I started my teaching career with a course most instructors would envy: a yearlong seminar and workshop with advanced undergraduate creative writers at the University of Oregon.

My next position could hardly have been more different. After a year of writing residencies, freelance writing, and travel (I was 27, after all), I taught back-to-back sections of “Basic Writing” at LaGuardia Community College starting at 8am on a Monday. I would later teach developmental writing courses at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and even at Fordham University.

My teaching work in the Kidd Workshops (then called the Kidd Tutorials) at the University of Oregon would come in handy when I worked with upper-level students in a variety of courses. My first semester teaching in New York City, I taught a section of News Writing at St. Francis College. I’d later teach the same course at LaGuardia Community College.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to teach a number of one-off courses, including:

The Research Paper, LaGuardia Community College

A “third-semester” composition course designed for students aiming to transfer to four-year colleges, my section of ENG 103 used literary texts, including Angels in America, and archival documents, including Sarah Schulman’s oral history of ACTUP, to explore the AIDS epidemic.

Click here for the syllabus for The Research Paper.

Introduction to Poetry, LaGuardia Community College

When the scheduled instructor was unable to teach this course, the chair asked me to do it. I put the course together so fast I don’t have a syllabus. But we did manage to read a lot of poems, and to talk about how to write about them–enough that students wrote a book reviews for their final project.

Generally, I’m agnostic about who I’m teaching writing to–it’s a privilege to muck about in words all day, as Annie Dillard once said. It’s always hard; but there is satisfaction in seeing people dig through that muck with a stronger, sturdier tool than even I feel equipped with.

Journalism

• Introduction to News Writing (LaGuardia Community College)
• News Writing (St. Francis College)

Creative Writing Workshops (various campuses)

• Intermediate Fiction Writing (University of Oregon)
• Creative Writing Workshop (SUNY/F.I.T.)