Jeffery Downs

Background

About Jeffery Downs

I have served as an Instructional Assistant, and then a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Texas State, and now as an instructor at St. Edward’s University. I have also been a writing center tutor at University of Houston-Downtown, Texas State, and St. Edward’s. All of these experiences have helped me to realize the direction of my teaching goals. In the classroom, or writing center, working so closely with young students from other disciplines, other countries, even disabilities, has given in me a more global way of looking at what constitutes composition and, in turn, how we write. I believe that the critical thinking and problem solving skills, these un-learnable skills, a student develops in a university writing class are vital to a successful student career and beyond. Guiding them through the basics of Rhetoric and argument shows them that it is their right, to paraphrase Freire, to go forward and name the world.