father, so quick to engage, so ready to respond to his queries. It was a joyful space, one where inquiry was the focus. That feeling, impressed upon me at such an early age, trailed me through my own education and into leading my own classroom. This joy manifests in multiple forms: in the thrill of epistemological discovery, the composition of inventive work, the formation of ideas previously unknown. But beyond the general constraints and even expectations of joyful learning experiences, mutualistic joy between students and instructor tacitly finds its roots in shared community, reciprocal mentorship, and championing of who students are, wholly and fully. In my courses, I engage with this joy through a pedagogy of radical accompliceship, informed by pinnacle scholarship, close mentorship from highly regarded voices in the field, and emphasis, as a queer instructor, on reinventing boundaries of authority and power that are so prevalent in higher education. The formative topoi of this pedagogy of radical accompliceship are student-centered learning, inquiry-celebrating practice, and empathy-based goodwill.
Student-Centered Learning
Because the writing classroom can be a place of trauma and bad experiences for students, I aim to put my students at the forefront of their learning, using my assignments and activities as opportunities for self-discovery. My students are encouraged, in my course, to become not just writers, but writers aware of their positionality, who know and celebrate their strengths and gain confidence in their areas of growth. I believe that for first-year students in particular, offering an environment that noticeably differs from the culture of other introductory courses is crucial for maintaining a balance of mental health and holistic development. For example, I remind my students that I am discovering with them, and that the concepts of composition and rhetorical analysis are theirs to interpret and define. By framing definitional work in this way, my students offer inherently dynamic and multidisciplinary interpretations of compositional work: everything from likening essay writing to composing music, to engineering a house. Rather than maintaining the authoritative position as the bearer of all knowledge, I work to learn alongside my students (Freire, 1970) and frame our engagement throughout my courses as symbiotic, and mutually discoverable. Drawing from Peter Elbow, Ira Shor, Jane Danielewicz and others, I practice antiracist assessment strategies, as well as modeled grading processes for compassion and inclusion (Danielewicz and Elbow, 2009; Shor, 2009). With a theoretical framework drawn from Henry Giroux and bell hooks, I implement strategies of acknowledging that my students have as much to teach me as I have to teach them.
I structure my classes to honor what’s possible in writing studies, as well as emphasizing for students that they are free, safe, and welcome to be themselves in my classroom. I work to honor discovery and inquiry in practice by exposing my students to a variety of innovative genres, modalities, and opportunities within the field of composition, as well as incorporating diverse voices and perspectives through class materials. I believe in student agency, and acknowledging their individual brilliances while working with them to gain further expertise. Thus, I structure my class activities, assignments, and projects to encourage students to think boldly and bravely, with inquiry at the core, celebrating their own interests and curiosities rather than imposing my own upon them. In both my Introduction to College Composition and Writing from Research courses, I ask students to frame the projects according to their own interests – for example, with my guidance, they have permission and invitation (Foss & Griffin, 1995) to interpret literacy from any lens they choose in their Literacy Narrative project. My students have chosen to write about literacy in every interpretation from the literacy of adulthood to literacy of mathematics. As a result, my students feel that my course is scaffolding and supporting their goals long term, rather than distracting, deviating from, or adding additional stress to their learning trajectory.
Inquiry Celebrating Practice
Compassionate
Goodwill
On the first day of each course, I tell my students that I am committed to seeing them as whole people, not as students in a class. Undergraduates are under an enormous amount of stress academically in their first year, in addition to concerns of food insecurity, homesickness, financial instability, and much more. Experiencing an environment that offers space to anonymously express their emotional state, as well as an established practice of consistent check-ins, flexibility, and awareness of their other responsibilities, I believe sets students up for a greater outcome long term, as well as a greater sense of buy-in to complete the course successfully. In addition to my responsibilities as their writing instructor, I provide students with personalized additional resources and outreach as I’m able, whether that is providing contact information directly for student services on campus, to directions to fix a computer, to bringing tissue packs to class, to helping students navigate the hidden curriculum. Frequently, we engage in “space-making,” where students are able to freewrite, Menti Poll, or artistically express what’s on their mind, beyond course contexts. My classroom policies might be viewed as some by lenient, but in the spirit of becoming more than an ally and transitioning to an accomplice, I prefer to think of my style as empathetic and generous: I employ flexible due dates, excused absences, and alternative assignments depending on students’ needs. I honor accommodations both documented and self-disclosed. My anonymous course surveys consistently show students not only noticing this practice of care, but specifically noting how this approach lowered their stress, contributed to their wellbeing, and positively impacted them on a day to day basis, as well as my noted advocacy. I am also a believer in grace and second chances, and making the effort to meet students where they are, rather than assigning expectations or deductive thinking onto them before they enter into the space.
In summary, my teaching is based on a strong commitment to my students that seeks to exceed the conventional standards of classroom relationality. I see the writing classroom as more than an opportunity for scholarly matriculation: in my philosophy, it is a place of unlimited personal discovery where learning is prioritized above all. I am driven by a mindset of teacherly phronesis, bridging conventional learning (standards, assessments, and learning outcomes) with unconventional learning (value building, positionality discovery, personal growth). By engaging in a pedagogy of radical accompliceship, I am preparing students not only to be effective writers and communicators, but future leaders, with a mindset of community, empathy, and grace.
Instructor of Record, Virginia Tech, 2022–Present
ENGL 1105 Introduction to College Composition (Fall 2022-present)
ENGL 1106 First Year Writing, Writing from Research (Spring 2023-present)
Guest Lecturer, Graduate Pedagogy Courses, Virginia Tech, 2023-present
GRAD 5004: GTA Pedagogy Workshop Course
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Virginia Tech, 2021–2022
ENGL 3804 Technical Editing and Style (Instructor of Record: Dr. Carolyn Commer)
ENGL 2534 Survey of American Literature (Instructor of Record: Dr. Tyechia Thompson)
Teaching
Experience
Pedagogical
Honors and Training
INVITED PRESENTATIONS
Invited Speaker, GTA Workshop, Virginia Tech, 2024.
Invited Speaker, University Writing Program Brown Bag Speaker Series, Virginia Tech, 2023.
Invited Speaker, International Graduate Student Orientation, Virginia Tech, 2022.
Invited Speaker, Writing Center Orientation for Incoming GTAs, Virginia Tech, 2022.
HONORS and AWARDS
Fellow, Graduate Academy of Teaching Excellence ($1000), Virginia Tech, 2023-present.
Curriculum Innovation Program, ($750), College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Tech, 2023.
-
Selected for competitive program for faculty highlighting meaningful changes and updates to curriculum of major pathways course (English 1106) to better uphold principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Hoffman Award for Outstanding Teaching, ($500), Virginia Tech, 2023
-
Recognizing exceptional effort and proficiency in teaching, based on teaching portfolio, student work, and student evaluations.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Handling Difficult Conversations in the Classroom (2024)
Fostering a Growth Mindset (2024)
Creating an Inclusive Climate (2024)
Reducing Implicit Bias in the Classroom (2023)
Inclusive Pedagogy: How Student Identities Matter (2023)
Universal Design for Learning Day (2023)
Inclusive Teaching Pathways (2022-2023)
Fostering an Inclusive Classroom Environment (2022)
*earned digital achievement badge
Inclusive Pedagogy Online Course (2022)
*earned digital achievement badge
Antiracist Teaching (2022)
*earned digital achievement badge
RELEVANT COURSEWORK
Theory & Practice of Writing Instruction
Composition Theory
Contemporary Pedagogy
Leadership in Diverse Contexts
Sociological Issues in College Pedagogy
Preparing the Future Professorate