Mentor Letters

Letter #1: Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, University of Iowa, 2022

To the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award Selection Committee,

I am honored to nominate my former graduate student and current mentee Annie Burkhart for an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. Over the past two years, I have been grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with Annie, first as a member of my teaching practicum (PDP) for new instructors in 2020, and second as my practicum co-leader the following year in Fall of 2021. From visiting Annie’s classroom and from working as a PDP team, I have witnessed Annie’s nuanced critical thinking skills, reflectiveness, and compassion. These are precisely the qualities in an educator that are sorely needed in the humanities and by our University.

As an educator, Annie views her students with genuine humanity, honoring and validating the individuality of each person in the room. When I sat in on her undergraduate (Zoom) classroom in the September of 2020 – so early in her teaching career and under less than ideal circumstances – I was surprised and refreshed by the community that Annie had built. It was abundantly clear that the classroom was a safe and brave space for her students, and the atmosphere (even online!) was lively, cheerful, and warm. Annie’s instructor presence was calming and thoughtful and her preparation and organization were evident. Her students clearly appreciated the balance between checking in, discussion, instructive content, and housekeeping. During my visit, Annie led the students through a guided analysis of a feminist pop anthem, during which participation was buzzing. The variety of student responses and richness of student analysis made it clear that Annie had laid a firm groundwork for her students to engage confidently in multimodal activities and interactive and supportive full-group discussion. I have held the experience of observing Annie’s class close, because I have rarely encountered an instructor with such intuitive and organic pacing. There is a beautiful balance, in her classroom, between structure and ease, supported by the clarity of Annie’s expectations and the thoughtfulness of her feedback. It would be easy for any student to feel empowered and at home in the space she creates.

I have also been deeply impressed by Annie’s approach to teaching a themed course centered on the rhetoric of feminism. Annie’s course construction and pedagogy are considerate of the diversity of thought, opinion, and experience among the Iowa undergraduate student body, and it is clear from her student feedback that students have felt welcomed in her course no matter their previous exposure to or feelings about feminism. Annie has used a themed course to achieve breadth and depth, enjoying great success with her students in reaching core goals of the course, like understanding a complex and controversial issue and entering the conversation around that issue with informed confidence. Additionally, Annie’s attention to her student’s emotional needs and well-being helps all students to feel included and respected, without differences in opinion presenting an obstacle.

Annie is an uncommonly thoughtful and intentional instructor, and – in addition to her excellence in the undergraduate classroom – she has also done valuable work sharing her approaches and guiding her peers as a leader and mentor to new instructors. I recommend her for recognition with the highest confidence.

Thank you for your consideration,

Katlyn Williams, PhD

Letter #2: Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, University of Iowa, 2022

As her academic advisor, I write to recommend Annie V. Burkhart in the highest terms for the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for her teaching of Rhetoric. I cannot imagine a more deserving recipient. I will first excerpt a small passage from a 2019 report on her teaching by her then-teaching mentor, Kyle Barton, and will next add my own observations on a class that I observed last week.

For her 2019 class in “Foundations of the English Major,” Mr. Barton noted the variety of approaches Ms. Burkhart used within a single class session and her consistently student-centered pedagogy. When presenting Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, he summarized:

Annie scaffolded this lesson with incredible sophistication. She first got her students to familiarize themselves with the scene by performing it out loud. These performances also helped them begin to make interpretive decisions about how the characters speak and interact. Then, she challenged them to think about how movement on stage could connect to the thematic concerns of the dialogue. Finally, she challenged them to apply these ideas to a new concept: the Renaissance stage. The results were thrilling. She ended the activity by pointing out that they had just close read a play, an activity they would perform more formally in the next close reading paper . . . . Throughout this lesson, Annie demonstrated a deep commitment to student-centered teaching. Her carefully structured lesson plan also showed how much consideration she puts into individual classes. And the great results showed how effective her careful planning has been.

Last Wednesday (February 16th, 2022) I visited Ms. Burkhart’s Rhetoric class, and was equally impressed, even awed, by the grace and organization of her presentation, and her consistent efforts to treat her students with friendly, egalitarian respect. As they entered she played a song by an African-American musician, commenting on its relevance for Black History Month, after which she invited questions about their upcoming essay assignment, and explained the assignment further through a careful Powerpoint. After a break for an exercise during which students were asked to comment more personally on something good that had happened to them during the fall, as well as on what they planned for their next endeavors. Ms. Burkhart projected on the screen a model student essay of the length of their upcoming assignment, and after inviting a student to read aloud the opening paragraph, called for commentary on its organization and language. The students responded with intelligent and accurate insights, and at the end all agreed that they had thoroughly understood the assignment. Throughout Ms. Burkhart’s presentation was earnest, clear, and methodical as well as informal and friendly, as she encouraged student participation and empathized with the problems they had faced during lockdown and Covid.

I have followed Ms. Burkhart’s graduate work since she completed my doctoral course in “Transatlantic Ties: British and American Literature, 1830-1930” in 2019, and during 2020 and 2021 she enrolled for independent study courses with me during which she read for her upcoming comprehensive examinations. I was therefore well aware of the high quality of Ms. Burkhart’s writing and literary critical gifts, but I believe that her teaching is even more remarkable, and the highest testimony to her dedication to her students and to teaching as a social mission and as an art. In view of her superlative teaching and commitment, I therefore urge you in the strongest terms to award Annie Burkhart a University of Iowa Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for her teaching of Rhetoric.

Florence S. Boos, Professor of English