Teaching

Materials

Selected Evaluations

“Thank you so much for teaching me this semester. I enjoyed every second of your class because of the positive energy you brought day in and day out. Originally, I was not looking forward to this class as I have never really been a reading or writing person throughout my time in school, but that quickly changed. I loved the readings you provided us and the discussions that went with them. You provided us a safe space to voice our opinions on some controversial topics about our wild world and you welcomed us with open arms.”

“Thelma, thank you so much for being an excellent educator despite navigating through a devastating global pandemic. You’ve been more instrumental in my education than you realized. Along with learning about literature, your class taught me about perspective, privilege, and compassion. I’ve grown to be a better student and a better person thanks to you.”

“Thelma is a genuine teacher at heart. She is able to get the whole class actively involved in a positive and charismatic manner. Her ability to listen to students and then making a lesson of it is truly a gift that cannot be unnoticed.”

“Thelma was always very cheerful and upbeat which made class 10x more enjoyable. She genuinely wanted us students to understand each reading. I really enjoyed how much we read from authors who were not white. In high school I really just read books by white authors. But reading from people of color I learned a lot.”

“The feedback that Thelma gave on every single essay was crazy awesome. Even though she had so many students’ papers to grade, she was able to give multiple comments to my paper, which made it feel like more personal. I also really enjoyed that the class discussed underrepresented voices because that is super important to learn about. Also, the discussion-based class was amazing and talking with other students was very helpful in my learning.”

“I loved the class! I learned so much and really appreciated how passionate Thelma was about the topics we covered. She did a very good job connecting to the students and making class fun. Although I struggled with some of the literature, Thelma was always there to help and get me back on track. 10/10”

“Thelma was a fantastic professor. I thought she did a great job facilitating class during a pandemic. It is much more challenging to run a discussion-based student response class, and she did a great job trying to get students involved. On a human level, Thelma seems to be an incredibly caring, well-spoken individual who is the type of person that needs to be teaching a class like this. . .I also felt that she was very understanding of what students were dealing with during a pandemic, and she was very accommodating and helpful with her class policies during this time. She was by far the best professor I have had this semester, and arguably the best I have had through three semester here at UI. . .Thelma should be proud of the work she puts into classes and is just a nice, genuine person.”

“Thelma allowed us to take creative liberty on a lot of discussions, assignments, etc. She provided guideline to things, but always encouraged us to take it how we needed. In my past English classes, teachers always had their interpretation of texts and expected everyone else’s to align. I appreciated how she wanted to hear different interpretations and tried to understand where we were coming from. She centered the class around each one of our understandings and it really helped me develop as a student.”