As a teacher always in search of new texts, You Tube has opened up a treasure trove of possibilities for my Queer Identities: LGBT Literature and Film course.
With my school’s requirement of homework blogs, has come the additional perk of assigning videos that allow my students to become acquainted with authors such as James Baldwin and Leslie Feinberg even before we begin reading their novels. In addition, students can also learn about gender via short educational films such as Transgender Basics by the Gender Identity Project.
The following post can also be found on the teacher group blog Equality 101.
Six years ago, my three English department colleagues and I replaced an outgoing department of two women who had left for career and life changes. Sensing an exciting opportunity for innovation, we felt that we were on the ground floor for making sweeping changes to the high school English program that could be shaped by our vision.
To design a new program, we needed a shared experience that would bring us to a generative space of thinking creatively with each other. We wanted our experience of redesigning the program to be one that had a “curriculum” of its own with writing, reading, research, and reflection. In essence, we wanted the same intellectual engagement as collaborators that eventually our students would experience and (hopefully) enjoy as learners.