Kelli Custer
Composition PhD

I earned my BA in English with a minor in music from Idaho State University. I also completed my MA in English with emphasis in Victorian fiction and rhetoric at Idaho State. I am completing my PhD in English with an emphasis in Composition-Rhetoric from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I have taught at colleges, universities, and high schools in Idaho, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Colorado.

I think its important for our students to know that we are writers, too, sometimes struggling with the same problems. Something that has been important to me as a writer is to get a better understanding of my own writing processes. When my schedule allows for it, I find that I write best in the morning. I like listening to jazz in the background, with a fresh cup of coffee at hand. I used to need to start with a first sentence. I would walk around for days, turning words over in my mind. Finally, I would type out the sentence and everything else tumbled out. I have had to teach myself to begin in the middle because I have learned that I dont really know for sure where my ideas will go until I let them loose. Since I also tend to procrastinate (as do many writers), I force myself into the chair by timing my writing, promising myself to write for at least 15 minutes. That always turns into at least an hour of work. I try to stop at a point where I know what I want to write next. This makes it much easier to get started the next day.

 What do I enjoy most about writing? To me, writing is magic. Walter Ong tells us that in some early dialects, glamor and grammar both meant something meaning magical. I am not always able to explain my feelings out loud, but I can in writing. I have relied on it to help me through hard times in my journals and to give voice to what seemed in my head to be destined only for silence.

Describe my teaching philosophy? I believe everyone in the classroom deserves respect. I believe it is important for me to be as engaged or more so as I expect students to be. I also believe we all learn more in a classroom that is safe and enjoyable.

What drew me to become a writing teacher? At first, I think I majored in English because it was a place where I excelled. I had a wonderful high school English teacher, Mary Lu Barry, and I wanted to be like her. But in my sophomore year of college, I dropped my English Education major and daydreamed about being a lawyer, an advertiser, a journalist. But when I started my Masters degree, I had a Teaching Assistantship, which brought me to the classroom. I was hooked. I was fascinated with all the different ways people approached writing, and I loved finding new ways to help students get over their fear of it.

What do I enjoy most about teaching writing? Most students come into our writing classes not liking writing. Few truly want to be there, and many believe they will never, ever find anything to enjoy about the written word. I like that I have really no where to go but up with such attitudes. I love it when a student suddenly gets it or when one admits that maybe, just maybe, they have changed their minds about writing and can feel some of the magic themselves.

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