Teaching Portfolio
English - Rhetoric, Critical Thinking, & Composition: Death & Other Conversations
This semester-long course studies rhetoric, analyzing texts (essays, podcasts, art, poetry, film, and other media) focused on death. Topics extend beyond corporeal death to sociopolitical constructs, traditions, the environment, and more. Students examine how texts shape and are shaped by normalized depictions of death and dying and what impact death rhetoric has on individual and societal understanding. Throughout the semester, we return to the question: What does death reveal?
Select materials:
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty (excerpts)
"The American Way of Death, Revisited” by Jessica Mitford (excerpts)
“The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” by Audre Lorde
“Man vs. Corpse” by Zadie Smith
“Apocalypse” by Junot Díaz
“Formation” by Beyoncé
Thank You for Smoking (film)
“History Project” by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner
“dinosaurs in the hood” by Danez Smith
“The Gun Show” from More Perfect podcast
“Doing the No No” with Adam Zaretsky by Love + Radio
Blackfish (documentary)
Hannah Gadsby’s “Nannette”
Honors - Butt Dials & Booty Calls:
Sex, Sexuality, & Relationships in the Digital Age
This half-semester seminar studies the ever-evolving relationship between technology and intimacy. Through music, podcasts, television, film, short fiction, essays, poetry, and art, students explore the impact of digital media on sex, sexuality, and relationships, investigating questions like: What impact does media have on sexual education and health? How does popular media (re)define dating and romance? Who is included and who is left out of depictions of these topics in popular media?
Select materials:
“The Tech Boom” The Eighties (s1e6)
“When Did Porn Become Sex Ed?” by Peggy Orenstein from The New York Times “Opinion”
“Sex Education” Last Week Tonight
“Is YA Fiction a Better Sex Educator Than Sex Ed?” from Love + Sex podcast
“Dating App Helps Muslim Millennials Find Love, Parents Not Included” from NPR’s Code Switch podcast
“Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenia on The New Yorker
“Romantic Comedies: When Stalking Has a Happy Ending” by Julie Beck, The Atlantic
“San Junipero,” Black Mirror (s3e4)
English - Introduction to Creative Writing: Workshop
This semester-long workshop introduces students to creative writing fundamentals and provides space for students to write in a variety of genres, receive and share feedback, and revise. Paired with a lecture that offers extensive readings in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, this workshop focuses on the full creative writing process, including: brainstorming ideas with writing prompts; outlining and plotting; sharing feedback with peers; receiving, and interpreting feedback; revision strategies; submitting to journals. Students receive feedback from their workshop instructor on each workshop piece, as well as individual guidance during one-on-one conferences.
Select lessons:
Character development
Dialogue
Opening lines
Setting / worldbuilding
Genre
Style & voice
Student Feedback
Quality of Teaching
“she makes class exciting. She has a lot energy and passion she brings into her classes that make her class enjoyable and unforgetable.”
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“Ms. Stringfield is open and welcoming, encourages discussion, works to understand the viewpoints of students, and makes class enjoyable without sacrificing any of the educational material.”
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"10/10, 5 Stars, 3 Michelin Stars, 2 Thumbs up"
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“Very good, was never in a bad mood and radiated that through the entire class. Explained things in detail so everyone could understand.”
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"My instructor had great teaching ability and knew how to navigate and make difficult topics easier to understand."
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"She is very approachable and does a great job communicating with students."
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"She was able to truly relate with the students in the classroom and teach while doing so."
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"She was easy to listen to and had us to be engaged the entire time."
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"She is very very good instructors. I'm not just saying her personality, but also her teaching skills. She talks very clear and explain things well. She always seem like well prepared. And she made a great class atmosphere to discuss the topics and [share] opinion[s] freely."
Class Discussion
"Group discussion was really good in that the instrustor brought up good topics that need to be talked about and everyone got to see another point of view rather than their own."
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"Interesting topics and questions were discussed and presented in class, this promoted our intellectual growth as she was not afraid to let discussion and debate occur"
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“Strengths are that class time was mostly discussions and not just the instructor speaking at us. Everyone was involved and there was a great class environment.”
Writing Improvement
“Definitely strengthened my writing skills by organizing my questions and her responses on how to improve my papers in an extremely accessible way ”
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"As an international student, it is hard to write the academic paper with foreign language. But with my instructor's help, I could learn and develop more writing skills and become more confident when I write."
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"the most valuable thing I [learned] was making my writing clearer and more concise."
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“I feel as if my writing has grown a lot because of this course”
Student Mindset
“I always felt challenged in this class. The most valuable thing I learned was that I can always be learning more. “
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“The most valuable thing I learned is that to realize my own biases and recognize the biases of others and how that plays a large role in the media. ”
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“The most valuable thing I learned is to be more aware of what is going on in the world around me so that I can have meaningful conversations about things that are relevant. “
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“I think she did well on bringing the class topic to our attention, because most of the topics, none of us have really ever discussed or analyzed before. It made for a good learning experience and opens our minds toward a different target ”
Classroom Environment
"open, comfortable, collaborative environment. I always felt safe to share my opinion in front of my instructor and classmates”
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“The class was very well organized and and the teacher was always engaged in the class and created a very positive learning environment”
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"I always felt welcome and assured that she had our best learning in mind."