I teach because writing changes people, helps people reimagine and remake the world.
In every classroom—whether first-year argument, creative writing, or business communication—I design learning experiences that help students discover voice, confidence, and agency. Writing is not merely a product; it is a process of thinking, questioning, revising, and becoming. When students learn to shape language with intention, they learn to shape their lives with intention.
My courses blend rigor, transparency, and creative risk:
I scaffold assignments so students can see the moves of writing, not just the outcomes.
I use active learning and peer collaboration to lower the stakes and increase experimentation.
I demystify genres (PRDs, business plans, technical memos, research papers, creative writing modes) so students experience writing as a tool for influence.
I normalize the use of AI as a transparent collaborator—not a shortcut. Students articulate when and how they used AI, and reflect on what thinking remained theirs. AI in the loop of the human.
Above all, I build classrooms where students feel safe to take creative and intellectual risks. If writing is an act of agency, the classroom must be a place where agency can be practiced.
When students learn they can shape meaning, they begin to believe they can shape the world.
A sample of courses I teach:
Students investigate modern dilemmas through mythic metaphors—The Ship of Theseus, The Golem, Sisyphus, Babel, Icarus—to understand how we build and evaluate arguments. Each of the five modules integrates research and rhetorical analysis in varying modes (occasionally multi-modal), producing one short-form essay. We conclude with the assembly of a portfolio and a final reflection.
Sample Materials:
Syllabus
Sample Major Essay: “The Golem and Ethical Control”
Multimodal Argument Project
Students learn structured critical thinking—claims, evidence, counterargument—and apply these skills to public discourse. They build annotated bibliographies, research memos, and structured multimodal presentations (such as posters, podcasts, and live in-class presentations) that connect analysis to the audience.The final artifacts include multimodal accompaniments (such as a podcast) to the long-form, researched position paper (~6000 words) with thoughtful use of visualized data and infographics.
Sample Materials:
Assignment Sequence
AI Research Toolkit - student-created “The Elements of Using AI”
Fiction, poetry, CNF, photo essay, and comics. Students learn the craft of surprise, compression, and emotional stakes. Workshops foster revision as a discovery process rather than a correction. We use lit mags like The Believer, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Common, and the campus lit mag, Reed. We invite the staff and editors of these magazines to our class for conversations and discussions.
Sample Materials:
Poetry Set
Short Story Draft + Peer Review
Creative Nonfiction Field Study
Students form small teams, build a real business, and produce professional artifacts:
Lean Canvas
Product Requirements Document (PRD)
Deck + pitch presentation
Writing is framed as a strategic asset: clarity creates influence.
Sample Materials:
Business Portfolio Checklist
PRD Template
Team Presentation and DIY Rubric
Informal efforts…
Guides faculty in reframing AI not as automation, but as a tool for better thinking: outlining, revising, questioning assumptions, and making writing more agentic.
Helps students become aware of the emotional and cognitive experience of composition—reducing avoidance and perfection paralysis.
Growth over performance
Feedback that empowers, not evaluates
Writing as a tool for influence and self-discovery
AI as collaborator, AI in the loop of the human
My goal is that each student leaves with a new belief:
“I have something to say—and I can say it with mindfulness and strength.”
I have taught in Higher Ed and K12 Segments:
● San Jose State University, Lecturer, 2025 - Present
● Omnidawn Publishing, Prosody as a Revision Strategy, 2014-present
● San Francisco State University, Faculty, Technical and Professional Writing, 1/99-12/2001
● University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Faculty, Satellite Campuses, Technology, Professional Writing,
Business English, and Literature, 9/94-5/97
● Breadloaf Rural Teacher Network (BLRTN), Annenberg Fellow, Breadloaf School of English,
Middlebury College, 1997
● University of Alaska, Fairbanks Teacher Exchange with Japan. 7 Schools. Akaigawa Region on
the northern island of Hokkeido, MayJune 1996
● Hopson Middle School & Barrow High School, Barrow, AK; Tanana Middle School, Students’
At Risk Classroom, Fairbanks, AK; Eagle High School, Eagle, AK; Moses Peter Memorial High
School, Akiachak, AK; 09/94-06/97
● Eastern Oregon State College, Faculty, English Department, 9/93-5/94
● Blue Mountain Community College, English Department, 9/93-5/94
● University of Florida, Graduate Faculty, English Department, 9/94-5/97
My teaching centers on a simple belief: When students learn they can shape meaning, they begin to believe they can shape their world.
Across every course—argumentation, business communication, or creative writing—I design learning environments that cultivate:
confidence and voice
clarity of thought
agency and ownership of ideas
I use simple, direct, active language and teach students to do the same. My training at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Florida included coursework in rhetoric, audience analysis, professional writing, journalism, cross-genre craft, and reader-response theory. Those practices still guide my classroom today: write for a real audience, in language that moves them.
I emphasize transparency, modeling, scaffolding, and iteration. Students don’t just submit writing—they revise, test, and apply it.
Writing is not a product. It is a process of thinking, questioning, revising, and becoming.
In freshman composition courses at:
University of Florida
Eastern Oregon University
San Francisco State University
San José State University
and in K-12 and alternative settings
…I emphasize audience + purpose + clarity. The materials we analyze are deliberately wide-ranging:
film scenes
graphic novels
TV commercials
repair manuals
social media posts
recipes, instructions, business emails
Students see that writing exists everywhere, not just in essays.
When I taught in the Iñupiaq community in Barrow (330 miles above the Arctic Circle), my seniors were disengaged from academic reading and writing.
So I walked the community.
I noticed them—outside of school—reading:
snow machine repair manuals
Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
I swapped those into my syllabus.
Engagement flipped.
An observer said: “I’ve never seen these kids all reading at the same time—ever.”
The lesson that has shaped my thinking: relevance creates motivation. Motivation creates writers.
I later developed a cross-cultural pedagogy connecting classrooms from:
Iñupiaq (Alaska)
Tlingit
Yupik
Crow
Navajo Nation
Riverside, CA
Students exchanged work and responded to each other’s stories online.
The most powerful moment occurred when Navajo students shared Luci Tapahonso’s poem “Hills Brothers Coffee.”
The phrase meant comfort and home to Navajo students.
To Riverside students, it meant a corporate brand.
A Navajo student wrote:
“…my people are the hills brothers.”
This project—documented and published by Chris Benson (Clemson University) as
“Walking in Two Worlds: Poetic Explorations across Distances and Differences,” Breadloaf Rural Teacher Network—fundamentally changed how I think about voice, culture, and audience.
As part of a faculty exchange connected to the Alaska State Writing Standards Committee and the Standards in Action Forum, I taught seven classrooms in the Akaigawa region of Hokkaidō.
I spoke almost no Japanese.
Instead, I used:
visual modeling
manipulatives
process-based learning
We made paper, took notes on how we made it, then wrote instructions.
Multiple intelligences in action.
Students wrote clearly because they could see the process.
At San Francisco State University, my students were working professionals completing technical and professional writing certificates. The course centered on iterative practice:
draft
revise
justify editing decisions
revise again
Assesment marked progress.
The final portfolio—what they’d show employers/stakeholders—was what mattered.
This approach carries into my business communication and product writing instruction today.
I focus students on the writing that matters outside the classroom:
getting published
building a professional portfolio
applying to jobs or transferring to a university
telling a story that matters to them or their community
When writing aligns with audience and purpose, clarity follows.