Rate My Professor Azinah Usman

Zainah Usman is an English instructor at Tarrant County College Northwest Campus, part of the Tarrant County College District. She teaches composition and British literature courses, including ENGL 1301, ENGL 2322 British Literature, and ENGL 2323 British Literature II. Usman has demonstrated a strong commitment to student engagement through hands-on literary projects and campus-wide initiatives. In fall 2020, she collaborated with assistant professor of English LeeAnn Olivier to create a learning community that integrated English and Humanities coursework, enabling students to contribute to the campus literary magazine, Marine Creek Reflections. Adapting to virtual instruction during the pandemic, they employed collaborative technologies such as Flipgrid, Remind, and Google Docs. Usman noted the challenges of the shift, stating, “LeeAnn and I have lamented the loss of the Learning Community classroom experience, especially one where we could do layout and design work on actual paper, or at least with groups of students.” She emphasized the difficulties in promoting the journal virtually and praised students' resilience, observing, “Our students have learned how hard it actually is to ‘spread the word’ when your whole world is virtual,” and “We have found that our students have been really understanding and respond to honesty. Acknowledge challenges, but don’t feel like you need to fix everything right away or have all the answers.”

Usman has played key roles in several TCC Northwest events fostering creative writing and cultural discourse. She served on the planning committee for the 2018 Marine Creek Creative Writing Conference, describing it as “a great opportunity for writers of all skill levels and interests to learn, network, and access resources to grow creatively and hone their talent.” As a co-facilitator in the 2021 Common Reader program centered on Cristina Henríquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans, she shared personal experiences related to culture and food during a celebration event. Alongside professor of English Carroll Savant, Usman emceed discussions at campus accolades events. She also coordinated student submissions for essay contests, including Immigration Journeys: “Let Us All Be from Somewhere,” Cooking, Culture and Community, and Marine Creek Reflections. In her scholarly contributions, Usman authored Chapter 5, “A Kid Wizard in King Arthur’s Court,” in the 2022 Vernon Press collection Arthurian Legend in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries: New Perspectives on an Enduring Popular Genre (ISBN 978-1-64889-331-5), examining postmodern nostalgia and youthful Arthurian cinematic retellings. Her multifaceted involvement underscores her dedication to literature education and community building at the college level.