“We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.” — Frederick Douglass What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852) The proposed Senate Bill 377 serves as nothing more than a coded bill aimed at limiting the dissemination of information to students, faculty, and staff, and to the stifling of educational inquiry in the … Read More Open Letter to Georgia Senators on SB 377
+ anthea butler, elizabeth gillespie mcrae, graphic memoir, keisha blain, lillian e smith, lillian smith: breaking the silence, Pedagogy, syllabus
I always enjoy teaching the Lillian E. Smith Studies Course. This semester will be my third time teaching it, and each time I try and connect Smith’s work with the present moment. Typically, I try to work in connection with student interests, since the class is relatively small, when choosing texts. Last year, we did Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and NPR’s podcast … Read More Spring 2022 LES Studies Course
January 26, 2020 will remain in my memory forever. On that day, my wife, my son, and I went for a hike. Our daughter stayed home because she wasn’t feeling well. During the hike, we didn’t have any cell service, so we didn’t get any news updates till after we finished. When cell service returned, we saw the news of the helicopter crash that … Read More COVID-19 and Me
I never thought I’d become an educator, in any sense of the word. When I was an undergraduate, I wanted to be a marine biologist, not an educator. Well, chemistry really did a number on me, so I changed majors, moving from biology to secondary education with a focus on biology and minor in English. I am, for the most part, an introvert, and … Read More Why Do I Teach?
Over the past two years, I have taught three multicultural American literature courses, at various levels from sophomore to graduate. This fall, I am teaching my fourth, and I am doing things a little differently because it is an upper level course. As I constructed each of the previous courses, I purposefully thought about a wide variety of texts and assignments for students. I … Read More Multicultural American Literature Syllabus 2021
Interminable Rambling 