Teaching

I have enjoyed teaching literature, composition, and technical writing to both high school and college students with widely varying backgrounds and skills, from first generation college students preparing for careers in technical fields to liberal arts students with aspirations to continue graduate work in literature. My current interest is teaching literature with an emphasis on studying world (or ‘postcolonial’) literature as a means of understanding how language shapes and is shaped by culture and how that process has very real ramifications on the political and social reality of individuals’ lives. I am also available to teach skills-based courses in composition and technical writing.

A former student comments:

“During my time at SUNY Maritime learning to be an Naval Architect I took so many engineering courses that the names of some and the content of even more slip my mind. It was these classes that I focused on and obsessed over thinking that they would be what determined my success in the industry. When it came to courses like your Technical Writing class, I often viewed them as a side note, a relief of sorts from the calculations and work of my core requirements. Now that I am working and experiencing the reality of the profession that I have chosen I feel compelled to write you and thank you, above all my professors, for teaching me.  It was the skills and topics learned in your class that have most benefited. I am constantly writing white papers and ship specifications where lay out and readability more often than not count far more than content… the need to balance the desires of all three [customers] and make all our customers happy requires a lot of creative writing to go along with some very inventive engineering. Thank you again for taking the time to teach this course, it may be under appreciated by your students in class but I’m sure many, if not all of them, value it greatly after graduation just as I do.”

–Greg J, student

Past teaching experience:

SUNY Maritime College, Bronx, NY. 2003-2008.

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Engineering. 2005-2008. Co-appointment in Humanities and Engineering Department. Redesigned freshman Introduction to Engineering course not only to introduce engineering students to professional topics such as history of disciplines and engineering ethics, but also to improve written and oral communication skills. Also responsible for coordinating industry guest speakers.
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities. 2003-2008. Taught courses in world literature, technical writing, freshman composition, and literature electives to students preparing for careers in maritime industry.

Department of English, New York University, New York, NY. 1998-2002.

  • Adjunct Assistant Professor. 2002. South Asian Literature in English.Upper division elective focusing on the response of Indian and Pakistani literature in English to the history of the Indian subcontinent.
  • Instructor. 1999-2001. Literature of India: Upper division elective on colonial representations of India and the development of the English novel in India. Literary Interpretation: Course designed to develop critical, theoretical, and writing skills for the English major.
  • Preceptor. 1998-1999.  British Literature II: Survey course covering 18th to 20th century. Responsible for leading weekly recitation sections, evaluating all student work, and assigning final course grades. Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century:  Humanities core course including biblical, philosophical, and historical texts. Responsible for leading weekly recitation sections, evaluating all student work, and assigning final course grades.

The Princeton Review, Irvine, CA. 1989-1992.

  • Instructor. Vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension, math review, and test-taking skills for college-bound high school students.
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