During the course of my time as a Masters student at the Department of English at the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, I was also a Graduate Teaching Assistant, and by the beginning of the last two semesters (August 2015-May 2016), an Instructor on record at University. While during the second semester (Spring 2015) I was mentee to senior lecturer, Matt Porter, at the Department, learning the ropes of how to create syllabi and go around teaching a class of 22 undergraduates, by Fall 2015, the responsibility would fall solely on me with no one to assist - but certainly always to draw from. The document below is my teaching portfolio inclusive of my teaching philosophy and an observation report from a peer instructor during Fall 2015. I have also included here evaluations of two of my former students who were kind to have shared their experiences of having me as instructor for their writing course. Writer, editor, and student aside, this will give you a glimpse of me as a teacher.
Some of my former students had this to say about their experience of me as Instructor. Thank you Annie and Richard!
Annie Astraikis
Sophomore in Business Administration, NC State
"One of the most important skills I learned in Ms. Banerjee’s class was the ability to analyze my own analysis of a piece of writing or a photograph. In English classes before this one, I would read a piece a passage and I would raise my hand to answer a question and speak without putting much thought to what I was saying. My English classes before this one taught me to analyze writing and photographs at the most basic level and before getting to college, this level of analysis was acceptable in a classroom setting. But when I started this class, I realized that I must do more to be successful. In this class, I would raise my hand and give a thought about a certain piece of information and in my high school English classes, that would have been the end of it. But Ms. Banerjee would then push me a little bit further in my answer. She would ask me a question about where I came up with this thought of mine or she would ask me to further explain what I had just said so my idea could become more developed. She is very skilled at knowing which questions to ask so that a student will push themselves a bit further to develop their points more thoroughly. Ms. Banerjee helped me examine my own thought processes and figure out why I had certain opinions about a piece of writing or a photograph.
For instance, there was one day in class when we examined photographs. Ms. Banerjee projected a photo onto the board and we all raised our hands if we had an observation about something in the photograph. Some people would raise their hands and give a simple observation about something as basic as the color of an object in the photograph. A less skilled instructor would have just let their students give basic answers like that but Ms. Banerjee is very skilled in helping students push themselves to give more in-depth answers to questions. In class, we examined a photograph of a house burning down. In the foreground of the photograph, there was a pumpkin patch. My peer observed that the color orange was very visually dominant in the photograph because the fire was bright orange and the pumpkins were bright orange. This may have been a simple observation but Ms. Banerjee helped my classmate come to a more complex conclusion related to the significance of the color orange in the photograph. Ms. Banerjee helped all of us grow as both students and thinkers and that is where her genius lies. The ability to teach information is one thing but the ability to teach others to think in more complex ways is a whole other thing.
The essay portion of this course was tough but incredibly enriching. Before this class, I had only ever written the very basic five paragraph essays that we are assigned in high school. The jump from a five paragraph paper to the more complex papers we are expected to write in a college English class could have been painful but Ms. Banerjee helped all of us make the transition so much. She provided a lot of structure to help us succeed in writing these papers and that is what enabled all of us to be successful in this class. The days where we could have our peers read and edit our essays were so helpful. In high school, peer editing days were always useless but Ms. Banerjee provided us with a list of questions to help us edit other people’s papers much better. She helped us at each step of the essay writing process and this helped all of us become much better writers by the end of the year. This course has helped me immensely in my other classes, too."
Richard Wright
Freshman, NC State
"My name is Richard Wright and I am a freshman at North Carolina State University. During my first semester at NC State I was enrolled it ENG 101 in which Professor Banerjee was the instructor. I entered her class as a student who cared very little for composition, but due to the teaching methods she employed in our class and the way she constantly strove to help us better understand, interpret, and produce writing in different disciplines, I developed a new respect for the discipline of academic writing.
One of Professor Banerjee’s greatest attributes as an educator is that she believes in being held accountable for one’s work. Not only does she have high standards for her students which holds them accountable for meeting, being on time, etc., but she also holds herself accountable as an educator. She would promptly respond to emails, grade and return work to her students in a timely manner, and would always be willing to meet with students one-on-one if they needed guidance on an assignment. She instilled in us a good work ethic that has better prepared us for the rest of our academic careers.
With regard to the discussions held in class over any piece of reading we would do, Professor Banerjee would make her students think thoroughly through and explain the statements and claims that they made in her class. As a student I could not begin to tell you the number of times she stumped me with the simple questions of “Why?” or “How?”. Professor Banerjee taught me that simply making a claim was not good enough, and would not get me very far in any argumentative conversation, written or spoken, that I will ever be engaged in. She taught me that it was necessary that I not only state the obvious, but that I find the underlying details of my claims, bring those details to the forefront of my argument and it would be from there that I would be able to prove my claims to my audience.
In all, through her hard work and devotion to her job, Professor Banerjee made my peers and me better students. I doubt that I will write any more pictorial analyses, but the writing and communication skills that I gained from assignments such as this one and others that I completed while I was in her class will greatly benefit me for the remainder of my time at NC State and my career beyond the University. Throughout the course of a semester, Professor Banerjee displayed the characteristics of an outstanding educator and leader in the classroom. The unwavering, high expectations which she maintains of herself and of her students will continue to lead her down the road of success and will allow her to make a positive impact on the lives of those who she instructs as she has done to mine."