2009 English/Writing Conference, BRAVE NEW WORLDS OF LITERACY: Textual Studies and Composition for the 21st Century

Laurel Ahnert is a Masters Candidate in the English program at Syracuse University. She earned her undergraduate degree from University of South Carolina and specializes in new media and popular culture. This is her second year working in the SU Writing Program.

DOB

November 25, 1977

Height

6'5"

Weight

Before or after breakfast?

Interests

Teaching, being a new dad, cooking, music that is too cool for someone my age. Oh yeah, cheese.

Turn Offs

Bureaucracy, people who yell at cashiers, grading papers, etc., etc, etc.

Greatest SUPA Moment

This Workshop

Greatest SUPA Fear

This Workshop

School affiliation

Hastings High School

Barry M. Backelman has been an English teacher since 1994 after completing undergraduate work at SUNY Albany and graduate work at Hofstra University. He has taught English at Elizabeth Barrett Browning MS 115 in The Bronx for 3 years before moving to Port Chester High School in Port Chester, NY for the past 12 years. He has taught SUPA at Port Chester High School for 4 years and has created and taught 3 different Shakespeare courses there.

Megan Belford was trained in the summer of 2008. She attended Rutgers University and The Graduate School of Education. She
teaches at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School in NJ.

DOB

February 3, 1966

Height

6'2"

Weight

About 12 lbs over

Interests

Running, Reading, Riding my Bicycle and having the house to myself. Oh yeah, and teaching.

Turn Offs

Grading papers, small portions, redundant repetition and grading papers.

Greatest SUPA Moment

This Workshop

Greatest SUPA Fear

This Workshop

School affiliation

Hastings High School

Mrs. Irene Brooks graduated with honors from S.U.N.Y. Binghamton and earned her Masters at Colgate University. Over the past thirty-two years, she has taught every grade and level of high school English. Mrs. Brooks has been an English teacher at Thousand Islands High School for the past thirty years. She currently serves as English Coordinator and also as a Portfolio Coordinator.

Michael Burkard’s books of poetry include Envelope of Night, Entire Dilemma, My Secret Boat (prose and poetry) and Unsleeping. His poems appear in a wide range of magazines and journals, including The American Poetry Review, Verse, Fence, Denver Quarterly. He has taught in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Syracuse University since 1997. He has been teaching Teaching Creative Writing in the Community every spring semester since 2002, and more recently collaborated with photographer Stephen Mahan teaching Literacy, Community and Photography. He has twice received grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, and in 2008 received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has also received a Whiting Writers’ Award, and the Alice Fay di Castagnola award from the Poetry Society of America

Kelly Chandler-Olcott is associate professor and chair of the Reading and Language Arts Center at Syracuse University, where she also directs the English Education programs. A former high school English and social studies teacher in her native state of Maine, she now teaches courses in English methods and literacy across the curriculum. Her research interests include adolescents’ technology-mediated literacy practices and inclusive approaches to literacy pedagogy. Her work has appeared in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Literacy Research, English Journal, English Education, and Language Arts. Her most recent book is “A Land We Can Share”: Teaching Literacy to Students with Autism (Brookes, 2008), coauthored with Dr. Paula Kluth.

Doug Cronk has taught English and theater at White Plains High School for fifteen years. A former SUPA English student himself, he has taught SUPA English for seven years, as well as serving as a cabinet member for the past five years.

Kathleen teaches English at Fayetteville-Manlius High School. She has taught through Project Advance since 1992. She lives in East Syracuse with her husband and two daughters.

C.J. Dosch is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Syracuse University where he has taught film and popular culture courses.

Michael D Dwyer is a PhD candidate in English at Syracuse University, focusing on film and popular culture. His research investigates the function of fifties nostalgia in the film and popular culture of the Reagan Era. He has taught courses in film, music, popular culture, literature and composition.

Carol Fadda-Conrey is an assistant professor of English at Syracuse University. Her work on US ethnic literatures focuses on Arab-American literary studies, delineating the complexity of Arab-American communal and individual identities. Her research and teaching interests include the study of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, war, trauma, and transnational citizenship in Arab and Arab-American literary texts. Her essays have appeared in Studies in the Humanities, MELUS, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature, and Al-Raida, and she has chapters in the edited collections Arabs in America: Interdisciplinary Essays on the Arab Diaspora (2006) and Arab Women’s Lives Retold: Exploring Identity through Writing (2007).

Ashley Farmer is an MFA Candidate in the Syracuse University Creative Writing Program. In addition to teaching in the SU Writing Program, Ashley has taught literacy through photography and creative writing courses in elementary and high schools.

My interest in developing effective practices for sharing student writing has been simmering for the 30 years I’ve been teaching English (in its various forms – Creative Writing, SUPA, English 10, etc.) at Northport High School.

Steve Fellner teaches at SUNY Brockport. He has published a book of poetry Blind Date with Cavafy (Marsh Hawk Press, 2007) and a memoir All Screwed Up (Benu Press, 2009). Fellner's memoir centers on his odd relationship with his mother, a woman who was once a championship trampolinist and is now a champion of the unpredictable. Full of murder attempts, missing umbilical cords, haunted quarries, and fat camps, All Screwed Up reveals Fellner as anything but a sensible, respectable gay man. But it should be said he does see himself as being just like everybody else. He's somewhat selfish, a bit desperate, and has moments of tenderness that may surprise himself more than anyone else.

Teacher Training Coordinator in the Writing Program. SUPA visitor since 2000

Arthur Flowers is a novelist, essayist, performance poet, and associate professor in the Syracuse University English Department. A native of Memphis Tennessee, he attended the University of Memphis and the CUNY BA Program, NYC. He is the author of novels, Another Good Loving Blues and De Mojo Blues; a children's book, Cleveland Lee's Beale Street Band; and a memoir/manifesto, Mojo Rising: Confessions of a 21st Century Conjureman. He has published shorts and articles and is a bluesbased performance poet. He is a founding member/director of New Renaissance Writers Guild and Pan African Literary Forum, and has been Executive Director of the Harlem Writers Guild. His literary interests encompass the use of the oral tradition in African American literature, the mythological role of the Delta in African American culture, and the more challenging dynamics of love. His novel in progress, Rest for the Weary, is a meditation on prophecy, destiny and the human condition. He is also working on a nonfiction work, The Hoodoo Book of Flowers. He considers having an online literary presence part of being a 21st Century literary man. See his Rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace at http://rootsblog.typepad.com/rootsblog/.

Andy Fried received his BA in Secondary English Education from SUNY Oneonta in 1987, earning an MS from SUNY New Paltz in 1992. He has been teaching in the SUPA program since 1994, and takes pride in the fact that he is the first person to both take the course and teach it. He has presented “Seinfeld and Semiotics” at the 2001 conference, and presented “Using Television to Teach Cultural History” at NYSEC in 2002. He teaches at Irvington High School.

Mary Gaitskill is the author of the novels “Two Girls, Fat and Thin” and “Veronica,” as well as the story collections “Bad Behavior” and “Because They Wanted To,” which was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner in 1998. Her story “Secretary” was the basis for the feature film of the same name. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. In 2002 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction. She has taught at U-C Berkeley, the University of Houston, New York University, Brown and Syracuse University. Her novel “Veronica” was nominated for the National Book Award in 2005; it was also nominated for the National Critic’s Circle Award and the L.A. Times Book Award. Her new collection of stories is titled “Don’t Cry.”

T J Geiger II is a doctoral student in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric at Syracuse University. He has taught dual credit, community college, and university composition classes as well as high school English literature classes.

Tula Goenka is an associate professor in the Department of Television, Radio, and Film at Syracuse University Newhouse School of Communications. Her resume includes work with several top filmmakers and notable projects during her 20 years of experience in the film and television industry. Goenka has worked with Spike Lee on "Do The Right Thing" and "Malcolm X," and Mira Nair on "Salaam Bombay!" and "Mississippi Masala." She has also worked on several award-winning documentaries, including "Unzipped," the story of fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, and "Keep The River On Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale," about explorer and writer Tobias Schneebaum.

In 2002, Goenka produced and edited the award-winning PBS documentary "Dancing On Mother Earth." This film chronicles a year in the life of Oneida Indian singer/songwriter Joanne Shenandoah and was screened in several film festivals, including the prestigious Smithsonian's Native American Film and Video Festival. Her documentary "El Charango" was an official selection at the AFI/Discovery SilverDocs Film Festival in 2006.

Goenka is a founding member of Sakhi for South Asian Women, a New York City based organization working to end violence against women. She is currently on the Board of Directors of Breakthrough, an international non-profit organization that raises human rights awareness using popular culture. Goenka also serves as the director of Syracuse University's annual Human Rights Film Festival.

Mike Goode is an Assistant Professor of English at Syracuse University who specializes in eighteenth and nineteenth-century British literature. He regularly teaches courses at Syracuse and in England on Romanticism, historical novels, Victorian crime fiction, Jane Austen, historicist theory, and reception study. His recent book, Sentimental Masculinity and the Rise of History, 1790-1890 (Cambridge University Press, 2009), and several of his articles cover issues of literary reception.

Karen J. Hall is currently a Faculty Fellow in the Humanities at Syracuse University. An activist for peace and social justice, she is a member of the Syracuse Peace Council and dedicates her research and teaching to raising awareness in the US of the multitude of costs and effects of militarism. She has published articles on war toys, first person shooter video games and the combat film.

Roger Hallas is Assistant Professor of English at Syracuse University where he teaches courses in film and visual culture. He is the author of Reframing Bodies: AIDS, Bearing Witness, and the Queer Moving Image (Duke UP, 2009) and co-editor of The Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory, and Visual Culture (Wallflower, 2007).

Wendy Insinger is a professional writer, as well as a teacher of English. For 14 years, she was a contributing editor at "Town & Country" magazine and she is the co-author of The Complete Book Of Thoroughbred Horse Racing. Her work has appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, including "Vanity Fair" and "Islands". She has also hosted an area of the website DressageUnlimited. com. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Barnard College and an M.A. in English from Brown University. She currently teaches English at Warwick Valley High School in Warwick, N.Y. and writes fiction and poetry, in addition to an occasional print or electronic media article.

Dr. Nancy Kang is Faculty Fellow in the Humanities at Syracuse University, affiliated with the Department of English and the proposed Transnational Asian Studies Minor Program. Her areas of research and teaching include race, gender, and minority studies.

Andrea Kaufman teaches English at the Wheatley School and has been part of Project Advance for about six years. Having taught during her career in another public high school, a yeshiva, and two private special education schools, she has worked with a wide range of students over time.

Andrea is also a Teacher Consultant for the Long Island Writing Project. The National Writing Project, begun at UC Berkeley in the 1970’s, offers a forum for teachers to share best practices with each other, no matter their grade level or subject area (K – college). Andrea first encountered the idea for this workshop at a Writing Project symposium and has modified it for Project Advance classes. You are welcome to ask her about the several Writing Project sites in the state of New York.

Gregg Lambert is Dean's Professor of the Humanities and Founding Director of Humanities Center at Syracuse University. He is the author of On the (New) Baroque (2008; an expanded paperback edition of Return of the Baroque in Modern Culture, 2004); Who’s Afraid of Deleuze and Guattari? (2007); and The Non-Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (2002); and co-editor of “Rrrevolutionnaire!”: Conversations in Theory, Vol.1 (2006, with Aaron Levy); Deleuze and Space (2005, with Ian Buchanan); and Jean-François Lyotard: Critical Evaluations in Cultural Theory, 3 vols. (2006, with Victor E. Taylor).

Amy Schrager Lang is Professor of English and Humanities at Syracuse University, specializing in nineteenth century American literature. She is the author of Prophetic Woman: Anne Hutchinson and the Problem of Dissent in the Literature of New England and The Syntax of Class: Writing Inequality in Nineteenth-Century America and co-editor of What Democracy Looks Like. She currently serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies in English and Textual Studies.

Jason Luther, formerly an 11th and 12th grade English teacher at Maple Grove Jr./Sr. High School in Bemus Point, New York, received his teaching degree at SUNY Fredonia and his master’s degree in English from the University of Nevada, Reno. He has been the writing center administrator at Syracuse University since 2005.

Stephen Mahan is an educator, photographer and videographer with degrees in literature and fine arts. He has taught at numerous universities and is currently an Instructor with the Department of Transmedia in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. For the past several years he has been working and teaching collaboratively with poet Michael Burkard and SU students in the Literacy, Community and Photography program and the Syracuse City School District.

Michael Mahony started teaching while a graduate student at Indiana University in 1976 and is still at it today as chair of the English department at Hasings High School (Hastings-on-Hudson, NY). He has published papers on Spenser's The Faerie Queene, on pedagogies for teaching collaboratively with other teachers, and on the relationship between the critical reading of literature and the moral development of readers. Since studying at the Tisch School at NYU in 1994, he has taught film studies and has developed courses that work on the close relationship between reading and writing using words and interpreting and composing using images.

Dana Maulshagen was trained in the summer of 2005. She attended Rutgers University and The Graduate School of Education. She is returning to Project Advance this fall after maternity leave for the Fall Semester of 2008-2009 and teaches at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School in NJ.

Pattie, Judy and Sara are currently teaching at Liverpool High School. Although teaching is their first priority, Sara is currently pursuing doctoral work at SU, Judy is department chair and Pattie is dividing her time between teaching and union work.

Judy, Pattie, and Sara are currently teaching at Liverpool High School. Although teaching is their first priority, Sara is currently pursuing doctoral work at SU, Judy is department chair and Pattie is dividing her time between teaching and union work.

Barbara Murphy is currently a SUPA English school visitor. Prior to this she taught English, including SUPA English, at Jericho High School for over thirty years. Barbara is also an educational consultant, a co-founder of Ishtar Films, and an author of several texts related to advanced English studies for the high school student.

I have been involved in the teaching of writing at Syracuse since 1984 and for much of that time visited for the SUPA English program. In 2004 I left the classroom expecting never to return. As it turns out, never isn't that long at all. In the fall of 2008, I came back to the Writing Program. I am currently running for Onondaga County Legislator and teaching Writing 105 and Writing 422 Creative Nonfiction.

Artie has been teaching SUPA English at Ramapo Senior High School in Spring Valley, NY for five years and lives in Congers, NY with his lovely wife and three wonderful children. He has pitched a no-hitter, played at Woodstock, and shouted "Macbeth!" in several theatres.

Jolynn Parker is the ETS Coordinator in the Syracuse University English department. She teaches courses on American literature and introductory literary theory, and writes pedagogical materials to accompany the Norton Anthology of American Literature and the Norton Introduction to Literature.

Mary Patroulis has taught English in five states and two countries. She currently teaches American Literature, Film, and SUPA at Fayetteville-Manlius High School and lives in Manlius, NY with her husband, two kids, and the assorted menagerie. She is a professional writer and is currently pursuing a second masters degree. She'd really, really like some sleep.

Matt Phillips teaches English at Jamesville-DeWitt High School. He lives in DeWitt, New York with his wife and three children.

Minnie Bruce Pratt is an award-winning poet, essayist, activist, educator and theorist. She holds a joint appointment as Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Writing and Rhetoric at SU, where she helped launched the LGBT Studies Program in 2006. Her many publications include The Dirt She Ate: Selected and New Poems (winner of the 2003 Lambda Literary Award), The Money Machine: Selected Poems, Walking Back Up Depot Street: Poems, S/HE (1996 ALA finalist), We Say We Love Each Other, Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991, Crime Against Nature (The 1989 Lamont Poetry Selection and a New York Times 1990 Notable Book of the Year), and The Sound of One Fork. Minnie Bruce is co-author, with Barbara Smith and Elly Bulkin, of Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism, and co-editor, with Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Robin Riley, of Feminism and War: Confronting U.S. Imperialism (2008). In the early 1990s, she faced public censure for her writing by Senator Jesse Helms and the American Family Association in the battle over NEA funding. She is currently posting daily drafts of her poetry on her Facebook notes and web page blog.

For a full biography, visit her website at www.mbpratt.org.

Sara, Pattie, and Judy are currently teaching at Liverpool High School. Although teaching is their first priority, Sara is currently pursuing doctoral work at SU, Judy is department chair and Pattie is dividing her time between teaching and union work.

Gerrie Richards is a retired English teacher who now works with the Syracuse Shakespeare Festival as an educational consultant. As a Treadwell Scholar, she attended the Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance Institute at the New Globe in London, UK (2002). In 2004 she studied at the Teaching Shakespeare Institute at The Folger Library in Washington, D.C. These are among the experiences that inform her work with teachers. She earned her BA and MA from SUNY College at Oswego.

A graduate of Harvard and Stanford Universities, Patricia Roylance is an assistant professor of English at Syracuse University and teaches courses on 17th, 18th and 19th century American literature. She taught 10th grade English for a year at The Menlo School in Atherton, CA.

Jeff Rozran has served two terms on the SUPA English Cabinet. He is a teacher of English at Syosset High School, on Long Island. He is also president of the Syosset Teachers' Association, an At-Large Director of New York State United Teachers and a member of the Executive Board of the Long Island Federation of Labor.

George Saunders is the author of the short story collections "Pastoralia," "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline" (both New York Times Notable Books) and, most recently, "In Persuasion Nation." “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline” was a Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. “In Persuasion Nation” was one of three finalists for the 2006 STORY Prize for best short story collection of the year. Saunders is also the author of the novella-length illustrated fable, "The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil" the New York Times bestselling children's book, "The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip," illustrated by Lane Smith, (which has won major children’s literature prizes in Italy and the Netherlands), and, most recently, a book of essays, “The Braindead Megaphone.”

His work appears regularly in The New Yorker, GQ, and Harpers Magazine, and has appeared in the O’Henry, “Best American Short Story,” “Best Non-Required Reading,” and “Best American Travel Writing” anthologies. In support of his books, he has appeared on The Charlie Rose Show, Late Night with David Letterman, and The Colbert Report.

In 2001, Saunders was selected by Entertainment Weekly as one of the 100 top most creative people in entertainment, and by The New Yorker in 2002 as one of the best writers 40 and under. In 2006, he was awarded both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2009 he received an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University.

Jack Shea is the Supervisor of English and Social Studies at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School. He has been teaching SUPA English since 1991, and he is a four-term member of the SUPA English Cabinet. Jack is a graduate of Albright College (A.B.: English), Brown University (M.A.T.: English), and Rutgers University (Ed.M.: Language Arts/Literacy Education).

Jeff Simmons is a writing instructor in the Syracuse University Writing Program. He teaches introductory college writing courses focussing on Analysis and Argument, sophomore writing courses on Research as Critical Inquiry, Advanced Research, and this is his third year teaching a Learning Community course in Creative Nonfiction. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University.

Prof. Harvey Teres is the author of Renewing the Left: Politics, Imagination, and the New York Intellectuals (Oxford University Press, 1996) and the forthcoming The Word On the Street: Linking the Academy and the Common Reader (University of Michigan Press). He has also completed a manuscript tentatively titled “American Beauty: Dialogues on Aesthetics With Ordinary People.” He has authored dozens of articles and reviews in his area of expertise, 20th-century American literature and culture. He received his B.A. from Cornell University and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is currently the Director of the Judaic Studies Program at Syracuse.

Kheli R. Willetts- Assistant Professor African American Art History and Film in the Department of African American Studies and Executive Director of the Community Folk Art Center a community service based unit of the African American Studies Department. Prior to joining the faculty at Syracuse University in 2002, Dr. Willetts worked with a number of arts organizations including the Real Art Ways, Studio Museum of Harlem, the Wadsworth Athenaeum, the Connecticut Historical Society and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. As Executive Director of the Community Folk Art Center Professor Willetts is responsible for developing diverse and dynamic programming including exhibitions, a film series including an annual film festival, guest lecturers and artist workshops. At Syracuse, she teaches survey courses in the areas of African American art history and film. She holds an A.A.S in Studio Arts from F.I.T a B.F.A in Studio Arts, M.A. in Museum Studies and Ph.D. in Art Education from Syracuse University.

Patrick joined the Syracuse University Library in January 2009 as Subject Specialist Librarian for English, Linguistics, and Communications & Rhetorical Studies in the library's Unit for Research, Collections, and Scholarly Communication. Additionally, he serves as the library's liaison to the Writing Program. Prior to arriving in Syracuse, he served as Web and Instructional Design Librarian at the College of Staten Island / CUNY and Coordinator of CSI's Center for Excellence in Learning Technology. Patrick holds a B.A. in English from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an M.S. in Information Studies from the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin. He is currently a doctoral candidate in Information Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His dissertation research focuses on social interaction surrounding texts in online learning environments. Patrick has also worked as a graphic designer, an information architect, a community technology consultant, and a dj.