CLASSES TAUGHT
Writing Fiction: The Weird and the Eerie– A forms class on the craft of short fiction. This class explores how to write commercial, literary, and experimental fiction, and use strangeness as a narrative engine. We use a descriptive review model for workshops in line with anti-racist pedagogy strategies.
Fairy tales, Magic and Feminism– This class looks at the original fairy tales and contemporary fairy tale retellings through the lens of diversity and inclusion. Our interdisciplinary analysis focuses on representations of women across the spectrum of race, class, ability, sexuality, and more. We examine what types of identities are centered in these stories as well as who has been left out. Essentially, this class looks at contemporary retellings of old stories and analyzes how authors have tried and failed to correct problems in the originals.
Introduction to Creative Writing– This class spends equal time in poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. In this class, students train themselves as critical readers of literature in order to develop their understanding of craft. This course focuses on genre intersections: where genres overlap and how to apply what we learned in one genre to other styles.
Poetry Workshop– This class focuses on the core elements of poetry writing: sense and nonsense, making and breaking patterns, concrete versus abstract, and the relationship between content and form. Before we begin workshops, we work on small skills to prepare us to analyze student work. In our readings, we focus on looking on comparing innovative and classic poetic forms in order to understand the central features of poetry from antiquity until present.
Gothic London– A two-week study abroad course in London, England. This brief survey course covers Frankenstein, Dracula, and Jane Eyre through the lens of psychoanalytic theory. We visit notable sites around London such as the location of Freud's talking chair.
Professional Writing- This 8-week asynchronous online course focuses on creating clear, concise writing for professional settings. In this class I borrow from my experience in teaching creative writing and have students write weekly drafts of their assignments, which they workshop with their peers. This course focuses specifically on writing for the internet, such as emails and websites.
ANTI-RACIST PEDAGOGY STRATEGIES
Contract Grading Assessment– An anti-racist assessment strategy. Student’s grades are based on how much of the course work they’ve completed. Assignments are "graded" only to the extent they are complete. This gives students the power to control their final grade in the class.
Self-Assessment– Students review a portfolio of their work at the end of the semester and suggest their own final grade, subject to my approval.
Create your own adventure– Students are given multiple options of how to complete a learning objective. Sometimes the choice is class-wide; as in the class votes on a lesson to complete for the day. Other times, it is individual: for instance, students get to choose from a number of prompts for a paper or create their own prompt.
Flipped classroom model– Students are responsible for dispensing some of the course knowledge through group work, independent research, and analysis presentations.
GENERAL PEDAGOGY STRATEGIES
Hybridity (creative writing)- Students learn about the interconnectedness of literary forms by critical engagements with different genres, regardless of whether or not they are interested in writing them. All writing is creative writing.
Writing for an audience (creative writing)- Students learn how to write towards a specific literary audience. By reading writing published in the last five years and learning about different literary magazines and publishers, students are taught to imagine their own aesthetic as it suits a specific literary audience.
Interdisciplinary– I was very influenced by the three semesters of my undergraduate degree at the University of East Anglia where I studied literature through the lens of other disciplines: psychoanalysis, sociology, film theory, fine art, as well as others. In my classes, I draw from a variety of disciplines when assembling the readings and lectures for my courses. In my Fairytales, Magic, and Feminism course, for instance, we look at literature through the lens of psychoanalysis, critical race theory, as well as other disciplines. I teach creative writing via means of music theory.