Students in my courses come from diverse personal, educational, and disciplinary backgrounds.  The trait that most of them share is that they do no plan to pursue an academic or professional path in the material I teach, be it hip-hop performance or Slavic culture.  With this in mind, I strive to not only make my classroom a place where they can get excited about Serbian cinema or discover how Polish rap speaks to issues in their own lives, but also to ensure they understand how the analytical and communication skills we practice will serve them both personally and professionally.  Whether or not they can distinguish Mickiewicz from Masłowska, I want my students to leave my classroom having developed as critical readers, active and empathetic listeners, and clear and persuasive writers. 
 
I believe students are best situated to develop their analytical and writing skills when they are invested in the material of the course.  In my classroom, I work to help students make meaningful connections between the texts we study and the issues they care about, as well as highlighting the specific transferrable skills they are acquiring as we analyze and discuss those texts.   Encouraging students to make connections between their beliefs and those of the people and times we study not only offers a means by which students might approach otherwise alienating texts, but also helps them identify and reflect on elements of their own culture that might often go unexamined.  For example, in my Central European Cinema course, I begin our discussion of Milos Forman’s 1965 film Loves of a Blonde by asking my students to write a short, in-class reflection on how Forman’s depictions of gender and sexuality are similar or different from those in their own experience.  This has led to lively discussion on topics such as consent on campus, internalized misogyny, and gendered double standards.  Once students considered how much experience and knowledge they could bring to the discussion of Forman’s film, they were more engaged in the analysis of the work’s depiction of a young woman’s life in communist Czechoslovakia. 
 
Even when students are excited about a text, my experience in the classroom has taught me that discussion often does not happen naturally.  While pre-discussion activities like individual written reflection can help them gather their thoughts before sharing, I have found that students often are not taught how to do the kind of active listening and engaged discussion we expect of them in the college classroom.  In an effort to develop these skills and create an environment where all my students – regardless of their educational history – know what is expected of them in group discussions, I work to articulate and practice the skills required for productive discussions early in the term.  I stress the value of listening and responding to classmates and have experimented with offering students elements of a “script” to guide their responses to one another (“It sounds like you are saying X, but I read the passage as suggesting Y”), thus giving them the language to enter the conversation thoughtfully and encouraging the kind of active and empathetic listening and engagement that will benefit them not only in my class, but also as they move through various personal and professional spheres long after the semester ends. 
 
While I work to frame my syllabi and assignments to support students from diverse personal and disciplinary backgrounds, I also recognize that not all students are as comfortable speaking in class.  Along with sharing with my students that I have often been that student who is hesitant to speak in large groups, I design my courses to allow multiple forms of participation.  I particularly try to work in opportunities for students to pause and individually collect their thoughts before sharing their comments in small groups or with the full class.  I frequently begin my classes by asking students to take five minutes to make note of a specific detail from the day’s assigned text and offer a brief response or comment on questions it raised. These reflections not only provide students something to draw on when we return to group discussions and encourage thoughtful close reading, but when collected, they also allow me to assess each student’s understanding and review questions that need to be addressed in future sessions. 
 
In conjunction with discussion and short in-class writing, I structure my courses around a series of essays as a means to assess student engagement with the material and help them practice the skills needed for clear and persuasive argumentation.  These assignments are scaffolded across the semester so that the first assignment allows them to focus on the close reading skills that will then help them provide concrete evidence in their comparative and research essays.  Developing skills in this way, I aim to promote an inclusive environment where students from varied disciplinary backgrounds will develop confidence in the expectations and process of academic writing in the liberal arts.  Before the submission of their essays, I schedule in-class peer review sessions, prior to which I have my classes discuss their goals for the process and explain that I see it as valuable not only as a chance for them to have their work read, but also for them to practice being critical readers of others’ work – to thoughtfully engage with perspectives other than their own, to identify what makes for effective arguments, and to mine their peers’ work for techniques they might employ to strengthen their own writing.  This practice of explaining why I require the assignments I do is one that I try to bring to all aspects of my teaching – I want my students to understand what specific skills I am asking them to use and develop in every aspect of my classroom.  Throughout this process of giving and receiving feedback and revising their writing, I encourage my students to visit me in office hours to discuss any questions that arise.  In these individual sessions, I am able to talk through ideas with students and target my advice to resonate with their specific concerns and skills. 
 
Just as I work to make my students feel like their contributions are valued in the classroom, I also am dedicated to supporting them outside the classroom and underscoring the ways in which their perspectives are valued in the broader academic community.  I have nominated students for university writing prizes, encouraged them to submit their work to departmental competitions, written letters in support of applications to study abroad programs, and met to discuss opportunities for internships or further coursework in my home department. Recognizing that these programs can be prohibitively expensive for many students—an issue of accessibility that deeply affects fields where time abroad and unpaid internships are often a critical element of study—I also try to keep my students informed about scholarships and other available funding sources.   
 
I know that for many of my students, their passion lies outside the topics of my classroom, but I hope that in pushing them to develop as writers, critical thinkers, and empathetic listeners, the study of the texts I love will provide them with skills to articulate the significance of their passions and to succeed in whatever path they choose.  And if they happen to discover a favorite Polish rapper or Czech artist along the way, all the better.