Colin Leath
Duke University Talent Identification Program, Summer 2007 Employment
1121 West Main Street
Durham, NC 27701
Since I applied last year I have had many experiences that should serve me well when working with you as an Instructor or as a Teaching Assistant next summer:
I co-led a group of twelve eighth graders from Polytechnic School in Pasadena on a week-long backpacking and kayaking trip in Big Sur and Monterey, California.
I continued designing and leading team-building programs as a Lead Facilitator at the Kroc Center. For one of the programs I led, I worked with seven other facilitators to serve a group of 100 high school students. While doing so, I achieved a personal leadership goal: to have a lot of fun while successfully managing a large program.
I designed and led two sessions of Junior Leaders Camp for campers ages 13-17 who wished to become counselors and volunteer counselors at the Kroc Center Summer Camps. The first week we had twelve campers, and the second, seventeen. My design of this camp benefited enormously from Michael Brandwein’s Learning Leadership, lent to me by the camp director. An innovation I came up with on my own, however, was a key part of the success of the camp: I required students to lead our class in at least one camp game (excluding traditional sports). In addition, I created a manual for the camp containing information volunteer counselors should have and a list of games for them to refer to. One camper said she preferred our camp to a YMCA leadership camp she had attended because we did many more fun activities and because we practiced leadership skills by leading. Also, some campers wrote in their evaluations that they learned they could lead. I have included a short version of the schedule for the second camp session to give you an idea of what I planned.
I am currently teaching Freshman composition, RWS 100: The Rhetoric of Written Argument, to a class of 25 students at SDSU. Over the course of the semester I have developed practices which meet the desires for effective instruction as well as for joy of the students, myself, and the department. Even so, I am looking forward to a smaller paper load and freedom from the need to mitigate negative effects of the grading system.
In the courses I am taking for my TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certificate, I have learned theories and practices applicable to many teaching settings. I have been able to test some of these ideas in the RWS course I teach. The use of portfolios is one example of a technique we have covered that has been a success in my RWS class.
Based on these experiences and on the self-reflection elicited by reapplying to your program, I have decided to apply to be an Instructor or a Teaching Assistant primarily for your Leadership Institute. The emphases of your Institute on service-learning and on developing students’ “commitments to service, philanthropy, and civic engagement” are consistent with my view that the best education is project-based and learner-directed. That you are encouraging each student to develop her or his own legacy project particularly interests me. Further, of all that you offer I may have the most to contribute to the Leadership Institute because of the work I have done as a Facilitator. I am also eager to consider assisting other courses, Institutes, and Field Studies, as I specify in my position preferences. Revising my curriculum vitae set me on an absorbing journey, part of which involved compiling a brainstorm, which I have included, of courses I would like to help with were TIP to offer them. Also, please note that I have a driver’s license and I am willing to drive.
I look forward to working with you.
Colin Leath