Rachel E.

Molko
Statement of Teaching Philosophy

To reflect feminist values in teaching is to teach progressively, democratically, and with feeling.
​ ancy Schniedewind
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My teaching philosophy is based on advancing feminist values as explicated by Sonja K. Foss,

Karen A. Foss, and Cindy L. Griffin, such as empathy, inclusion, and listening. To apply a
feminist pedagogy to my classroom, I critically engage my students in a dialogue that warrants
reflection about the delivery and content of the curriculum during each class period. With a
feminist pedagogical lens, I compliment the new paradigm of composition instruction as well as
challenge traditional classroom hierarchies with the hope that my students will be inspired to
foster inclusive and respectful interactions within and beyond the learning environment. In
welcoming students to a study that is interdisciplinary, intertextual, and multimodal, my
intention is for students to feel encouraged to become reflective, critical, invested, active, and
engaged participants in the classroom. When students leave my class, I want them to feel
confident using writing as a way to represent and reflect on their experiences, perspectives, and
ideas in conversation with others.

In a Writing About Writing curriculum, for example, I employ a feminist pedagogy by inviting
students to participate as composition studies scholars. As a way to enact the role of
teacher-midwife, I frame writing as a tool for mediation by inviting my students to apply the
concepts from composition studies to and through a semester-long situated inquiry project. The
project is scaffolded through four main assignments: Literature review, proposal, primary data
collection, and research write up. Extending the aim for students to recognize their own
situational expertise, a feminist pedagogy involves an emphasis on personal experience and
validation of subjectivities. Thus, the focus of the inquiry project is on a discourse community or
community of practice that is meaningful for students on a personal level. I ask them to reflect on
their literate experiences early on in the semester so we can talk generously about the way texts
mediate the community practices in which they are involved.

Throughout my career as a researcher and educator, I find that intersectional feminist praxis
demands a response to the existing linguistic systemic barrier preventing equal opportunity for
learning and knowledge creation, which maintains the status quo. With this exigence in mind, I
have taken my research on the recognition of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in
classroom settings to national conferences in order to push back against literacy regimes that
perpetuate the literacy-as-white-property ideology. For example, I have presented on
spoken-word poetry as one pedagogical practice that can be used to support African American
students’ literacy and language practices. Consequently, my pedagogy is informed by a
recognition that an identity-supporting classroom environment positions students’ differences as
ways to soften cultural boundaries and open other students up to linguistic variations in
communication.

For example, inquiry-based projects with spoken word performances give students the
opportunity and ability to move in and out of different codes and across sets of meaning
representations. One of my student veterans did research on the website 22Kill’s effectiveness in
using genres to raise awareness on the veteran suicide epidemic and educate civilians on
post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues. During the final presentation of his
spoken-word poem, he wove research into a second-person narrative of how 22Kill provided
resources and support that saved his life. The poem brought a visceral element to his project that
helped his classmates understand the real-world implications of his research, an outcome
impossible without the challenge and space to explore a new performative mode of expression.

In another section in First-Year Writing, one student wrote a literacy narrative framing his
hometown of Liberty City, Miami as a literacy sponsor that shaped his perspective on “thug
life.” Through his essay, he intentionally wove African American Vernacular English with
Academic English as a way to embody his double-consciousness and reclaim the term “thug.” In
doing so, he showed that the typically associated negative stereotypes surrounding Liberty City
obfuscate the values of perseverance, authenticity, and community that he carries with him from
his upbringing. While he is asked to switch between codes in other classes, I welcome him, and
all my students, to mesh communicative codes in order to best express themselves. It is one thing
to gather statistics and build theory, but it is another thing to see how an implementation of
cultural understanding can positively affect individuals inside and outside of the learning
environment and make accessible the previously exclusive intellectual outlet of academia.