The nature of my current occupation (teaching undergraduates), prior experience (teaching in high schools, a graduate program, and community college), and past coursework in English education have afforded me some excellent opportunities to survey the field. From Adler to Zimmerman, I've read, studied, discussed, and had professionals guide me through texts about how and why to teach. And yet…after almost 20 years, it's still a challenge to provide an 'elevator pitch' of who I am as a teacher. I can say for certain that I have taught urban, rural, and suburban students; poor and middle class students; and students of various ethnicities, languages, and countries of origin. I have taught 14 year olds and 50 year olds. I have taught courses from 9th grade English all the way to graduate seminars. Throughout it all I have remained as the constant.

How do I begin to explain all this teaching, except as a series of paradoxes? I must meet students where they are yet push them beyond their own expectations. I am expected to render the abstruse into the apparent; reframe both the simple and the complex; and transform what was obvious into the unfamiliar. At once a source of expertise and a perpetual learner, my teaching is a collaborative, dynamic process that involves a complex integration of imagination, skill, ethics, content knowledge, and the willingness to take risks in every lesson for the sake of my students.