Today a question came in about using persona to describe the narrator in fiction.
Category Archives: Education
How to Avoid Plagiarism in Your Classes
Those of us who teach writing know how to teach students to avoid plagiarism by teaching what it is, how to quote, and when to cite a source. It’s not that hard to teach students who want to avoid plagiarism what to do to make sure they don’t accidentally plagiarize. They need to keep goodContinue reading “How to Avoid Plagiarism in Your Classes”
Can Plagiarism Charges be Racist?
Towards the end of her chapter on plagiarism in Bad Ideas About Writing, Jennifer A. Mott-Smith makes the claim that plagiarism charges could be racist. I paraphrase and perhaps exaggerate her claim. What she says in the chapter “Plagiarism Deserves to be Punished” (where all chapter titles need to be read as “bad” ideas, soContinue reading “Can Plagiarism Charges be Racist?”
Summer in the Low-Residency
Frequent readers of my blog have probably noticed that I haven’t posted much in a while. That’s because summer (May and June) have been very busy months. In addition to all the year-end duties of department chair (faculty evaluations, budgets, assessments, requesting summer pay, etc.), this year we have had two full residency classes andContinue reading “Summer in the Low-Residency”
Work / Life Integration
The other day, someone asked me how I manage to do it all. I considered it a rhetorical question and so didn’t have an answer, but it got me thinking. We often hear about maintaining a Work / Life Balance, yet that often makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Balance implies an even split (thoughContinue reading “Work / Life Integration”
Alternate Structures for Fiction (etc.)
How A Writer’s Craft can be a (more) Anti-Racist Textbook, Part 8 Matthew Salesses’ chapter from Craft in the Real World, “An Example from East Asian and Asian American Literature,” begins to really get into some of the detail I’ve been looking for in terms of alternate structures and ways to rethink creative writing. IContinue reading “Alternate Structures for Fiction (etc.)”
Empathy in Creative Writing
The first section of Craft in the Real World is full of excellent advice for the fiction writing, yet the central idea I keep coming back to, especially in light of recent events, has to do with empathy.
Mourning Daunte Wright
This is a terribly horrific and sad week in America. Once again, a young black man has been killed on our streets — this time in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, as the trial of the police officer who killed George Floyd goes on just 11 miles away. This time, Daunte Wright’s death is portrayed as aContinue reading “Mourning Daunte Wright”
Writing Workshops & Conferences
I’ve now finished, Felicia Rose Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, and so I want to weigh in with some thoughts on the way workshops are discussed, and some of the advice she gives.
Inclusivity: Expanding the Canon
How A Writer’s Craft Can be a (more) Anti-Racist Textbook, Part 5 Chapter 4 of Felicia Rose Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop talks about how Chavez moved from being taught with the standard literature anthologies when she was in college, reading the assigned white writers from library copies in old editions or photocopying assignments becauseContinue reading “Inclusivity: Expanding the Canon”
Kendall Dunkelberg 