By Melody Grace Burdick
Ellen Tara James Penny is the luckiest penny students can find at San José State University. Teaching English composition courses at SJSU since 2013, she is outgoing and encouraging, and works to ensure that her students are well prepared for upper-division writing courses. In the short time she has been an instructor, she has inspired many students to push through everyday obstacles in order to achieve their dreams.
Ellen’s current success, however, did not come easily. A casualty of the dotcom bust of the early 2000s, she lost her job at an emerging tech company and was unable to find similar work. Struggling financially, she took a job cleaning and painting apartments in exchange for her rent. Thirty-nine and almost homeless, Ellen felt defeated, but a good friend encouraged her to pursue her dreams of higher education. Ellen took the advice and enrolled at SJSU in 2006 to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in English. By the spring of 2013, she had completed both her B.A. and her M.F.A. in English, and in fall 2013, she was teaching her first class at SJSU.
Ellen’s current focus is to prepare students to write properly in a professional environment. “We need to teach students to think outside the box,” she says. “How else can we teach people to communicate effectively?” By helping students critically analyze their work and the work of others, she teaches them to identify writing problems and to implement revision strategies that produce concise and compelling prose.
When she is not teaching, Ellen pursues literary ventures of her own in fiction and nonfiction. She is currently working on a novel set in the Mojave Desert that focuses on the theme of friendship. Her nonfiction writing focuses on her mother’s life in Oklahoma, expanding on Steinbeck’s perspectives of the Dust Bowl.
More than anything, Ellen stresses that any goal can be accomplished with hard work and perseverance. “If you find something you love, go out there and do it,” she says. “Don’t let anything stop you!”
