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Contents
My First Major Mistake as a Writing Instructor
Life Now
My teaching life has been a rollercoaster affair in the USA. It was not always easy in Bangladesh either. Although I had many struggles initially, I feel more comfortable with my pedagogical inventions in the first year of teaching away from Bangladesh. My teachers, colleagues, and family inspire me to dip my toe in the water. In our small department, we have more international students than domestic ones in the graduate program. It shows our inclusive approach. All our excellent professors do their best to encourage us to feel welcomed. They give us constructive feedback. Thanks to them for appreciating me regardless of my race, color, and ethnicity. As someone whose English is not the first language, and as an international graduate instructor of color, I feel grateful when I receive words of appreciation and constructive criticism from my folks. However, my writing director’s feedback of not taking every form of feedback seriously has changed my perspective of dealing with the mental anxiety that comes after an evaluator’s negative criticism. In the case of feedback now, I take the ones which I really think will improve my rhetorical condition seriously but ignore the others that I think will do me no favor. I have my own right to a language. That change in mindset has given me more confidence and assurance about myself. In fear of losing their job, status, prestige, reputation, income, and grades, IGTAs of color hesitate to formally write about their academic concerns as first-year writing instructors. Still, I have some recommendations for first-year writing directors. I aim to help them develop their understanding of international graduate teaching assistants of first-year writing.