Teaching Portfolio

Ezequiel Zaidenwerg
 
Teaching Evaluations for New York University 
 
 
  Overall  Instructor  Instructor  Instructor  Instructor  Instructor  Instructor  Instructor 
was  created a  encouraged  was  was open  provided  was 
effective at  supportive  student  effective  to  helpful  accessible 
making me  learning  participation  at  students’  feedback on  to students 
learn  environment  facilitating  questions  assignments  (e.g. via 
class  and points  email and 
discussion  of view  office 
hours) 

Spanish 1   4.47  4.44  4.44  4.67  4.67  4.22  4.44  4.44 
(Fall 2015) 

Spanish 2  4.88  4.75  4.88  4.88  4.88  4.88  5.00  4.88 

(Spring 
2016) 

Spanish 3  4.43  4.5  4.5  4.5  4.5  4.5  4.0  4.5 

(Summer 
2016) 

Critical  4.39  4.3  4.6  4.3  3.9  4.4  4.6  4.6 

Approaches 
to Textual 
and 
Cultural 
Analysis 
(Fall 2017) 

Cultures  4.6  4.6  4.5  4.6  4.5  4.8  4.6  4.6 

and 
Contexts: 
Latin 
America 
(Spring 
2018) 
Scores: 1=poor, 5=excellent 
 
   

1
 Teaching Portfolio
Ezequiel Zaidenwerg
Selected Student Comments (Scans and Sources Available Upon Request) 
   
“It was inspiring to have a professor so passionate about the topics he covered who cared just as much
about his students. At the start of the semester he acknowledged it would be a challenging course for
many of us but that he was always willing to help and hoped we'd take a lot away from the class. I
struggled with my work toward the beginning of the semester and he was always quick to respond to my
email inquiries and provide helpful feedback on the outlines I shared with him. He helped me become so
much more confident about my writing and critical thinking abilities and pushed me to create work I truly
feel proud of. Though he hasn't been teaching nearly as long as any of my other professors, I felt like he
best encompassed what a professor's role is: to educate, to inspire, and to challenge.”
–– student from Critical Approaches to Textual and Cultural Analysis, NYU

“Ezequiel was such an amazing recitation instructor and I was lucky to be assigned to him. His lectures
during recitations were knowledgeable, informative, and engrossing. His ability to facilitate class
discussions was impressive; although our class often failed to return his enthusiasm, he continued to ask
tough questions and pushed for us to think abstractly. Although strange at first glance, his style of close
readings is honestly incredible. I'm not sure if I could ever fully learn his ability to pull such amazing
conclusions from small segments of readings, but I can say for sure that I learned a great deal by being in
his recitation.”
––student from Cultures and Contexts: Latin America, NYU

“Ezequiel should be teaching this course instead of being a TA for it. His recitations were interesting and
informative, and he really worked to make sure that everyone participated or at least understood the
subject matter. He fostered creativity and was personable and approachable; his guest lecture was by
far one of the more interesting lectures of the semester.”
––student from Cultures and Contexts: Latin America, NYU

“I met Ezequiel Zaidenwerg in August, 2008. I was spending a semester in Buenos Aires as an
undergraduate exchange student and he was teaching a seminar on poetry translation. At the time, I
harbored vague, earnest, ​poetic (in the pejorative sense) notions of what the process of translation
was—in fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t even think of it as a “process.” So, it came as a surprise when
Ezequiel briskly set out, in the early minutes of Day One, to give us a crash course in poetic meter. The
first thing I learned from him was the word “heptasyllable.” As Ezequiel presented it, translation involved
a tireless kind of imagination, but one that necessarily operated within an elegant structure; it involved,
for that matter, structure. You had to be a cover artist, not a composer. And you needed chops. So, first
order of business: scales. For a while, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about all this. But I came around. And
my enthusiasm for translation continued to grow.”
––student from The Poetry Translator’s Kitchen, Swarthmore College.