Writing Samples

I have created this website as a place to compile my writing from over the years in a variety of contexts.

Please scroll through the Blog until you see something that captures your interest.

I love writing, but most everything here was written for an audience of one.

I also love written correspondence, emails and cover letters. As a way of introducing myself, let me attach a recent favorite:

To: The Summer Writing Program of Naropa University.

Boulder, CO

January 29, 2020

I have spent hours looking at pictures of Naropa, reading course descriptions, and picturing a life in Boulder, but have also accepted that, caught-up in the minutiae of family life and work, I will probably never be a student there, much less a faculty member. But I dream, and then I saw your listing for a summer assistant.

I teach Gen Ed and literature courses at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, where I received a Master of Art in Teaching degree in 2005. I am certainly available to assist your Summer Writing Program for the month of June.

Before my life as an educator, I worked as a Maitre’d and event coordinator in New York City, managing events for 12 to 1200 people. I have waited on President Clinton, Toni Morrison, Lou Reed, and in possibly the most surreal event of my life; supervised the pouring and delivery of a cup of hot water for the Dalai Lama.

I know how to keep a program running on time, deal with difficult personalities, and make sure the microphones are where they need to be when they need to be there. I know how important every little detail is. I know when to delegate and when something needs to be done myself.

I have worked fifteen-hour days; beginning with unloading trucks, then serving caviar in white gloves, loading the trucks back, and dumping the garbage. I doubt you need all that done, but whatever you do need, I can do, happily and competently. 

I have been employed as a teacher on various levels for twenty years. With little more than a need to make a difference, I was hired to teach fourth grade at John Wayne Elementary PS 380 in Brooklyn, NY in 2000. Daily free writing on a common topic, followed by reading aloud of the work, became routine in our classroom. We developed a community of writers. When the World Trade Center was destroyed within view of our school, journal writing helped initiate our healing process. The content of those lessons was secondary to capturing the students’ attention and letting them know I cared. The same is true of college students.

After a brief two-year stint as a high school English teacher, I found my way to an instructorship at Winthrop University, an oasis of liberal arts in the southern town where I was born.

Facilitating discussions about white privilege, feminism, Buddhism, ecology, literal versus figurative interpretations of scripture, and evolution in the Bible Belt of South Carolina has been my work for the last decade. Sometimes I really do feel like Plato’s prisoner going back into the cave to tell the others that there is light outside, if they just want to turn around and look. Refining the Socratic method over the years has been an essential part of my effectiveness.

In 2013, I taught a very successful critical thinking course dedicated to understanding the context and aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, during the 50th anniversary of that event. This course required in-depth analysis of arguments and counterarguments on the case, and group travel to the assassination site in Dallas, TX. Students evaluated how logical fallacies, inconsistent standards, and intellectual arrogance compromise complex evidence and uncertainties, and then synthesized their new understandings into arguments of their own. Due to the unique and timely nature of this course, my students appeared on local television as well as in national print media, and I was quoted as an expert on the subject by NBC news.

In addition to giving required courses a unique focus, I also developed my own course at Winthrop called ENGL 333 Global Narratives, which has been added to the catalogue and taught by interdisciplinary faculty. I recently taught a section on incarceration narratives that included a tour of a maximum-security penitentiary, which graphically highlighted the complex and ambiguous nature of that issue. Another section included daily meditation and discussion of the Tao. An online hybrid course examined McLuhan’s Understanding Media. One section, focused on Palahniuk’s Fight Club, combined boxing lessons with analysis of corporate personhood. In my class on Naked Lunch, we used William Burroughs’ cut-up technique, built a Brion Gysin Dream Machine, and our brief history of the Beats focused on Jack Kerouac’s Belief and Techniques for Modern Prose and America by Allen Ginsberg.

In supervising student teachers, I continually reflect on my own preparation, procedures, and professionalism and adjust my own instructional methods and assessment routines every semester. Observing those future educators and helping them reflect on their practice helped me evaluate my own teaching, looking through those performance dimensions and adjusting where necessary.

I read for and chaired sections of Winthrop’s Irish Studies Conference, and at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece, where I also presented my own research. I have been on multiple faculty panels for cultural events, mentored new faculty, led teacher-training workshops on evaluating argumentative writing, judged the creative writing showcase for the undergraduate research conference, coached students for a NCTE banned book event, hosted department parties at my house, led orientation seminars, and routinely give a Welcome Week speech to provisionally admitted students.

I worked as an advisor helping at-risk students navigate the expectations and paperwork of the academic probation and suspension process. I understand a bit of the administrative side of university life; financial aid, student services, learning management systems, assessment, advising, holds, and retention. I have participated in webinars, prepared surveys, piloted software, written grants, and have interacted with faculty and staff all over campus. I represented Winthrop’s need for continued funding of at-risk programs to SC Congressman Mick Mulvaney.

The high points of my own undergraduate experience at UC Berkeley included a lecture class on Shakespeare with Steven Greenblatt, a seminar on metaphor with George Lakoff, a far-out performance art class, and the volleyball riots of ‘93. I learned as much from my fellow students as from the faculty. Berkeley was exciting, dynamic, and always a challenge.

Besides having the professional experience to provide what I think you need, I have also run for public office, lived in a tent on a high-rise in San Francisco, bathed in the Ganges, climbed the Great Pyramid, studied Shamanism in the Amazon, flown an airplane, been tear-gassed, interviewed on TV and radio, stage-managed an off-off-Broadway show, and built a couple of houses. I also love poetry. I may even have my own self-published, 20-years-in-the-making epic in my bag when I arrive (and I promise I won’t bother anyone with it).

I apologize for being so excited and verbose. I know I have said too much, but Naropa University! I just want to be a part of your institution in any way I can. I would happily do this job just for the experience of being a small part of the Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics for one brief summer.

I have a wife, a five-year-old son, two dogs and a cat who would all like to see Boulder (though the cat will probably stay at home). We could make a great experience of our first trip to Colorado.

I can provide student evaluations, chair evaluations, observation reports, copies of syllabi, assignments, transcripts, or any other material you would like to see.

Thank you for reading this ridiculously long cover letter, and considering me for this opportunity. I believe I will represent and serve Naropa’s Summer Writing Program in an effective and dynamic way.

Bryan R. Ghent

Instructor – Department of English

Winthrop University

Rock Hill, SC

ghentb@winthrop.edu