Tag: nate powell

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“Is it a racist story?”: Nate Powell’s “Cakewalk”

When I teach first year composition, I usually frame the course around personal narratives, allowing students to write about themselves. I find that this helps them get comfortable with writing and allows them to express themselves through their essays. As such, I try to choose at least one text that contains personal stories. This semester, I decided to add Nate Powell’s You Don’t Say, a collection … Read More “Is it a racist story?”: Nate Powell’s “Cakewalk”

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Comics in the Rhetoric and Composition Classroom

Every time I teach an introductory rhetoric and composition course, I struggle with what texts and assignments to do in the class. Last semester, I focused on personal memoirs, having students read Kathleen Hanna, Carrie Brownstein, Salman Rushdie, and oral interviews with individuals in Appalachia. I’ve also do Civil Rights memoirs. This semester, I’m doing comics, specifically having students look at some EC comics from the … Read More Comics in the Rhetoric and Composition Classroom

We Must Critically Engage With the Past or We Are Doomed to Repeat It

In order to understand the present and prepare for the future, we must understand the past and the ways that the past impact the present. As Frederick Douglas put it in his 1852 speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.” When … Read More We Must Critically Engage With the Past or We Are Doomed to Repeat It

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The Myth of Opportunity in History Textbooks

The myth of opportunity in America runs deep, so deep in fact you’d be forgiven if you thought it appeared as the American Dream in the founding documents. It’s an old myth, one rooted in Puritanism and the Protestant Work Ethic, transformed by Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography, extrapolated by Horatio Alger in his Ragged Dick stories, epitomized by Jay Gatz in F. Scott … Read More The Myth of Opportunity in History Textbooks

Conversation with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell about “March”

Over the course of this semester in my Multicultural America Literature course, I have had conversations with various authors and scholars such as Kiku Hughes (Displacement), Lila Quintero Weaver (Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White), Eir-Anne Edgar and Michael Dando discussing Maus, Jennifer Morrison discussing Of Love and Dust, and more. We concluded the course by reading John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate … Read More Conversation with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell about “March”