New Courses
Upcoming Courses
Curriculum and the Media
This course involves a study of society, the media, schooling, and the manner, in which media determines and often becomes the message of the curriculum. The theoretical underpinnings of this course will emerge from cultural studies, critical race theory, and feminist theory and will be utilized to equip students with skills in discourse analysis, which emphasizes media literacy and its implications for teaching and learning. (Dr. Maryfrances Agnello)
Engendering Curriculum: Teaching American Culture through Literature
Prevalent throughout canonized 19th-century American Literature and mainstream history is the depiction of the rugged individualist. Often called the “American Adam,” this mythic male hero leaves home to conquer unknown territories. While this pervasive vision of American culture satisfies some, it leaves others calling out for alternative visions—perhaps an “American Eve.” Although American 19th-century women novelists are seldom read within today’s schools they were numerically and often critically more successful than their male counterparts. In fact, many men and women not only used their novels as a means to communicate their cultural visions for the “new republic,” but they also used them to conduct a type of cultural conversation, with one novel answering another.
In this course, we will read two “sides” of this cultural conversation and discuss what might happen in today’s secondary schools (8-12) if students and teachers were better aware of a larger historical, literary, and cultural conversation. We will also explore engaging and effective ways to teach American Literature and History to middle and high school students. (Dr. Sally McMillan)
Naturalistic Inquiry
In this class we examine and practice a number of the various methods of proposing, collecting, analyzing and presenting qualitative data. The student will acquire knowledge of alternative forms of qualitative research. After investigating various forms of this research paradigm the student may concentrate on a research strand of his/her choice. Observations, interviews (field methods) and/or review of documents and records are essential data collection methods of the qualitative researcher. They are not the only ones, however. While we focus primarily on the “usual” forms of data, we also delve into the “not so usual”: narrative inquiry, performance and the novel, visual, biographical (autoethnography), text and talking, on-line and a host of others.