Course Title: GWS/ENGL 350: Special Topics in Gender and Literature – “Narrating Gender and Sexual Difference” with Dr. Elaine Cannell
What is this course about? This course considers how different genres–including manifestos, memoirs, speculative fiction, dramatic literature, and poetry–have been deployed by queer and trans communities, women of color, and other gender and sexual outlaws in order to voice their lived experiences from the 1950s to the present.
What does feminist pedagogy look like in your classroom? In addition to approaching course materials from an intersectional lens and contextualizing readings through histories of activism and social justice, I think that fostering student agency and providing multiple points of access for students to articulate their needs are cornerstones of my feminist pedagogy. This means checking in with students through regular polls and anonymous surveys, collaborating as a class to establish discussion norms and participation rubrics, and allowing students to vote on the discussion formats we use on a near-daily basis. Because of students’ unique educational experiences in terms of gender, sexuality, race, class, and ability, I think that this flexible approach creates the greatest opportunity for students to access the learning styles that best serve them.
What does course accessibility and universal course design look like in practice in your classroom? This basically just expands on my above answer (feminist pedagogy should also be accessible pedagogy! =) ), but I think that establishing multiple points of access for students to demonstrate their knowledge and (per UDL), “optimize [their] choice and autonomy,” are both really key. For example, in one of my check-in surveys, students requested a written forum where they could articulate their ideas about readings in advance of and after discussion. For this reason, I have added an optional discussion board for students who feel uncomfortable sharing aloud or in the moment during class to express their perspectives. This kind of flexibility also applies to the cumulative assignments in the course: students have the option to produce a creative project with an analytical “writer’s memo” or a more traditional analytical final essay, both of which will demonstrate their learning while also allowing them a choice based on their individual interests and strengths.
What is a favorite learning activity that you assign in this course? The manifesto assignment! After our unit on manifestos, students got to write manifestos of their own on a topic they felt passionate about. We did a manifestos reading day where several students shared their work with the class and we all commented on the readings’ strengths. This activity was paired with important fuel in the form of donuts.
Describe a recent “AHA!” moment with your students in this class? Honestly, it is a brilliant group of students, and they have me saying “aha!” almost daily. Recently, they have been doing amazing work connecting the felt experiences articulated in The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts to our earlier course readings in the manifesto unit.
What is one idea or theme you want your students to take away from this class? Fantasy, science fiction, and other imaginative elements in literary texts can offer more than just entertainment. They can also provide models for imagining better worlds so that we might organize towards them.
How do you hope this course will help your students beyond the semester they’re working with you? I think a lot of students approach reading and writing with a degree of defensiveness or fear, because they feel like they are “bad writers” or, in the case of creative assignments, “not creative enough.” If my students leave with newfound confidence in their own ideas and in their skills as writers and readers of the world, then I’ve done my job right.