Public Pedagogies

Welcome to the English Department’s “Public Pedagogies” page!

“Public Pedagogies,” along with “Literature, Language, Culture: A Dialogue Series,” is part of a larger University of Washington English department effort to articulate our mission, values, and work across communities, as well as to enable and support public research, advocacy, and partnership. 

Teaching is a shared, connected, and – most of all – public enterprise. So is learning, as students bring experiences and knowledges across communities and classrooms.  This “Public Pedagogies” page creates a space for both exchanging teaching ideas and extending connections between the UW English department, community colleges, and local educators.

In launching this initiative, we have developed teaching materials that accompany our “Literature, Language, Culture Dialogues,” a video and podcast series highlighting faculty research and teaching on topics ranging from literature and the environment, technical and professional writing, genre, Asian American literature, digital humanities, Indigenous literature and art, antriracist pedagogy, and trans and queer studies. While these lesson plans and explanation videos are a starting point for “Public Pedagogies,” we aim to create a collective space for the sharing of teaching resources designed to support learning from other episodes in the series and similar audiovisual text resources.

Below you will find a curated video playlist of six lesson plans related to three of the episodes: Prof. Michelle Liu’s “What Asian American Studies, Literature, and Art Teaches us During COVID-19”, Prof. Douglas S. Ishii’s “Crazy Rich Asians, Critical University Studies, and Queer of Color Theory”, and Prof. Lydia Heberling’s “How Reading Multimodal Literature Can Support Indigenous Sovereignty.”  For each of the three episodes, we offer two lesson plans: one adapted for composition courses and one for literature and culture courses.

Special thank you to C.R. Grimmer (Public Scholarship Project Director & Series Editor) and Jake Huebsch (Project Manager & Lead Video Editor) for making the “Literature, Language, Culture” series possible, and to Rebecca Taylor for developing the teaching resources below.

Composition Lesson Plan: Lydia Heberling on Reading Multimodal Literature and Indigenous Sovereignty
Lesson Objectives By the end of this lesson, students should be able to demonstrate an ability to analyze a video, focusing on identifying audience and basic genre conventions. This lesson is designed to be an adaptable framework that can be used to teach multimodal composition analysis. That is, this lesson can be adapted to fit any stage of a unit/sequence in which students are ultimately asked to compose multimodally. Materials Needed Projector/screen Device to project to screen Internet… Read more
Literature & Culture Lesson Plan: Lydia Heberling on Multimodal Literature + Indigenous Sovereignty
Lesson Objectives By the end of this lesson, students should be able to demonstrate an understanding of dominant narratives in society and how counter narratives can create space for underrepresented voices. This lesson is designed to introduce students to the ideas of dominant narratives and counter narratives; this could be a first lesson in a sequence in which students are ultimately asked to create their own counter narratives. Materials Needed Projector/screen Device to project to screen… Read more
Composition Lesson Plan: Prof. Ishii on Asian American, University, + Queer of Color Studies
Lesson Objectives By the end of this discussion-based lesson, students should be able to demonstrate an ability to identify claims made about film and literature in a specific genre (video interview/lecture), as well as recognize ways evidence can be used to support those claims. This lesson is intended to be a first step toward students developing their own evidence-based claims. Materials Needed Projector/screen Device to project to screen Internet connection Pre-class student work:… Read more
Literature & Culture Lesson Plan: Prof. Ishii on Asian American, Queer, and University Studies
Lesson Objectives By the end of this lesson, students should be able to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts of queering a text, intersectionality, and Trans-Pacific Studies. This lesson is intended to be an introduction to these terms that can be built upon in later lessons and/or student projects. Materials Needed Projector/screen Device to project to screen Internet connection Post-it Notes Pre-class student work: Students should watch the video “… Read more
Lesson Objectives By the end of this lesson, students should be able to demonstrate an ability to create claims that are based on evidence provided in video interviews/lectures. This lesson is built upon students already demonstrating an ability to identify evidence-based claims; this lesson is intended to develop students’ ability to create claims based on specific evidence. Materials Needed Projector/screen Device to project to screen Internet connection Optional: printouts of a… Read more
Literature & Culture Lesson Plan: Prof. Michelle Liu's "Literature, Language, Culture" Episode
Lesson Objectives By the end of this lesson, students should be able to demonstrate an understanding of intersectionality by discussing this concept with others. This lesson is designed to be an introduction to intersectionality to help students gain a basic understanding that they can apply to later assignments and lessons. Materials Needed Projector/screen Device to project to screen Internet connection Optional: Post-it Notes Pre-class student work: Students should watch and create notes… Read more
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