Andrea Williams
Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
About me
I an associate professor, teaching stream in the Writing & Rhetoric Program; and the deputy director of the Centre for Teaching Support and Innovation (CTSI).
Writing has been a lifelong passion (I have a bookcase of journals going back to my childhood), and my PhD was in rhetoric and composition. For me, writing is a way to engage with myself and with the world: I use writing to think through ideas and process feelings, and when called, to share these with other people.
My teaching and research
I enjoy helping students successfully transition to university writing, in part because my own first-year essay writing experience at U of T was bumpy.
I was awarded the Arts & Science Outstanding Teaching Award in 2020. My teaching includes a lot of short, reflective writing, guided peer feedback, and close reading. I try to challenge my students to go beyond formulas, and let their purpose, audience, occasion, and context guide their writing.
Helping students recognize the power in writing, and finding their own way to write effectively, which includes persevering through difficulty, is deeply gratifying.
My research focuses on how students learn to write in different disciplines, and on how teaching assistants and faculty become better teachers of writing. I am also interested in the role of language in social and political change (environmental and activist rhetorics), as I am an unapologetic idealist.
Contact
Andrea Williams
Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
al.williams@utoronto.ca
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