Don't make the mistake of calling English Lecturer Dave Valdes Greenwood "Professor" or "Sir." Whether or not he's teaching, Valdes Greenwood is just "Dave." Between holding essay conferences with his students at Brown and Brew and giving them candy while they watch "Run Lola Run" (1998) on Valentine's Day, Valdes Greenwood likes to treat his students like he would treat his friends.
"It's just my personality to be very first-person [in my teaching] - it has always put me more at ease," he said.
Valdes Greenwood's 15-person English class, "Films about Love, Sex, and Society," is structured much like the other classes he has taught both at Tufts and at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. He immediately gives out his home phone number and e-mail and takes a personal approach that involves student-teacher conferences after most essay drafts. He insists these meetings take place in Brown and Brew rather than in an office or classroom.
"A coffee shop is more of an open space," he said. "It allows students to be themselves."
In addition to holding conferences, Valdes Greenwood gives each student a detailed rubric of what an A, B and C paper should look like, as well as a chance to argue a grade if they believe their paper met a higher grade standard.
"I have really specific standards so I can help the students feel more at ease," he said. "The more clear I've been with my grade standards, the more people have been getting B's and A's."
Having taught at other universities where the teachers are encouraged to keep their students from getting A's, Valdes Greenwood hopes that his approach encourages the opposite.
"I'm not concerned with having an average number of average students," he said. "I would like to see more students do the work to get the A's and B's."
In his five years at Tufts, Valdes Greenwood said he's tried to spread his love for film and English to his students. Few, however, achieve his same level of devotion, especially for film.
"Before I had a baby, I was seeing 80 to 90 movies each year in theaters," Valdes Greenwood said. "But I only saw 20 movies last year, which seems shocking to me."
But Valdes Greenwood still finds ways to meet his film-viewing quota.
"There are no new parents without Netflix, I'm convinced," he said. "It's all that keeps you connected to the outside world."
Though he has devoted his life to studying movies, Valdes Greenwood said he wasn't born a film buff.
"The funny thing is, I grew up fundamentalist, so I wasn't allowed to go to movies," he said. "The first movie I saw was 'The Karate Kid' [1984], and I was convinced the theater was going to catch on fire."
Valdes Greenwood's love for English solidified in college. After concentrating in English and film studies at Atlantic Union College, a fundamentalist Christian school in Massachusetts, Valdes Greenwood went on to receive his MFA from Emerson University in creative writing. There, he tried his luck as a playwright.
Valdes Greenwood's first published play, "The Small Voice of Angels," was printed in 1993, and it jumpstarted his career. He followed with a full-length published play and various other plays that have been preformed throughout 18 states and in England.
Valdes Greenwood started working at Tufts in 2001, after having taught various film and English classes at both Emerson and Northeastern. But his penchant for English and film hardly began there - while teaching, he wrote weekly columns, features and reviews for Bay Windows, the Boston Phoenix and the Boston Globe.
Playwriting led to creative writing, which, in turn, led to book writing. Valdes-Greenwood published his first book, "Homo Domesticus" in 2006. It detailed 10 years in a same-sex marriage, from before legalization to after.
"The publishers gave me five months to write the book - which was hairy," Valdes Greenwood said with a laugh.
After that, the publishers approached Valdes Greenwood about writing a second book, giving him only three months. "The Little Fruitcake," a collection of holiday stories, is set to come out around Christmas this year, and a reading and sneak peek of the book is scheduled for March 14 at Porter Square Books.
Valdes Greenwood insisted that his successes "didn't happen overnight."
"My big thing is if someone asks you to write, write. And if nobody asks you to write, find someone to ask you to write," he said. "And, for creative writers looking to get their work out, there is no quick, easy path unless you're connected."
