As a reflection on pedagogy, this essay seeks to provide strategic tools for teaching Native American literature and culture to non-native students. My teaching philosophy is informed by the indigenous-centered, decolonial methodologies as defined by Devon Mihesuah who calls for "indigenizing" the academy by challenging the status quo and debating…

In 1903, in the introduction to his ground-breaking, seminal work, "The Souls of Black Folks", W.E. B. Du Bois calls for a vision of our country in which African Americans can become "co-worker[s] in the kingdom of culture." In this article I make the case that the use of a novel like "Gods Go Begging" by Alfredo Vea can help us better understand…

Teaching service courses such as the first year composition courses and an introduction to literature is often a primary mission for English departments on campuses in the United States. Sometimes specific departments request specialized additional English classes such as Writing for Business, basic grammar courses, composition courses focused for…

Though many teachers have adopted collaborative models for teaching writing and literature, much of classroom discussion, in small or large groups, is driven by the assumption that arguing ideas is a competitive exercise. Generally, essays written in this context are "counter-positional" and "agonistic," supporting points by…

For the author, the key analytic question about a popular song is not "What does it mean?" or "What hidden or coded meaning does it express?" but "What does its popularity tell us about the cultural moment when it resonated with its public?" How did the song "create its audience," so to speak? Obviously, a 1973 hit song, if it could time-travel,…

The author created and has been teaching a first-year seminar (FYS) called "Food for Thought: Rhetoric of the Edible" for the past three years. Sustainability and ethics in the production and consumption of food have been tangential topics that have arisen in the course. While her academic background is composition and rhetoric, food has become a…

The author spent significant time over the past year developing a course that would examine sports themes and analyze the literary techniques authors, directors, and others employ when converting this seemingly facile facet of contemporary life into art. He worked his way through what are at times perfunctory preparatory tasks with an uncommon…

How do we impress upon our students the value of ethical writing?--of community involvement?--of civic activism? We must do more than prepare them for their roles as community members and future employees; we must show them in what way they are prepared, as well as how and why to maintain community connections. This paper details the creation of a…

In an April, 2012 Wall Street Journal article titled "Wealth or Waste? Rethinking the Value of a Business Major," national reporter Melissa Korn explores an intriguing fact: the business major, the most popular major on college campuses for over 30 years and the discipline believed to be most economically viable by prospective college students and…

Communication has always been at least partly a visual experience--insofar as the speaker's appearance on a stage or the text's appearance on the page. Certainly, however, the experience is becoming more and more visual. Thus, equipping students with the tools necessary to analyze and evaluate the visual rhetoric that surrounds everyone is a task…

Recent scholarship shows that teachers across English studies continue to struggle with discussions of race in their classrooms. In this article, I offer the intent/effect tactic as a tool teachers can use to analyze and respond to racially problematic assertions. By asking students to consider not only intent but also effect, we can help them…

Rather than propose or endorse a single theory of comedy, this essay explores a wide variety of implications in sometimes-conflicting ideas on the subject. It groups questions under such topics as types of comedy, plot, social morality, and identity. These questions are drawn from a wide range of viewpoints both ancient and modern. It concludes…

Design and implementation of a collaborative course project, using Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH) to teach and discuss the concepts of orality, cultural legacy, archetypes, adaptation/appropriation, and social criticism in an Introduction to Literature course at Historically Black Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama. The student groups…

If I can show my literature students how Nabokov can take them from familiar representations of experience to representations of less familiar experiences, from a knowledge of the given world to an understanding of the world of the imagination, then, it seems to me, I ought to be able find some way of showing my composition students how to do it…

In this article, I demonstrate how the use of reflective writing assignments in first-year composition facilitated students' understanding of their own writing process strategies. I first discuss the theoretical roots from which reflective practice among student writers grows. Next, I employ my students' voices to demonstrate that reflection…