Tony Delgado

Purdue University
Department of English

Through my teaching I strive to aid students in the development of their critical thinking and
composition skills while exposing them to projects that will allow them to put those skills into practice.
Although the way these goals are implemented can vary from course to course, there are several
philosophical underpinnings to my pedagogy that remain constant.

Exposure to a diversity of experiences outside of students' own circumstances.

I view teaching as an opportunity for my students to engage with the concerns of the humanities,
particularly those questions of why our culture exists in the way it does. While the usage of explicit literary
theory and philosophy may be too much for my undergrads, I encourage students to ask what sorts of
ideas function beneath the way in which their culture runs. In the past, my students and I have looked at
feminist TED talk videos and deconstructed the arguments. I encourage students to ask questions about
what they have watched. Why do we agree or disagree with the speaker? Why are we motivated or not
motivated to act? This type of discussion can be very uncomfortable for the student, especially when it
comes to issues of race and gender, and difficult for the teacher to facilitate, but is ultimately worth it when
students begin interrogating their assumptions. Ultimately, my goal is not to convert students to a point of
view different than their own, but to get them to engage with experiences and reasoning beyond
themselves.

Recognition of writing as an interaction between a participating reader and author.

The complexity of the relationship between reader, author, and text is a foundation to my
pedagogy.. My classes consider a number of texts that demonstrate considerable awareness of audience
expectation. Students have looked at paintings by Pablo Picasso and Kehinde Wiley, and short stories by

authors like David Sedaris. When beginning analysis, I invite them to question why the text appears the way
it does. Why does it break from genre? If the author purposefully did these things, what sort of effect does
he or she produce? These are questions that are designed to train students to orient themselves not only
within the subject of a given text, but also its rhetorical situation. While students initially can be baffled
because these texts do not provide easy answers or conform to their expectations, I find that they quickly
move onto more productive questions about not only how artists and writers play with audience
expectation, but also create intertextual relationships.
In addition to these questions related to being a reader of a text, students are also encouraged to
think about the similarities and differences to their own writing. For example, during a unit in which
students create a public service poster, I showed them Exit Through the Gift Shop, the documentary by the
controversial street artist Banksy. Although the student projects are different in aim than Banksy's art, they
have many similarities and some important differences. Through exploring the differences and similarities
of the genres students not only think about the context of a piece of writing but how their writing can
change the environment that surrounds it.

Development of Process
Of course, a major component of gaining knowledge is not only critical thinking and writing but
also the development of a process to enable these activities to succeed. Although students can perform the
tasks required of active readers and writers with aplomb within the classroom, even more valuable is the
ability to create a system under which they can achieve these goals on their own. For this reason, practice is
a major component of my teaching. In the case of writing, for example, peer-review and feedback is
constant from a course's beginning to end. Weekly peer-group meetings, which I facilitate, allow students
to discuss and critique each others' work as they are writing drafts. After the creation of drafts, I require a
draft exchange for feedback with a partner. These exchanges will have a particular angle. For example, I
may require students to take the opposite side of their partner's argument to challenge it. Through

purposefully making the composition process an activity that is done in class with their peers as well as out
of class on their own, students are guided through the steps of developing an idea, researching and
creating a written text as a long term process that is dynamic, effective, and personally rewarding.