Teaching Responsiveness in Creative Writing

As our globe has reacted to the coronavirus pandemic, many articles have been published that make the case: “In this time of crisis and isolation, the role of art becomes more central to our lives, whether we realise it or not,” as Louis Netter writes in The Conversation (from April 1, 2020). What does it mean to cultivate an artistic response to crisis? How can we teach aesthetic responsiveness? Responsiveness entails many things, including attunement to the particularities and contingencies of time, place, and community and the ability to imagine, investigate, reframe. What theories of writing enable responsiveness? Turning to ancient Egyptian and Greek philosophies of rhetoric, the presentation argues that creative writing is uniquely situated to facilitate artistic responsiveness when we draw upon multiple traditions, not centering a Greco-Roman philosophical inheritance over multiple cultural lineages. Investigating aesthetic theory alongside discussions of epideictic rhetoric, which theorize the act of orienting one’s words for a specific public occasion, we find that creative writing has long and deep theoretical roots to draw from as we consider artistic response

Curriculum Committee report, 2015-2016

Annual report for a committee of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Faculty Senate

Classroom Technology Committee report, 2016-2017

Annual report for a committee of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Faculty Senate

Toward an Inclusive Creative Writing

The creative writing workshop has existed since the early part of the 20th century, but does it adequately serve the students who come to it today? While the workshop is often thought of as a form of student-centered pedagogy, it turns out that workshop conversations serve to marginalize a range of aesthetic orientations and the cultural histories to which they belong. Given the shifting demographics of higher education, it is time to re-evaluate the creative writing curriculum and move literary writing pedagogy toward a more inclusive, equitable model. Toward an Inclusive Creative Writing makes the argument that creative writing stands upon problematic assumptions about what counts as valid artistic production, and these implicit beliefs result in exclusionary pedagogical practices. To counter this tendency of creative writing, this book proposes a revised curriculum that rests upon 12 threshold concepts that can serve to transform the teaching of literary writing craft. The book also has a companion website www.criticalcreativewriting.org offering supplemental materials such as lesson plans and course materials

From Orthodoxy to Enlightenment: Discourse, Territory, and Settler Colonialism in Siberia, 1670-1740

Though many scholars argue that settler colonialism did not firmly come into practice until the late 18th century in Russia, through an analysis of both 17th century historical chronicle narratives and 18th century explorer accounts, I argue that settler colonial discourses and knowledges are already present, laying the groundwork for later settler practices. In the 17th century, chronicle narratives portrayed Siberian territory as a darkened wasteland turned radiant paradise by the presence of Russian Christians and the expulsion of indigenous non-Christians. In the 18th century, discourse changed to produce the increasing view of Siberia as an object of knowledge, great potential, and riches to be extracted and utilized for the state as naturalists and explorers began to describe Siberia in their accounts. Maps, too, produce this shift in knowledge as Russian maps change from traditional and river-oriented in the late 1600s to mathematical and ‘rational’ western mapping by the 1730s. In addition, recent scholarship on settler colonialism has provided greater nuance and context to settler colonies and their character, supporting the conclusion that some aspects of Russian colonialism from 1670-1740 were indeed settler colonial in nature, though unlike more intense western versions. Through discourse analysis of historic chronicles of the late 17th century and traveler accounts of the early 18th century, I argue that settler colonial discourses were present in narratives about Siberian territory since the 17th century and are governed by the epistemes that allowed these discourses to flourish

Letter to Mary Devereaux from W. F. Adsit, June 7, 1940

Letter to Mrs. Mary A. Devereaux from W. F. Adsit, with envelope. Mary A. Devereaux served as National Publicity Chairman for the International Father\u27s Day Association, Spokane, Washington. W. F. Adsit served in the Department of Public Relations, General Motors Corporation, New York.https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/fathers-day-correspondence/1069/thumbnail.jp

Book Review: California's Best Emerging Poets: An Anthology

If one can think of geography as an 'autopsy of the invisible' to borrow the words of Joshua G. De Leon, which serve as an epigraph to this collection, then poetry is geography's great companion. Z Publishing has been for the past several months releasing installments of geographically based poetry in a 'best emerging poets series,' with each book arriving from one of the nation's fifty states. The California edition is thematically organized with between ten and forty-five poems included in each of the book's eight sections.The California Geographer 57: 259-262.0575-570

Geometric and Trigonometric Principles paired with Material and Theoretical Construction in a Four Lesson Project-Based Learning (PBL) Curriculum

This project-based learning (PBL) curriculum integrates two core topics from Geometry and Algebra 2/Trigonometry: Similar Right Triangles and Laws of Sines and Cosines for students in a senior level mathematics (Math-12) classroom. Student review and practice these concepts during the first two lessons. They are then tasked with applying both concepts over the next two lessons while they construct two cardboard phone stands. This curriculum allows educators to review key concepts from previous years while engaging students in hands-on activities. Lessons 1, 3, and 4 include significant time spent working with materials and performing hands-on tasks including: measuring, cutting, and fastening. These tasks are supported by worksheets that explain the math behind the tasks and require the students to record results based on the tasks. This project hooks to lessons from algebra, geometry, and trigonometry but maintains student engagement due to the active nature of the activities. Student feedback from the lessons included mention of the activities being very different from typical math lessons, enjoyment of using tools and working with materials, the rigor of the mathematic concepts, and the fulfillment of having a tangible result from the projectAMSUNY BrockportDepartment of Education and Human DevelopmentMSWade, Caro

Narrative Medicine: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Address Burnout Among the Nursing Workforce

Healthcare providers (HCPs) experience unprecedented burnout. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare workforce was pushed beyond its capacity, driving some out of the field, leaving hospitals and healthcare agencies to face unrelenting demand for care. Limited staff and resources challenged organizations to redesign infrastructure and processes to meet COVID-19 safety guidelines while balancing the priorities of finance and people. Two years into the pandemic, the signs of burnout among nurses in an RN-BSN program surfaced, which paralleled the bitter resentment happening across the nursing profession. Nurses working on the front lines reported feelings of abandonment, lack of resources, staffing shortages, exhaustion, fatigue, hopelessness, and a sense that healthcare systems were falling short in caring for the caregivers. Similar to military service members who returned from combat, nurses project the workforce will experience considerable post-traumatic stress disorder after the pandemic