Melanie Hoftyzer

Teaching Philosophy
Throughout my teaching career, I have focused on discovering ways to make writing more interesting – and fun – for students. Oftentimes students believe writing is a mysterious, esoteric process that they just don’t “get.” My primary focus is helping them realize that it is neither mysterious nor impossible. Other goals for my class include encouraging students’ confidence in their writing and speaking, helping them develop voice and style. They also learn how to do deep revision of ideas and content, as well as sentence level revision. They work together in workshop groups to further understand that writing is not solitary, but can involve many others from their peers’ authentic audience feedback to “expert” suggestions from me.

To accomplish these goals, I create courses that address the class’s defined learning outcomes, but I also leave a space to construct an individualize-able course for each student. Therefore, I approach class time with a variety of writing exercises, both solitary and group, both public and private, as well as discussions with the in small groups and with the class as a whole. I insist on continuing self-evaluation from the students and teach them how to think more (constructively) critically about their own writing. I employ a variety of evaluation methods ranging from comments-only drafts to portfolios to achievement-based grading.

Research Interests
My research interests include writing evaluation pedagogy and methods, science and rhetoric, and how to utilize different personality assessment instruments in the writing classroom.