Teaching Philosophy

In line with the FYC Mission Statement, Murat Yazan’s First Year Composition (FYC) courses aim to help students think freely and communicate openly opinions and ideas they feel strongly about. He challenges himself and his students to look at issues from a different perspective and try to understand opposing views. Mr. Yazan believes in creating a positive and safe learning environment that allows students to explore their ideas and help them understand that understanding someone else’s point of view doesn’t mean abandoning one’s own convictions.

Mr. Yazan’s First Year Composition courses continue to focus stress on the importance of using library reference materials and databases for both personal and academic use. He encourages his students to locate and use these resources on a regular basis rather than depending on non-academic internet resources. Especially in his English 102 classes, his students explore new tools that will aid them in their academic and personal lives.

Mr. Yazan’s English 101 students focus on the importance of understanding that writing is an on-going process and that they should not see it as a linear “one-way street” with a beginning and an ending. They come to realize that writing, reading, thinking, and researching are “pro-active” rather than “re-active” and, like anything else in their lives, improves with practice. He stresses the importance of making “writing” a habit in their daily lives.

Both courses continue to integrate Microsoft Word features to help students become better writers and develop professional documents in both style and content. He also commits himself to further developing his computer and software skills to enhance learning in his classroom. In English 101, for example, students are asked to write a Letter to the Editor each week using “Google Alerts” to help them filter news articles specific to their area of interest and major. Students must adhere to strict submission guidelines set in class as well as submission guidelines from the news source. This assignment helps students integrate information from news sources and to communicate their ideas and opinions professionally using a “real world” scenario. The assignment targets a variety of learning outcomes and exposes requires students to a number of tools they can use in other areas of their lives:

• Requires students to use “folder” options in Windows Live Catamount mail to create folders and filters for all courses
• Exposes students to SkyDrive to store documents and other artifacts as needed. SkyDrive is supported by WCU IT services.
• Requires students to use Google Alerts. This allows students to filter specific news stories concerning their major area of study and sends those stories directly to their email.
• Requires students to respond to news stories concerning their area of study.

Students also create annotated bibliographies on topics specific to the student’s area of interest and develop informative papers about their topic using a variety of Microsoft Word 2007 tools.

The composition projects also help students find their professional voice and ease the transition from merely regurgitating someone else’s facts and opinions to communicating their own ideas effectively in and out of the classroom. For example, his English 102 students create a ten chapter document about their career choice. In this project, students are required to locate and interview professional experts in their field on and off campus. This assignment is designed to help students organize smaller pieces into a larger seamless whole. At the end of the semester, each student evaluates the tools we’ve discussed in class, what skills they learned, and theorizes how those skills and tools can be adapted to other areas of their study. They also discuss how information and knowledge gained from various courses build upon one another and that learning is a process of combining the best tools and skill sets to establish measurable goals and complete a task.

Mr. Yazan’s literature classes stress the importance of making connections between past/present cultures and discovering the interconnectivity between Eastern philosophy and Western philosophy by using a variety of source materials often including historical documents. He believes it is absolutely essential that students try to understand how literary thought, in the form of religious and political writings--no matter how remote it may seem, applies to their everyday beliefs and behaviors and shapes their futures. Students should are able to adapt critical reading, thinking and writing skills they learn in my literature courses and apply them across the curriculum. Mr. Yazan challenges students to compare diverse peoples by exploring and understanding their respective cultures through their sciences, literatures and arts to discover what we may learn about creating stronger global relationships to bridge chasms that separate one group from another in a peaceful and open-minded atmosphere.