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Teaching High School Students to Recognize Problematic Narratives

B Mann
Léman Manhattan Preparatory School
Manhattan, NYC, United States
b.mann@lemanmanhattan.org

Meg Greenberg Sandeman
Léman Manhattan Preparatory School
Manhattan, NYC, United States
m.greenberg@lemanmanhattan.org

During the 2018-2019 academic year, racist incidents at three New York City private schools garnered mainstream media attention. The New York Times published a series of articles including “Blackface Video Has Elite New York Private School in an Uproar” (Jan. 20, 2019) and “Video with ‘Racist and Homophobic’ Language Surfaces at Elite Private School” (Feb. 25, 2019). The following month, “Racial Controversy Engulfs a Third Elite NYC Private School” appeared in the New York Daily News (March 3, 2019). The authors of each of the three headlines seem to suggest that racist and homophobic incidents are a surprising phenomenon in an urban independent school setting. Herein lies the problem.   Continue Reading →

A Pedagogy of Embodiment: The Life and Work of Queer Playwright Maria Irene Fornés

Tabitha Parry Collins
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM
tepc@nmsu.edu

Memran, M. (Producer), & Memran, M. (Director). (2018). The rest I make up [Motion Picture]. United States: Women Make Movies.

Abstract

The Rest I Make Up is a documentary about the life and work of Maria Irene Fornés, known to her friends as Irene, who changed the world of playwriting and directing as well as the ways that playwriting instructors teach the craft. This film follows Fornés on a physical journey from New York to Cuba, Miami, and Seattle while simultaneously documenting her memory loss after the onset of Alzheimer’s. Michelle Memran, filmmaker and friend to Fornés, offers viewers an intimate look into the life of a queer, brown playwright whose works continue to be overshadowed by more mainstream voices. 

Key Words: Maria Irene Fornés, Michelle Memran, embodied pedagogy, playwriting Continue Reading →

Making Your Teaching a Little Sweeter: Pedagogical Implications of Nailed It!

Richard L. Mehrenberg, PhD
Millersville University
Millersville, Pennsylvania, USA
rmehrenberg@gmail.com

Inspiration sometimes comes from the unlikeliest of places. Educators often look to traditional resources such as in-services, graduate classes, and professional journals to improve their pedagogy. However, sometimes great teaching ideas can be found embedded in popular culture. One such example of a T.V. show that has three strong take-aways for teachers is the Netflix Original Series, Nailed It! Continue Reading →

YouTube and Linguistic Variation Analysis

Bridget Goodman
Nazarbayev University
Astana, Kazakhstan
bridget.goodman@nu.edu.kz

The Study of Language Variation

In the field of sociolinguistics and language education, one of the key subfields is the investigation of language variation and style shifting (e.g. Jaspers, 2010). Variationists take the point of view that groups of speakers may exhibit unique phonological, lexical, or grammatical features. These patterns of mixing languages are shown to be systemic and rule-based. Continue Reading →

About Musings

Musings is a new blog for Dialogue that encourages observational, experiential, and theoretical writings about popular culture and pedagogy. While we are actively seeking contributions about applications in the classroom, such as best practices in teaching and learning both inside and outside the classroom, new multimodal approaches, and additional items/ideas not fitting neatly into a scholarly article, we are also open to all topics relating to popular culture. Continue Reading →

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