Faculty Profile: Sara Ford, English Instructor
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| Sara Ford |
Courses
Writing and Research Skills; Research Writing and the Disciplines; The Research Paper; Introduction to Literature; African American Literature; American Literature
Education and background
Ford has a bachelor's degree in English from Skidmore College and master's and doctorate degrees in English from the University of Tennessee. Before coming to Inver Hills, Ford started teaching at the University of Tennessee with freshman composition and moved on to teaching all levels of composition, African American literature, and American literature.
Inver Hills. . . a place to begin
"Inver Hills continues to provide an excellent start to a bachelor degree, successful career programs, dedicated, knowledgeable and engaging instructors, and student support, including a vibrant student life presence. I want my students to know that I push them hard because I want their voices heard in the larger discourse, and they need to develop the skills to get there."
One instructor, one experience
Ford decided to teach because of one instructor, one experience. She disliked school, for the most part, until she was a junior in college, she says. Ford rarely did the reading, often felt underprepared, and had a lot of teachers who taught via intimidation. Ford keeps this set of memories with her as she teaches. "If students don't know why a class is exploring a particular question, they have no reason to engage other than to please the instructor."
In a class at the University of Dundee in Scotland (Ford was enrolled for a semester), Ford was asked to "teach" a British novel. "The instructor told us all to go out and find these novels from used bookstores and to get to work reading and preparing for the lessons we were in control of. You can imagine how this sounded to a student who was prepared not even to read the assignment. Now I had to teach it! So I hit the library and started reading. I had to start at the beginning, with questions like 'who is this guy,' 'what did he write,' 'why does anybody care,' 'what's the big deal'...all questions my earlier teachers had taken for granted and neglected to comment on.'
"As I started the process of finding these answers for myself, I just loved it. I stayed up all night long reading and getting so excited about how much I was learning. Nobody told me what I was supposed to find in the book--I started at zero and discovered it on my own. This was a life-changing experience. I became engaged intellectually. I understood that all of this literature stuff was no mystery that belonged to the teachers I'd disliked, but that it belonged to and was accessible to me, and that it was beautiful, terrifying, alive, and ever-so necessary. I called home in the middle of the night from a pub near the library and announced I was going to graduate school and was going to teach English to college students. I remember my parents saying 'but you hate school,' in their drowsy voices. 'Not anymore! I announced,' and trounced back to my reading."
Think bigger
Ford adheres to an ongoing goal to become a more effective teacher. "I want to help my students become stronger critical thinkers than the popular culture they live in urges them to be. I want to show them that they belong and have the skills necessary to participate in the discussions taking place in higher education, government, and business about what kind of world we want and what we can do to get it. I want to show them literature, to share with them the excitement and awe that comes when a poem or a novel cracks open in front of us as we ask questions of it. These are the biggest goals that drive me, and the moments that mean the most to me."
This page last modified: 09/11/2008
