Week 1 Meet Your Instructor

Head shot of Anna Mills

You might want to know a little bit about where your teacher is coming from. I have been teaching at City College since 2005, and I tutored here for four years before that. I love this job and am proud of this institution. Teaching is in my blood: I am the daughter of an elementary school teacher and a math professor. My parents taught me to love reading, writing, and thinking and to see the classroom as a dramatic and exciting place to be.

Before I had kids, I spent much of my time outside CCSF writing personal essays and book reviews and sending them out for publication. I got a lot of rejection slips and some acceptances. Writing helps me figure out what I think and feel and gain insight into problems or issues that matter to me. It allows me to share my ideas with others and get responses. I find it difficult, fun, frustrating, humbling, exhilarating, and always stimulating. It takes me a long time, I do a lot of revisions (sometimes ten or twenty), and I always need feedback.

If you're curious about my writing, you can check out my blog, On Nature Writing. Recently, I've worked on creating the textbook we'll be using for class, How Arguments Work: A Guide to Writing and Analyzing Texts in College.

As a fellow struggling writer, I’d like to be here to help guide you so you can make it to the most rewarding moments in the writing process. My hope is that you will make this class your own, that you will use it to find your own voice as a writer and thinker in college.