Statement of Teaching Philosophy for Amber Foster

Before completing my doctoral degree, I spent over eight years as a teacher of English as a Second or
Foreign Language (ESL/EFL). While living abroad, I taught a wide variety of students, ranging from
the CEO of a bank in Paris to twenty giggling teenagers in a Japanese high school. When I was back
in the U.S., I taught Spanish to children and English to Spanish-speaking adults. I taught one-on-one
and in large classrooms. This variety of experience has enriched my life and informed the kind of
teaching I now bring to the university classroom.
My larger goal, in all the courses I teach, is to show literature and writing as part of a larger network
of human experience. One way I accomplish this is by having students attend campus or community
activities relevant to the course material. During my four years as a doctoral student at Texas A&M,
for example, I was a volunteer and a committee member for Brazos Valley Reads, a program which
brings women and minority novelists to the region for free public readings. Each year, I had my
creative writing and literature students read the visiting writer's novel, and many students reported
that meeting the author changed the way they felt about literature and the craft of writing. These
readings had the added benefit of exposing my students to different cultural perspectives.
As a creative writing instructor, my primary objective is to obtain that delicate balance between craft
and creativity--teaching the "nuts and bolts" of creative writing while also giving students the
freedom to experiment and find their own voices as writers. I like to begin with a course text such as
Janet Burroway's Imaginative Writing, and supplement it with selections from current literary
journals and magazines. I find a combination of reading, writing activities, and traditional workshops
is most effective in appealing to diverse learning styles. Additionally, throughout the semester, I work
hard to create a relaxed atmosphere, a space where students can feel free to experiment with the art
and craft of writing. I follow the mentorship model for workshops, which emphasizes what students
might do to improve, rather than what they may or may not have done "wrong." At the same time, I
have students read experimental or multi-modal texts to show how breaking the "rules" of writing can
often be just as interesting as following them. For example, in addition to more traditional texts such
as Ernest Hemingway's "White Elephants," I've had students read Dinty Moore's "Mr. Plimpton's
Revenge" (a nonfiction essay told entirely through Google Maps), as well as Gabriel Garca Mrquez'
"The Ghost Ship" (a short story told entirely in one sentence) as a way to push students to think
outside the box.
I take a similarly interactive approach to the instruction of literature. I recently had one of my
teaching ideas accepted for publication at Princeton University Press' forthcoming Pocket Instructor,
and it was exciting to have the opportunity to share my teaching style with other instructors. In the
activity, "Fun with Sonnets," each of six groups is assigned a sonnet, ranging from the Spenserian to
contemporary. Each sonnet presents a puzzle to the groups, as they must apply (with a little help from
an instructor handout) previously-learned poetic-mapping techniques to identify the sonnet's form.
Groups must then analyze and interpret their sonnet and present their findings for class discussion,
with five minutes remaining at the end of each presentation for instructor intervention. The activity
makes sonnets more approachable to students, and many report that they now have a much greater
appreciation of the sonnet as a form.

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In general, I take a scaffolded approach to course design, one which builds upon what students have
learned through emphasis on hands-on application ("learning by doing"). In my position as a lecturer
for the Writing Program at the University of Southern California, I work collaboratively with a team
of teachers to move students away from categorically-organized essays (the "five paragraph" format).
Instead, they write a progression of conceptual essays, each designed to encourage students to move
beyond right-or-wrong argumentation to think deeply on the problems facing present-day society. In
my current courses in the sustainability thematic, my students begin the semester by writing on the
individual's responsibility to protect the environment, and then move on (through increasingly
complex writing tasks) to consider the local, national, and global implications of unsustainable
practices, not only in terms of climate change, but also broader implications of what it means to be
"sustainable." No matter what course I am teachingcomposition, literature, technical or creative
writingI take this cumulative approach, one which resituates the humanities as something not apart
from society, but as deeply enmeshed in contemporary social, political, and economic debates.
I am the recipient of the Stanley Creswell Award for Teaching Excellence and the Association of
Former Students Distinguished Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Teaching from Texas
A&M University. These accomplishments reflect my desire to continually develop my pedagogical
practices to better serve the needs of my students and my university. The more I teach, the more I
learn, and I hope I never stop learning, no matter where my career takes me.