Master’s Student: Ashley Worthington, John Carroll University
Master’s Student
Ashley Worthington earned her M.A. in English with a specialization in Renaissance literature from John Carroll University in the spring of 2022. As a graduate teaching assistant in John Carroll’s English Department, Ashley served as a writing consultant for the university’s Writing Center and taught “Introduction to Academic Writing”—an undergraduate course that teaches the fundamentals of scholarly writing and research across disciplines. During her time at JCU, she also served as a graduate assistant for “Introduction to Shakespeare” and sat on the University’s First-Year Composition Committee. In the spring of 2022, Ashley received the Graduate Excellence in Teaching Award for her work in her writing courses. Ashley’s teaching philosophy is grounded in the idea that writing classrooms should teach writing as a process and that frequent low-stakes writing exercises encourage students to become more comfortable with the practice—preparing them for more formal graded assignments. She believes that the more often students exercise their writing voices during brainstorming, prewriting, and freewriting activities, the more confident and eager they will be when composing in-depth writing assignments. Ashley’s students engage with some form of in-class writing every day—whether journaling, drafting, workshopping, practicing new skills, or prewriting to prepare for class discussions. She finds that the habit of daily writing builds a sense of community in her classrooms and encourages her students to view themselves as writers. Ashley currently teaches English at University School—an independent high school for boys in Hunting Valley, Ohio.
Honorable Mention: Grace Hamilton, University of Notre Dame