Teaching Portfolio

Heather Sellers reads at a podium. Her long dark hair is down and she is wearing a black dress.
Heather Sellers, reading at Hope College from her work, "Pedal, Pedal, Pedal."
Photograph by Erin Gilbert
Heather Sellers teaching at Hope College. She is wearing a black shirt.
Heather Sellers giving a talk on face blindness at Fruitport District Library.
Photograph by Erin Gilbert
The Practice of Creative Writing textbook cover
The Practice of Creative Writing cover
Photograph courtesy of Macmillan Learning

A short video on the making of the textbook

Teaching Evaluations

Numerical data from all USF student course evaluations, given at the end of every course, every semester, is available in both summary overview and detailed spreadsheets for each class.  

Heather Sellers Numerical Data From Student Course Evaluations

Complete student commentaries on the course and my teaching are presented in full, unedited and unredacted, for every course taught at USF. Note: I was on sabbatical Fall 2019—Spring 2020.

Heather Sellers Student Comments from Course Evaluations

Testimonial

Peer evaluations are included in the dossier you received. Here is a description of my role in our undergraduate program from the advisor in English.

Testimonial from Michael Stowe

Representative Syllabi

Syllabi for two courses I have created at the University of South Florida and am currently teaching Spring 2021:

The Poetry of Mindfulness | CRW 4930

Form & Technique of Poetry | CRW 3311

Lesson Plans

Sample lesson plans from Fall 2020 courses at the University of South Florida:

Discussion of Grief, Workshop, and a New Mission

List, Ghazal, and Midterm Review

Representative Assignments

Sample assignments for undergraduate fiction and hybrid courses:

Generating Story Ideas

Boot Camp for Hybrid Writers

Ghazal Infographic

The Practice of Creative Writing

The fourth edition of my textbook, The Practice of Creative Writing: a guide for students, is out from Bedford/St. Martins/Macmillan Learning this year.  The textbook is 518 pages, available in print and as an e-book.  The Instructor’s Manual is 170 pages.  Both are newly updated for use in online classrooms. 

A dedicated page on heathersellers.com supports instructors and students using the book in class. Find videos and more there.

Preview the table of contents and the preface for the textbook, and the table of contents for the comprehensive Instructor’s Manual:

The Practice of Creative Writing: a guide for students—Preface and Table of Contents

Instructor's Manual Table of Contents

Conversations with Artists

I interview successful writers and artists about craft and pedagogy, including recent graduates of USF. You can find the interviews here.

To read more about my pedagogy and how I became a teacher and a writer read my informal Teaching Philosophy.