Davies and Ahnert Named Outstanding TAs

Two WP nominees have been awarded 2010 Outstanding Teaching Assistant awards. The award recognizes teaching assistants who demonstrate excellence in significant instructional capacities. Selection for the Outstanding TA award is made by a university-wide committee of faculty recognized for their teaching excellence, and is given to approximately the top 4% of all TAs campus wide. The awards were presented at a ceremony on April 22 [click here for pics].

Congratulations to Laura Davies, a PhD candidate in the Composition and Cultural Rhetoric program, for being awarded a 2010 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. In her nomination letter, Writing Program Director and Chair, Eileen Schell, writes,

Laura is an excellent teaching assistant, and she has been from the beginning of her TA appointment four years ago. She consistently has high student evaluations and works very hard in whatever teaching assignment we have given her, whether WRT 104 (summer start), WRT 105, 205, 307, or one-on-one consulting . . . in our Writing Center. Students find her to be an open, engaged, and thoughtful teacher. She is accessible to students, yet she also challenges them to improve their writing, their thinking, and critical reading skills.

In her letter, Director of Undergraduate Studies Lois Agnew adds,

In her most recent evaluations, students noted that Laura was knowledgeable and passionate (especially about writing and writing issues) and enthusiastic. Students comment that Laura explains course materials well, plans classes carefully, and puts students to work productively. In addition to the recent evaluations, both of Laura's Future Professoriate Project mentors Professors Louise Phelps and Krista Kennedy have filed extremely positive evaluations of her teaching.

One student wrote, "The writing assignments [were challenging] but in a good way. They made me think about things differently and made me step outside of my comfort zone but I think and hope they made me a better writer."

Congratulations to Laurel Ahnert, a second year MA student in English, who is currently completing her fourth semester teaching in the Writing Program, for being awarded a 2010 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.

In her nominating letter, Teacher Training Coordinator, Anne Fitzsimmons wrote,

Those of us involved in TA training recognize that the Writing Program, with its stated mission to, among other things, "Provide an undergraduate curriculum that teaches writing as a social practice, giving special attention to issues of diversity as they affect rhetorical practice," puts new graduate TAs in a very challenging position. Not only must TAs develop the confidence to instruct students in a range of academic writing practices, but they must also engage with topics that challenge students’ assumptions, that destabilize and disorient them. Laurel, it turns out, is at her most confident and inspired when it comes to imagining how to get students involved in topics that are topical, urgent, and contested. Currently Laurel is teaching WRT 205 for the second time, and her new course inquiry is “Negotiating the Iraq War.” Her course materials are beautiful, and they reflect a blend of her own nuanced thinking about the topic—its importance and complexity—as well as the careful attention to writing and research instruction that is more typically evident in the teaching materials of only the most experienced instructors.

Fitzsimmons adds, "the new TAs who have watched her teach this year rave about her knowledge of composition and her inventive teaching materials and practices."

Of her award, Laurel says, "I'm very thankful for this award and thankful to the TA advisers, especially Anne and Betsy [Hogan], for all the guidance they've given me in the past two years. The successes I've had as a teacher are entirely inspired by their positive, yet challenging mentorship. After graduating this May I intend to pursue teaching opportunities elsewhere, and continue pushing students to become critical thinkers and writers."

Laurel Ahnert