One of my greatest delights as a teacher is witnessing my students excel and move into the world with a powerful voice and readiness to meet the real world head-on. Meet Rebekah Goodrich, one of my former students. She exemplifies this type of high achieving student who delights her teachers. I am confident she will contribute a great deal to society.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and was homeschooled with my three siblings. Eventually, I moved on to studying at the University of North Florida (UNF), where I studied English and psychology and eventually earned an English master’s degree.
What do you do now?
I still live in Jacksonville, but I have hopes to live up North at least some point in my life. Funnily enough, I’m actually tutoring writing right now, and I’m intending to return to teaching writing classes at UNF starting this summer.
When did you start writing with IEW, and what did you find to be the most helpful component?
I started in middle school and continued until the 12th grade. I completed multiple books, but I remember the Advanced U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons the most. We did so many lessons that I lost track of which ones I have and haven’t done. In school, I think using strong verbs and quality adjectives was most helpful since my vocabulary was increasing during that time. So, it was a chance to see what I could do. Nowadays, it’s the key word outline, which is just infinitely useful.
How did IEW help you in college?
In undergrad I was more experienced and prepared than my classmates were because my writing already included clauses, -ly adverbs, and sentence openers, which were a struggle for many of the students. As I said, my favorite part of IEW is the key word outline. That has been consistently the most beneficial piece from IEW that I still utilize today. In my graduate program, things would get extremely complicated, and sometimes I’d be using what is essentially two thesis statements simultaneously. Therefore, being organized was imperative, which is why using an outline was so helpful. My outlines got so detailed that by the time I got to my essay, I didn’t need to do much writing.
You recently earned your master's degree in technical writing. How did IEW's approach help you with that?
Yes, I just graduated from UNF with my master’s degree in Rhetoric and Composition, which primarily consisted of pedagogical and technical writing courses. IEW was a constant part of my degree. I used it for every piece of writing and research that I did. Every essay had an outline. By my graduate degree, dress-ups were so automatic that I included them all over my writing and speaking.
What connection do you see between your IEW training and your ability to communicate beyond writing?
In terms of other types of writing, IEW was helpful for professional communication, such as emails. However, the part of learning to write that I think people miss is how it impacts your character. Learning how to write and construct ideas and sentences allowed me to better advocate for myself because I could articulate my thoughts and experiences more accurately.
How has your Structure and Style® foundation informed your present position as a college professor?
Having that background makes it easier to explain to my students what I’m talking about and how to achieve it. I try to explain to them why I’m doing something, and I ask their opinion to give them more autonomy. Without the Structure and Style foundation, I would have a significantly harder time answering why different writing techniques work for specific things and how to do it.
What writing skills (or lack of) are you seeing your incoming students presenting with?
To be honest, they struggle with most things. Specifically, how to format quotes and ways to open sentences. Almost none of them can form a thesis statement, and if they do, the likelihood of them reflecting on each part of the thesis statement is slim. To combat this, I have to go back to basics, which are the IEW techniques I grew up using.
What are your professional goals?
I’ve already presented at an academic conference. However, I would like to present at a larger conference which focuses on video games and education.
If you could speak to teachers and teaching parents, what advice would you give them about teaching their students?
Regardless of what career they go into, they’re going to need to do some writing. So, to save their future co-workers from migraines, I would practice some professional communication skills. How do we write emails or talk to coworkers? Also, résumés are exceedingly important. In terms of their earlier education, always encourage reading and building up their vocabulary. Having a strong vocabulary is probably one of the most underrated but powerful components of self-representation.
by Jennifer Mauser
