Syllabi and Course Materials

If you are a fellow educator interested in learning more about my pedagogy and classes I’ve developed, borrowing my materials, or collaborating on new ideas together, I'd love to hear from you.

ATYP Year 2: Honors English 11/12

This accelerated English honors class is the second year in the English sequence in the Academically Talented Youth Program at WMU, which I have taught for six years. In this class, we focus on mastering skills in literary analysis, critical thinking, cultural awareness, and sophisticated reading. Students are introduced to critical lenses that they explore through diverse, canonical, and contemporary texts. Major readings include The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and Dubliners by James Joyce, as well as selections from Tillie Olsen, Alice Walker, Karen Russell, Jewelle Gomez, Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot, Tim O’Brien, and more.

ATYP YEar IV: LIterature, Philosophy, and MEdia

This interdisciplinary humanities class is the fourth year of the sequence in ATYP, which I have taught for the last two years from curriculum I developed and implemented. In this course, we explore the Anthropocene, defined by everything from climate change to late capitalism, Big Data to meme culture, artificial intelligence to political division. This class invites students to pause and unpack the complex questions bombarding us everyday. Major texts include Yuval Harari’s Homo Deus, Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, as well as films such asDr. Strangelove, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Black Panther.

HNRS 4300: Climate Fiction: Unstable Writing for an Unknown Future (upcoming)

"Climate fiction," or cli-fi, is the name given to a loosely-associated genre of science, speculative, and futurist fiction that directly or indirectly wrestles with anthropogenic, or manmade, climate change. It has existed since before the widespread recognition of our influence on the climate, but takes on vital resonance in contemporary times. In sometimes overt, sometimes allegorical, and sometimes subtle or sideways fashion, writers and artists use cli-fi commentary and our fractured relationship with the natural world as a narrative engine. In this writing-intensive course, we explore the genre as both critical readers and creative writers.