26. Office Hours w/ Katie and Dan

In our first “Office Hours” episode, we discuss questions, comments, and concerns from our listeners about teaching and learning online this semester. Thanks to everyone who submitted a question. Keep them coming on Twitter  @writingremixpod!

Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“[Students] are asking to be engaged with. They are asking to be heard.” @ddissinger

“Everything that I’m doing this semester…is trying to understand how much more can I humanize the academic experience.” @ddissinger

“How do we switch gears and start thinking about higher education as a higher plane of intellectual curiosity and self-actualization?” @ddissinger

“I’m just trying to give [students] opportunities to connect and feel like we’re in a community.” @KatieARobison


“We’re starting at a negative when students are coming in already fearing the reputation of the class.” @KatieARobison

“I want them to love writing, and if we’re punishing them for their papers, that’s not going to foster any kind of love.” @KatieARobison

This episode was recorded on August 31. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

25. Teaching through Contingency w/ Michelle Meyers & Ryan Leack

In Episode 25 we talk to Professors Michelle Meyers and Ryan Leack of the USC Writing Program about the issues facing part-time/contingent faculty–especially during a global pandemic and a time of tremendous economic uncertainty.

Michelle Meyers is a lecturer in the Writing Program at USC and a member of the Diversity Committee and the Community Engagement Committee. She teaches creative writing for the Prison Education Project as well and received her MFA in Fiction from the University of Alabama.

Dr. Ryan David Leack teaches in the Writing Program at the University of Southern California, and received his Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Riverside. There he studied the productive intersections between rhetoric, quantum mechanics, philosophy, composition, and poetry. Ryan’s academic work has appeared in Composition Forum (2019), and in the edited collection Romantic Ecocriticism: Origins and Legacies (2016). His creative work has appeared in journals such as Chiron Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Pif, and Westwind, as well as in Pomona Valley Review, where he served as Editor-in-Chief for seven years. His music is available on Apple Music, Spotify, and like services, and is featured in films available on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and like services internationally.

Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“I think a lot of people don’t understand how the neoliberalization of the university has impacted the tenure-track position…It’s more competitive now to get a tenure-track job at a community college than it was to get a tenure-track job at an R1 thirty to forty years ago.” -Ryan Leack

“I can’t help but care about whatever institution I’m involved with, and I want to be part of it. I want to be doing things that I think are important…I think [service work] also gives me more knowledge and more opportunities to then bring to my students and to improve their learning experience as well ” -Michelle Meyers

“At the end of the day, what keeps me going when all of these external stresses are happening, is that I do love teaching, and I do love trying to create the best classroom environment for my students.” -Michelle Meyers

“To me, to be a good teacher of writing means to constantly be invested in educating myself and to keep my knowledge sharp and cutting edge in the field.” -Ryan Leack

This episode was recorded on August 4. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

24. Letting Our Students Lead in Digital Spaces w/ Rochelle Gold & Liz Blomstedt

This episode was part of the 2020 Big Rhetorical Podcast Carnival: “The Digital Future of Rhetoric and Composition.” Be sure to check out the other episodes in the round-up here!

In Episode 24, we talk to Dr. Rochelle Gold and Dr. Liz Blomstedt of the USC Writing Program about the democratizing potential of multimodal and online writing assignments, embracing new citation practices, navigating inequities on online platforms, and letting students lead the way in digital spaces.

People and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

“Online teaching…gives [students] experience writing in digital environments, which I think is something they are going to be asked to do in their future lives and careers, as so much of our existence occurs online these days.” @lizblomstedt

“Our embodied selves are with us, even when we’re online.” -Rochelle Gold

“As much as I really like to see the students who have their cameras on…we need to be really conscious of those kinds of biases we have toward certain students. And so today, on syllabus day, I found myself articulating that it was okay if we weren’t able to do those kinds of ideal sets of practices and maybe we should even quit calling them ideal because of how they privilege certain students over others.” @lizblomstedt

“Citations…are a really kind of interesting space for re-inventing how we think about writing and having conversations about credit that are important not only in academic in writing but that are important in all forms of communication… Students are always so surprised that a bunch of people just come up with these [style] guides. There’s nothing inherent about them…This is something that’s transforming.” -Rochelle Gold

“Citations are so interesting because they do reveal so much about the power structures that play roles in how we use language…[and] what writers and readers value.” @lizblomstedt

“One of the benefits [of writing in digital environments] is I think that students often get to determine their own purpose to writing in those environments…and that they have more freedom to think about what their purpose is in this assignment and perhaps even shape that purpose for themselves…And in my experience it has led to some students embracing the opportunity to write in other Englishes or in a kind of a hybrid of English and whatever their home language is. So that’s another, I think, benefit of thinking about writing in digital environments specifically.” @lizblomstedt

“I think…that there’s a lot of fear of the kind of democratizing quality of digital media. At the same time, I would say my concern, and the concern of many others, is that it’s not democratizing enough.” -Rochelle Gold

“I think that the other part of the digital future of composition/rhetoric is keeping the critical thinking piece there. I would argue that multimodal writing does nothing to counteract critical thinking and that it can enhance critical thinking, but I do think that there’s this kind of fear that we’ll get too stuck on that stuff that looks good and kind of miss the depth…Critical thinking has to be a key component.” -Rochelle Gold

“Most of our writing happens online these days. And, not to be dramatic, but the future of our democracy is at stake, essentially, and the future of our society is at stake. It’s absolutely essential that our students get comfortable reading and writing online and that they develop their savvy and they hone their skills…Wherever they’re writing, they can really have an impact, much more so than if we try to silo their writing in other ways or if we feel tied to old traditions. I assume we all do this because we think that writing can change the world, and we hope that it will, and so I think that the future of rhetoric and composition has to be digital because that’s where these things are happening.” -Rochelle Gold

“[There’s] power in letting students be experts in the digital space…[and] feeling like they’re bringing that kind of knowledge to the table…It’s really vital that we embrace that kind of digital future for our field. ” @lizblomstedt

This episode was recorded on August 17. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

Episode 23: Telling Stories About Ourselves with Kristiana Willsey

In Episode 23, we talk to Dr. Kristiana Willsey of USC’s Anthropology department about folklore (the field of study and the new Taylor Swift album), the social function of fairy tales and urban legends, and the meaning-making that happens in the stories we tell about our lives.

You can learn more about Kristi here.

People and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“The things that people remember about fairy tales are…things that are often embodied. And that’s partly what makes these such versatile stories and why they can move cross-culturally…I don’t think it’s the morals of fairy tales that make them resilient. I think it’s the imagery.” -Kristiana Willsey

“Storytelling is meaning-making…If you’re trying to understand illness, if you’re trying to understand difficult experiences of any kind, you have to be able to put them in order and say why something happened. That meaning is not in the experience; it’s in the story.” -Kristiana Willsey

“With the Internet, everything is folk knowledge again.” -Kristiana Willsey

“Folklore is always in the present. It’s not vestigial….It has to be actively performed and produced, which means if someone is telling this story, it’s still serving a purpose.” -Kristiana Willsey

“People would rather be the villain in their own story than believe there’s no story.” -Kristiana Willsey

“We are using our bodies to measure the world, and we are all variable. We’re all different. So the evidence, the analysis, the criticism that we generate is a combination of what that person puts out in the world and what shape it takes in the receptacle of our own bodies.” -Kristiana Willsey

“The stories we tell about other people are always just stories about ourselves.” -Kristiana Willsey

This episode was recorded on July 28. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

22. Privileging Oral Stories w/ Shenishe Kelly

In Episode 22, we talk to Professor Shenishe Kelly about the importance of teaching non-canonical and oral stories and encouraging students to bring their textual lineages–whatever form they take–into the classroom with them.

Shenishe L. Kelly is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. She serves as an Assistant Lecturer (Teaching) of Writing in the University of Southern California’s undergraduate Writing Program while pursuing a doctoral degree in educational leadership.

Prior to teaching and learning at USC, Shenishe served as a certified secondary English teacher for ten years—five years stateside in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, Illinois and and five years abroad in Busan, South Korea and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Some of her career highlights include participating in the development of test questions for the Korean National English Test administered to approximately five million Korean high school students annually, creating curriculum and assessment resources utilized in 83 high schools throughout the emirate of Abu Dhabi, leading small group professional development sessions for English teachers from five continents (i.e., North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia), coaching more than half a dozen ESL students to place as semi-finalists and finalists in a university-sponsored English creative writing competition, and her class being selected as model of best practices during in international school inspection. 

Shenishe is an emerging educational scholar and creative writer who will publish in both fields in the coming year. Her scholarship centers around intergenerational inquiry and learning, identity development, learned humanity and hopefulness, and critical family literacy. Her creative writing interests center around poetry and flash creative nonfiction, which she uses to navigate the intersection of her past, present, and future. She is committed to engaging with her many communities around literacy education for collective uplift.

People and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

  • Sankofa proverb
  • Paulo Freire
  • Too Much Schooling, Too Little Education: A Paradox of Black Life in White Societies  by Mwalimu J. Shujaa
  • Nipsey Hussle
  • The Allegory by Royce da 5’9″
  • The allegory of the cave in Plato’s Republic
  • Kala by M.I.A.
  • Big K.R.I.T.
  • Toni Morrison
  • “Beyond Beats, Rhymes, & Beyoncé” by Gloria Ladson-Billings
  • “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy” by Gloria Ladson-Billings
  • Culturally Responsive Teaching by Geneva Gay
  • Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim
  • Siren (TV series)
  • Lola Igna (TV series)
  • Miracle in Cell No. 7 (film)
  • Karl Marx
  • Pierre Bordieu
  • Émile Durkheim
  • Alfred Tatum
  • Gholdy Muhammad
  • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  • Jay-Z
  • “Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)” by Nikki Giovanni
  • “Beyond the Methods Fetish: Toward a Humanizing Pedagogy” by Lilia Bartolomé
  • “On Being White…and Other Lies” by James Baldwin

“I approach words in the same way that I approach the world, and that’s rooted in the Sankofa proverb. It translates to, ‘It’s not taboo to go back and fetch it.’ And so, most of my life is kind of rooted in me trying to understand the relationship between my past, my present, and my future.” -Shenishe Kelly

“I’m very passionate about oral stories…I really want to untangle that [textual lineage] and take that primary focus off of looking at print texts because in a lot of cultures that’s not so salient; they don’t always engage in print texts, particularly working class people.” -Shenishe Kelly

“Sometimes when we talk about community engagement we try to push students to go out in the community, but sometimes we need to push them to turn internally, to unpack who they are, their identity.” -Shenishe Kelly

“I really believe in trying to resonate with people’s souls or seeing in which ways my soul resonates with someone else. That’s the way I move through the world…I want people to see me beyond those color labels, see the other parts of my humanity…I’m not just going to agree or be in the Amen corner with what my students are writing about just because we share the same race. I dig deeper than that.” -Shenishe Kelly

“I think it’s a very powerful and bold statement to tell the students that you have just as much agency to push against me as I do to you…We are all in partnership.” -Shenishe Kelly

“I can’t gloss over these things [the protests and resistance]. We have to be in conversation. That’s why I say for people who are looking for that packaged ‘best practices’…around race and class and culture, etc….You have to live it…All these things should always be a part of your teaching and classroom in an organic way. It should not be forced…or sprinkled on.” -Shenishe Kelly

“Students who have been racially constructed as ‘of color’ or students who are socially constructed as [having] lower economic backgrounds…our whole society is designed to ‘fix’ them, to ‘solve’ them, and so most of the texts that they engage with, or we’ve engaged with in that way, are texts that are turned on us. And so that kind of forces us, from my perspective, to always stay inward. And so sometimes I have to push students from upper middle class backgrounds or students who are racialized as white to go inward because they’re used to doing the gaze and they’re not used to going inward…I try to coach my students individually to see if they need to go more inward or more outward.” -Shenishe Kelly

“Having students engage in that self-discovery [means] they’re seeking out texts that they can relate to…or they’re bringing in texts that they relate to and using that to approach other texts that we’re engaging with….We have to privilege stories of all kinds. I think that is crucial…It does not have to be this traditional, academic way that we bring people into our stories or we try to understand and to be in community with each other around story.” -Shenishe Kelly

“It’s not about all the texts you’re reading, but it’s the texts that shape who you are, your thinking and your identity. We can push and cram things down students’ throats all we want to, but…that does not mean that that text is going to resonate with students. When we start to think of each other as living texts…every student is not going to jibe or resonate, but [we can] continue to try to find ways in which we can see our common humanity through that.” -Shenishe Kelly

“That imprint that people leave with us? It doesn’t come in the form of a formal text or empirical work but in oral story.” -Shenishe Kelly

Mug squad

This episode was recorded on July 21. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

21. Repurposing Genre w/ Michelle Brittan Rosado & Corinna McClanahan Schroeder

In Episode 21, we talk to award-winning poets Michelle Brittan Rosado and Corinna McClanahan Schroeder about bringing a sense of play to the composition classroom and repurposing genre in our writing.

Read more about Michelle here and Corinna here.

People and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“How do I bring…play to the academic essay?” -Corinna Schroeder

“Traditional academic work is often translated into other genres too, so that’s been a way that I’ve been trying to open up my first-year students to the idea of challenging genre…I’ve been trying to assign works by academics who are in a different genre–like they’re appearing on a podcast or they write an op-ed or they’re a guest on a talk show. This is something that even the more traditional academic does. They have to present their work to different audiences.” @mbrittanrosado

“It feels like a really artificial wall, or walls, that we’ve placed around the academic essay that it’s like the end-all be-all when really all of our communication is constantly being repurposed, inside and outside of the academy.” @mbrittanrosado

“I feel a real tension between wanting to bring, and bringing, a sense of imagination and play into the composition classroom and thinking about writing as a series of choices–there are no rules here; whether it’s a poem or an essay, you’re making a choice, and that choice has an effect on your reader–and then also wanting to make sure they know what that box is, in case they’re in a situation in which they really need to use that box of the essay.” -Corinna Schroeder

This episode was recorded on June 8. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

20. Revaluing Free Speech w/ Yan Sham-Shackleton

In Episode 20, we talk to Yan Sham-Shackleton about Hong Kong’s new National Security Law, government censorship, the complicated nature of revolutions, and the importance of free speech to the work of a writer.

Yan Sham-Shackleton is a Hong Kong writer who lives in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in Chicago Quarterly Review, Litro, Great Weather for Media, Popmatters, and others. She is a columnist on Hong Kong Free Press. She is seeking an agent for her coming-of-age novel “Island of Lights” set during the 1997 regime change of Hong Kong. Learn more at her website: www.YanShamS.com

Writers and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“Without free speech, you can’t be a writer.” @YanShamS

“In a Western country, protest works. But if you’re dealing with a totalitarian regime, it doesn’t.” @YanShamS

“If we start censoring people in University or censoring people anywhere, then who gets to decide what you can say and what you can’t say? It’s just who’s in power.” @YanShamS

“I had a really romantic view of the protest, and I actually went home in December to see it and…it was actually very angry and very dirty and hateful…It was a ‘carnival of hate’ more than a romantic democratic movement…I felt really torn when I was home. But…it’s still the movement. The movement’s right, whether everybody is doing the right thing for the movement, I still support the movement, no matter what….But I did wonder…can I capture the ugliness of it? Would I be selling out or hurting the movement if I talked about the ugliness I saw in the protest? But, you know, that IS the beauty and the romanticism… Fighting for freedom is really complicated. ” @YanShamS

“It never occurred to me that if I wrote what I wrote in my novel, something would happen to me.” @YanShamS

“It’s not how important you are. It’s: did they find you?” @YanShamS

This episode was recorded on July 14. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

19. Embracing a Messy Identity w/ Meghan P. Nolan

In Episode 19, we talk to Dr. Meghan P. Nolan about identity fragmentation and embracing our fullest, messiest selves–and empowering our students to do the same. We also talk about multi-genre writing projects, the (in)accessibility of academic writing, institutional barriers to equity and progress, gender roles in mystery novels, and finding joy in our scholarship.

Come for Fernando Pessoa; stay for P.D. James!

Meghan P. Nolan, MFA, MA, PHD is an Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center at SUNY Rockland Community College. She is a multigenre writer who focuses on fragmented perceptions of self-hood through academic works, fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. She is the author of the poetry collection, Stratification (BlazeVOX Books, 2008); her poetry has appeared in Blue Door Quarterly, The Nepotist, MiPOesias, Quest, Coconut, No Tell Motel, Sawbuck, Free Focus, and more. Her essays have recently been published in Persona Studies, Thread, The 100 Greatest Detectives, Exquisite Corpse: Studio Art-Based Writing in the Academy, and Transnational Crime Fiction.

People and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“We cannot continue to assess student writing in the ways that we are.” @DrNolanRCC

“Students are exploring their identities through their writing, in their own ways, in the classroom…It becomes this hodge-podge, almost like a collage, of creative work and academic work that they’ve connected with a theme throughout the semester, and that theme is really their own identities and how they view themselves.” @DrNolanRCC

“A lot of teaching college writing is learning how to work around the system.” @DrNolanRCC

“As a writer, I really start to free up once I gave up on [fitting into a neat group]…I don’t really care what other people think…I write whatever I feel at the time.” @DrNolanRCC

“You’ve got to move forward as a writer. That’s the only way you can [go].” @DrNolanRCC

“We fall back into those really comfortable zones, where we’re like, yes this is how I present myself, this is who I am to this group of people, instead of seeing all those disparate parts as one cohesive whole…We’ve got to be willing to mash up our own identities in front of audiences that aren’t expecting it and be willing to share all parts of ourselves.” @DrNolanRCC

“That writing work [in the first-year writing classroom] can be so valuable because you can get people exploring those ideas–what makes me who I am? It’s a lot more than what’s on the surface. Let’s piece all of that together and see what you come up with, yourself. Because it can’t be somebody else telling you what they see. It needs to be what you experience, your authentic experience as yourself, that you want to share, that you see as being who you are. And that to me is giving a true account of oneself.” @DrNolanRCC

“No matter what it is that I’m writing–whether it’s creative or it’s academic or it’s poetic–whatever I’m doing, I’m always trying to…pick apart what it means to be an individual. What are those various parts, those gritty pieces that make up who we are?” @DrNolanRCC

This episode was recorded on July 7. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

18. Teaching Inside the Prison System w/ Kate Levin & Nicholas De Dominic

In Episode 18, we talk to Professors Kate Levin and Nicholas De Dominic of the USC Writing Program about their work with the Prison Education Project and the obligation an institution like USC has to the incarcerated population and the South Central Los Angeles community.

You can learn more about the Prison Education Project on their website and on their Instagram and Facebook pages. USC faculty interested in participating in the Faculty Forum or developing their own PEP course can contact Kate at klevin@usc.edu or Nik at dedomini@usc.edu. Learn more about Kate here and Nik here.

This episode was recorded on June 23 and contains explicit language. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

“There’s nothing that quite disrupts a person’s preconceptions…and forces you to confront your own attitudes about things, like going in there [to prisons] and doing work in the space.” -Kate Levin

“It is an enrichment opportunity. It’s also, I think, for some a stepping stone to higher education. But, frankly, it’s also a way to get back to their lives, their families, and their communities sooner, which I think is important.” -Kate Levin

“I’m deeply, deeply saddened and crushed by everything that’s going on in the world. But one of the benefits is that our more conservative administration is in a place to affect change, whereas I don’t think they were before…We are in a place now where not only the importance of this work is recognized but we can actually institutionalize the program.” @nikded

“This is not just a nice thing for USC to have or do…This the responsibility of the University, which is located in South Central Los Angeles. It is not divorced from the issues of incarceration in Southern California…This is you paying your rent to be in this space, at a bare minimum.” -Kate Levin

“A classroom is a classroom is a classroom…There is no differentiation between that space [the prison classroom] and what goes on at USC, and I think that’s why it’s so very powerful.” @nikded

“Writing is experiential, and in those classrooms [in the prisons] where we’re teaching writing, we have just a wealth of extensive experience that these students are allowed to draw upon. They’re writing to bear witness.” @nikded

17. Challenging Power Structures in Music Education w/ Meagan Dissinger

In Episode 17, Dan and guest host Stephanie Renée Payne talk with Dr. Meagan Dissinger about using culturally responsive teaching in music education, deconstructing power structures and bringing social justice to the music classroom, and teaching music virtually during the current moment.

Dr. Meagan Dissinger currently holds the position of High School Choir Director and Special Education General Music Teacher at the Oyster Bay – East Norwich Central School District on Long Island in New York. This will be her twelfth year servicing the students of New York State where she has taught all grades Pre-K-12. In addition to NYS professional certification, Dr. Dissinger is a National Board Certified in Music for early adolescents to young adults. Dr. Dissinger is an active accompanist and guest conductor for honors ensembles. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education with minors in Special Education from the Pennsylvania State University, a Master’s degree in Piano Performance from CUNY Hunter College, a second Master’s degree in Music Education from Columbia University, and a Doctoral degree in Music Education from Columbia University. Dr. Dissinger’s research interests include culturally responsive teaching in secondary school choral ensembles, how teachers establish equitable music curricula through student choice and autonomy, autoethnography for developing teachers, and performance-based assessment in music.

Scholars Mentioned in the Episode
  • Geneva Gay
  • Gloria Ladson-Billings
  • Constance McCoy
  • Anne Geller
  • Paulo Freire
  • Vershawn Ashanti Young
  • bell hooks

“It is not easy to challenge things that are so rooted in ourselves […] During this time that we’re in right now with this virtual learning, this is even more of an exciting opportunity where we can really learn from our students. I think it’s really important to posit ourselves as lifelong learners with them, not above them.” -Meagan Dissinger

“I really try to challenge those power structures and reconsider what music can look like for my students and my classroom.” -Meagan Dissinger

“I don’t think we can really move anywhere as a society if White people don’t start checking themselves.” -Meagan Dissinger

“Even when I’m presenting this [autoethnography] research, I’m putting myself under a microscope and I’m talking about my own personal flaws, my own biases, my own stereotypes that I work through […] I think it’s important for me to model that work especially for the students in my classroom who are privileged.” -Meagan Dissinger

“One of the questions I get often is well, ‘What are you gonna do next?’ Is there a next? I mean, just because I did this one autoethnography, does that mean now I’m done interrogating myself? I don’t really think that. The project is meant to be lifelong.” -Meagan Dissinger

“In my class, we really come from an angle of social justice. We work towards creating music with purpose.” -Meagan Dissinger 

“A big part of my class is not just the music-making, but the discourse […] If we can give them the tools on how to talk about it [race, gender, etc.], they’re so much more willing–at least from my experience in my classroom–they’re so much more willing to participate in the conversation, and then that opens up opportunity for some transformative learning to happen because some of the students are rethinking how they think about race or gender or sexuality or religion.” -Meagan Dissinger

“Music is an incredible platform for change.” -Meagan Dissinger

This episode was recorded on May 19. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.