16. Rebuilding the University w/ Stephanie Bower & John Murray

In Episode 16, we talk to Professors Stephanie Bower and John Murray of the USC Writing Program about incorporating multimodal and experience-based assignments into their courses, building relationships with local communities, reframing service learning as a form of activism, and turning to abolitionist pedagogy as a model for dismantling and then rebuilding the University. Learn more about Stephanie here and John here, and be sure to check out some of the student projects from their recent courses:

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.

“Visual storytelling is a really important skill in rhetoric…Filmmaking and composition actually have a lot in common…If you really break down what goes into a documentary, it is what goes into a paper.” -John Murray

“Sometimes it seems like higher education is behind what they’re doing in K-12…You’re going to write yourself into extinction if you don’t realize how writing can be applied to these other media.” -John Murray

“You have something to learn, so don’t go in there heavy-handed. Don’t go in there taking something from the the community. Don’t go in there doing something for or about the community. You are collaborating.” -John Murray

“How do our opinions shift when we actually listen to the communities whose stories we’re partnering to tell rather than going in with our own assumptions about it? That’s I think a lot of the work we do in the class. And it’s such a relief to students…to have their perspectives be valued and…to be able to narrate and theorize from their own lived experiences.” -Stephanie Bower

“All this humanity coming at them beyond the academic information I think has potential to impact them for years to come, and impact not only how they see these populations when they research them, but how they see the world.” -John Murray

“If you imagine yourself as an activist, first of all, it enables you to recognize your own complicity within the systems…and so it becomes a shared responsibility to change those systems…It challenges that idea of objectivity.” -Stephanie Bower

“Abolitionist thinking isn’t about reforming or reimagining; it’s about dismantling and then rebuilding based upon what we want our values to be.” -Stephanie Bower

“What would it be like if you asked students…how what we’re doing in the classroom can make a difference outside in the world…How can we be thinking about this space as an opportunity to make change?” -Stephanie Bower

“The person has to be part of the educational experience…It’s not only academic success in college that helps you persist and succeed and complete; it’s social integration into college…Under-represented groups very often feel excluded socially in a classroom. And I think that’s a huge consideration to tie into composition…What are you expected to assimilate to here as you make an argument, as you make a case, as you express your voice? Are we expecting you to deny everything you were until you walked into the room so that you can assimilate into what’s been established?…Are we still holding back to standards that are really, in terms of the big picture, obsolete?” -John Murray

“Think like an academic, but don’t write like one.” -Stephanie Bower

“If there’s anything we want to keep about academia…it might be that sense of curiosity for its own sake.” -Stephanie Bower

This episode was recorded on June 9. 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.

15. Drumming a Language of Love w/ Daunté Fyall & Tanee Osborne

Happy Juneteenth! In this episode, we talk to Daunté Fyall and Tanee Osborne about the healing language of traditional West African drumming and dance.

This episode was recorded on June 16 from Motherland Music. We wish we could have been there in person, but unfortunately we still have to do things virtually, so please forgive the limitations of Zoom to capture the sound of these beautiful instruments. 

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.

More About Our Guests

Born in Frankfurt, Germany and raised in Washington DC, Daunté “KINGTAE” Fyall is a passionate dance instructor, performing artist, and motivational speaker. Daunté travels around the world enriching our communities with the healing energy and power of Traditional West African Dance. His Roots began with the World-Renowned Assane Konte, Founder/Artistic Director of Kankouran West African Dance Company of Washington, DC. As a Senior Company Member, Daunte’s performance venues/credits include: The Kennedy Center of Washington DC, the Trinidad & Tobago Emancipation Festival, The Smithsonian Museums of Washington DC, and The White House of the United States of America, to name a few! Daunté has also participated in hundreds of hours of continuing education with West African Masters such as Babacar N’diaye, Aboubacar Oscar Camara, Marie Basse-Wiles, and Mouminatou Camara. He was awarded the privilege of studying and performing with dance Pioneer Debbie Allen at her prestigious dance academy located in the heart of Los Angeles. Daunté can also be seen displaying his talents in Projects with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and in a music video with 5-Grammy nominated R&B Artist: Khalid. Daunté currently hosts West African Dance Fundamental Classes with his Arts Collective: DAANSEKOU in the heart of Los Angeles, CA. Daunté is dedicated to creating nurturing spaces to develop the potential of inner city youth, collaborative workshops with community organizations, maintaining private, corporate and individual group lessons. Daunté is passionate about dance, traveling, leading retreats and teaching specialized workshops. Daunté believes that “…true healing starts with Pure Heart and Positive Intention…” so he is honored to share the value of this living tradition while simultaneously encouraging people to experience their infinite potential. Daunté is on a quest to collectively empower others to discover a greater self awareness through Love, Light (Knowledge), Respect and Humility! 

Tanee Osborne is a West African djembe and dundun percussionist, first introduced to the West African Drum and Dance culture in 2009 with Bi-Okoto Drum and Dance, a company out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Relocating to California in 2011 and landing in Leimert Park, LA’s premiere cultural hub, Tanee has studied and continues to learn the culture and language of the ancestors fulltime from local and out of state master drummers and dancers. You can now catch her playing djembe and dunduns for DAANSEKOU Arts Collective, The H.E.Art Performing Arts and Debbie Allen Dance Academy. Learn more about Tanee in her recent interview with Voyage LA Magazine and find her on Instagram @TaneeTheTO. 

You can follow DAANSEKOU on Instagram @daansekou and subscribe to their newsletter here.

“This is a language. We believe that it’s communicated through these drums…A conversation is happening…a conversation of a people.” -Daunté Fyall

“This language has to be shared. It is a love language. And a language that promotes healing and a language that promotes growth. A language that actually turns the world.” -Daunté Fyall

“This culture’s married to the heart…These rhythms are functioned off of the heartbeat.” -Daunté Fyall and Tanee Osborne

“We’re all vibrational beings. We all have a rhythm within us. It’s the pumping of our blood, the way that our heart pumps, the way that we breathe and inhale. We all naturally have a rhythm, and this is just another way to connect and align those rhythms within ourselves and within the universe. This drum, djembe, actually means ‘to come together’…It’s impossible to be around these instruments and not be in a higher vibration of love.” -Tanee Osborne

“There is a whole life around this drum.” -Tanee Osborne

“As a teacher…what I’ve learned is you have to give your students something to hold onto.” -Daunté Fyall

“Don’t pull away from yourself…We need you at your best self. I need you to be who you are, because that’s what the universe needs. And so I don’t want you to do so much for others that you begin to take away from yourself. Make sure you’re whole. But when you’re whole, then there’s extra to fill over and it overflows…And if everybody overflows with their gift because they’re full of the joy of their gift, how can the world not be a better place?” -Tanee Osborne

“Every rhythm has a purpose, has a meaning.” -Tanee Osborne

“If you look in every culture, there’s a drum of some sort that takes place in the healing process and ritual and celebration and mourning and life. Everything was centered around some type of drumbeat. In every culture, you can find a rhythm.” -Tanee Osborne

“These drums have survived. This language has survived. And that is the true test of the power behind this drum.” -Daunté Fyall

“[The drum] is fashioned after the woman. It’s fashioned after the womb. And it’s fashioned after the heartbeat too…One of the first sounds we hear when we’re in our mother’s womb is the heartbeat. That’s why it always kind of brings us back home.” -Daunté Fyall

“We’re spelling words over and over and over again with our bodies…We’re kind of writing in the lines of space, and so we’re able to then embed this language into our mind enough to be able to regurgitate it to someone else…We are the words in this book of life.” -Daunté Fyall

“[After a drum class] my energy is at an all-time high. That feeling right there is why we say this is medicine. The feeling you have after a good workout and a good lesson is the energy you want to bottle up and give to someone else.” -Daunté Fyall

“I tell people: do what you want to do. Move in that light, knowing that your intention is pure, your intentions are in the right place. As long as you’re moving in the light of love, how can you be moving in the wrong direction?” -Tanee Osborne

“If you are a writer, that is your protest. Write! This is the time, more than ever, to write. This is the time, more than ever, to make an impact on the world.” -Daunté Fyall

“We’re in a state of awakening…We have this opportunity to be free…Now we get to write what the new normal looks like.” -Tanee Osborne

“Love is the highest vibration.” -Tanee Osborne

14. Practicing Anti-Racist Pedagogy w/ Alisa Sánchez, Carlos Delgado, & Jessi Johnson

We continue the conversation about dismantling White supremacy and systems of oppression, especially in higher education, with Professors Alisa Sánchez, Carlos Delgado, and Jessi Johnson of the USC Writing Program. In this episode we talk about anti-racist pedagogy and ways we can uphold inclusive values and practices in the writing classroom.

Based on recommendations from our guests, we’ve added more resources to the Anti-Racist Reading List. We invite you to read, to listen, and to learn.

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.

“Diversity is not the same as anti-racism.” -Jessi Johnson

“The objections seem to imply: yes, we begin from an unacceptable premise of White supremacy, but your ideas challenge White supremacy, so we can’t do your idea. It’s this amazing contradiction that academia continues to uphold.” @C_A_Delgado

“Our students are coming into the classroom multilingual. That can mean literal languages. That can mean backgrounds, knowledges, perspectives. [We want to] give each of those languages equal agency.” -Jessi Johnson

“Multimodality [means offering] different modes into the classroom space so it’s more inclusive…deconstructing the traditional academic essay, or saying there’s more than one way to approach the academic essay.” -Jessi Johnson

“Code-meshing is the idea that you can equally value all ways of speaking and all codes and all ways of thinking…So you don’t only have to say you can only use standard Western English and that’s the only way you’re going to get an A. It’s instead to say you come from a multitude of languages and ways of expressing your codes, and we want to mesh them all, rather than forcing you to switch back and forth between them.” -Jessi Johnson

“We have so many intersecting aspects of ourselves and so many different identities that all converge to make us very unique people, and we want to make space in the classroom for those intersecting identities.” -Jessi Johnson

“There are a thousand assumptions, invisible assumptions, that people who don’t get this work are making–and they don’t even know they’re making–about the history of Empire and the history of violence and who gets to say what English is right, who gets to say what English is good. We as gatekeepers have the opportunity to address some of that, but when our assumptions are built in…to give somebody a C- because they couldn’t talk like I do, it’s an extension of that violence.” @C_A_Delgado

“I really do and really don’t want to be tender with people because I love other people and we’re all human here…At the same time, it often feels like a betrayal, and a betrayal of myself, like I’m suppressing my anger and my pain in order to to be able to do my language and my affect and everything in the right way in order to not just be heard but be heard in a way that will start to make in-roads.” -Alisa Sánchez

“There is a tradition within Western thinking and writing that cherishes and loves the rebel…There is a long tradition of especially White men saying ‘Be free in your writing!’–until Black people are trying to write that way.” @C_A_Delgado

“I really want to show people their anti-Blackness and then invite them to cross a gap. That’s my hope in all of this.” @C_A_Delgado

“Allyship [in the classroom] means not assuming that your students know that you are for them. It’s speaking up and actually voicing that.” -Jessi Johnson

“The rubric becomes this terrible source of power for gatekeeping…So what I do is we get rid of the rubric, and we build it from the ground up collaboratively.” -Jessi Johnson

“It’s no longer just about diversity; it’s about expressing their intersecting identities, and it’s about valuing those identities. Literally valuing. I will give you a grade, and I will value this identity. And that’s anti-racism.” -Jessi Johnson

“It’s as though we forget once students enter the classroom that they got into college because they wrote a personal essay. They got into college because they know how to write.” @C_A_Delgado

“Rather than have [students] practice the ‘genre’…teach them how to read genre…Otherwise we’re just re-hashing a version of the five-paragraph essay.” @C_A_Delgado

“It’s about teaching those skills of critical thinking and critical reading and making choices as a writer…but it’s about being able to do those while being who you are and while not having to assimilate to a White identity.” -Alisa Sánchez

“[I’ve seen] the damage that [assimilation] can do, and it’s damage not only to individual students but that also ripples out and becomes collective trauma.” -Alisa Sánchez

“That’s why [it’s important] to welcome people to write in all of their languages and to be who they are. Since writing is so vulnerable and so powerful, that is a really important site in which to make sure we’re doing that work as teachers.” -Alisa Sánchez

“What we teach is what will continue.” -Jessi Johnson

“Thinking about this time and what to take from this…it’s to invest in the long-term transformations…that we transform knowledge production and we transform the academy and we transform writing and that it’s happening through our students…I see again and again that they are the ones who are–through their writing and the way that they do their work–shifting things and making change and creating that space.” -Alisa Sánchez

This episode was recorded on June 5. 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.

13. Using Our Voice & Our Hearts w/ Stephanie Renée Payne, Danielle Lee, & O Tomas Bell

Former guests Stephanie Renée Payne, Danielle Lee, and O Tomas Bell return for a sobering and powerful discussion about racism in America and the demonstrations taking place around the world protesting the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many other Black Americans. We are incredibly grateful that they were willing to share their thoughts during a time of tremendous pain. Please listen to what they have to say.

Writing Remix stands in solidarity with everyone using their voice to combat racism and police brutality and to dismantle systems of oppression. Black lives are precious. Black lives matter. We invite you to visit this Anti-Racist Reading List created by our guests, which we will continue to update.

The featured artwork was created by Danielle’s son, Jack Lenihan. You can follow him on Instagram @JackLenihanArt.

Writers and Thinkers 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 are socialized to divide…And that socialization is rooted in the capitalist structure of this country, which is on the backs of free labor…We’re always looking for the next slave.” -Stephanie Renée Payne

“You feel guilty as a mom that your children are safe, and I am saying to you THAT is oppression manifested.” @otomasbell

“Everyone holds a knowledge. But not everyone holds an experience.” -Stephanie Renée Payne

“We cannot get an understanding from the person who hits. We can only get an understanding from the person who feels the blow.” -Edward P. Jones

“We have to stop being polite about racism because racism is not polite.” @otomasbell

“Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.” -Audre Lorde

“This is about hurting someone in the only place we have the power to, which is financially…We need to get attention because they don’t listen.” @dlitephul

“America was great because America had free labor for centuries. And now when you’re including these people, the only way to perpetuate the system…is to make sure you keep certain people at the bottom of the barrel so that the system can maintain itself.” @otomasbell

“[America] was built on a sense of wealth for the few by pressing down on the many.” -Stephanie Renée Payne

“The foundational elements of this country have stripped us all of our humanity…The unwitting prize of being able to hold wealth easily has hollowed the soul of America.” -Stephanie Renée Payne

“We have all been kept from our racial, our cultural, and our American ties. This is a systemic problem.” @dlitephul

“History–real history–in all of its ugliness, in all of its goodness too, needs to be shared. Not to guilt people. Not to victimize others. But for the purest intention of us being educated. Douglass knew that the secret to slavery was to withhold access to education.” @dlitephul

“Where words fail, behavior takes its spot…I don’t want you to feel guilty…I think you and I need to step into our power, into our knowledge, and forgive ourselves, and let that be our light post.” @dlitephul

“This is not a time for white guilt. White guilt is the reason why this has been perpetuated.” @otomasbell

“For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

“This is a wonderful opportunity to restructure, and we can do it person by person, conversation by conversation…by listening.” -Stephanie Renée Payne

“There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. This is how civilizations heal.” -Toni Morrison

“We can use our voice. We can use our hearts…Our humanity and our love is bigger than the construct of this country, which can be changed.” -Stephanie Renée Payne

“Visualize how you want to see society behave first. How do you imagine relationships between people of different backgrounds? …Envision it with intention…Create what [your] neighborhood or your community or world should look like. And then you can figure out how to speak to people, how to be heard.” @dlitephul

“There are other ways to protest. I protest in my classroom.” @dlitephul

“People need to look at protest from the ground up, not from the crowd out.” @dlitephul

“We have to cultivate a space in which I can honor my feelings without invalidating your experience, and you can honor your feelings without invalidating mine. And if we agree to disagree, that’s fine. But what we can’t do, based on that disagreement, is bring into law legislation that systemically perpetuates oppression. ” @otomasbell

“This is not a White issue or a Black issue. We all are being robbed of community because we’re buying into divisive narratives.” @otomasbell

“Toni Morrison said, ‘We speak, we write, we cry, we honor ourselves.’ There are so many ways of protest, but they are internal first.” -Stephanie Renée Payne

“I wish to be an American in America, because I am an American every place else. But in America, I’m an African American…I want to be an American in America. I want to know what that feels like.” @otomasbell

This episode was recorded on June 2. 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.

12. Reassessing Assessment w/ Brent Chappelow

In Episode 12 we talk to Dr. Brent Chappelow of the USC Writing Program about writing about writing, grounding assignments in students’ personal experience and identity, shifting our focus away from grammar, reevaluating how we assess (and grade) student work, adopting a pedagogy of kindness, and bringing it back to the Greeks.

You can learn more about Brent here.

Links 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.

“I think a lot of our students aren’t encouraged to come into the class knowing that they have important things to say.” @BChappelow

“If I’m not letting my students start with themselves…it’s not reflecting that process that I’m using in my own writing.” @BChappelow

“We can change our classes, but if we’re coming back to the same old thing to assess those students…we’re not really affecting meaningful change.” @BChappelow

“Grading student writing and assessing student writing are two very different things that we continue to conflate.” @BChappelow

“The more we de-emphasize grading and move away from giving grades, that’s where writing happens. That’s where risk happens.” @BChappelow

Please note: this episode was recorded on March 6. 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.

11. Playing & Going Deep w/ Mark Marino, part 2

In this follow-up to Episode 10, we reflect with Dr. Mark Marino on the shape of the semester and the challenges and opportunities presented by the move to remote learning. Once again, Mark thoughtfully (and hilariously) walks us through some of his creative strategies for navigating online spaces and illuminates what instructors can learn from collaborative role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and that defining educational text of our generation, Harry Potter.

After listening, be sure to check out the “Zoom Room” variety show, @quarantinecantina2020 on Instagram, and Mark’s “End of Class Message” to his students.

Links 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.

“Here is another opportunity where I can be a positive force in my students’ lives. I can be a sympathetic force in my students’ lives…I can be more intentional about the whole thing.” @MCMarino_Kids

“So much of our class is based on what happens in the moment with co-presence…I’m kind of glad it’s hard to just magically change that.” @MCMarino_Kids

“The great dungeon masters know that your job is not to try to kill the adventurers, nor is it to serve them gold; it is to give them challenges in an environment where they feel comfortable and safe to try creatively to struggle with those challenges and then to come up with a solution that the person who gave them the challenge may never have thought of…I think there’s a lesson for us in there.” @MCMarino_Kids

“Is it worth continuing to rehearse the things that I was told were important, or is this an opportunity to rediscover the things I deeply know to be important?” @MCMarino_Kids

This episode was recorded on May 12. 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.

10. Playing & Going Deep w/ Mark Marino, part 1

Episode 10 is the first episode in a two-part conversation with the king of portmanteaux and experimental teaching, Dr. Mark C. Marino (aka “Coach”) of the USC Writing Program.

In this first episode, which we recorded on March 9, we talk to Mark about some of his innovative writing activities and assignments–including online simulations (Netprov) and his infamous #SelfieClass–that prioritize creativity, improvisation, and play.

Mark is a writer and scholar of digital literature living in Los Angeles. He is the Director of Communication of the Electronic Literature Organization. His works include “Living Will,” “a show of hands,” and “Marginalia in the Library of Babel.” He was one of ten co-authors of 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 and is a collaborator with Jessica Pressman and Jeremy Douglass on Reading Project: A Collaborative Analysis of William Poundstone’s Project for Tachistoscope {Bottomless Pit}.  He is currently working with his two children on a series of interactive children’s stories entitled Mrs. Wobbles and the Tangerine House. He is an Associate Professor (Teaching) at the University of Southern California where he directs the Humanities and Critical Code Studies (HaCCS) Lab.  

You can learn more about Mark at markcmarino.com.

Links 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.

“A lot of my teaching has been informed by the fact that I know that these students are required to take these classes…I try to open up these spaces with the notion that we’re going to play.” @MCMarino_Kids

“I realized selfies could be a way to get through students’ defenses, whatever they may be, against introspection and self-reflection about the way they perform identity.” @MCMarino_Kids

“The writing context is changing…Technology is changing our relationship to writing…I like to see what else is possible.” @MCMarino_Kids

“If you think about [writing] from the point of view of something that you love to do rather than something you have to do, how does that change things?” @MCMarino_Kids

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.

9. Restyling Academic Discourse w/ Laura Lisabeth

In our ninth episode, we talk to Dr. Laura Lisabeth about developing critical pedagogy in a digital space, using social media for academic writing, getting mad at standardized English, and empowering our students to utilize different discourses.

NB: this episode was recorded on April 28. In the first few minutes, we discuss some pandemic-related issues, including hospitals and deaths. If you want to skip that part, jump to 6:12.

(Finally, if you’re wondering what happens around the 54-minute mark, take a look at the screenshot above.)

Laura is a Lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University where she teaches undergraduate academic writing and professional writing, and a graduate writing seminar. Her research is a historiography that focuses on Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. She looks at the ways the book has participated in and often driven a culture of pundit-sourced White linguistic style in education, constructed through twentieth century literacies that still resonate in the teaching of writing, including the detached parodic style of E.B. White and the early New Yorker, the universalizing narratives of The Book-of-the-Month Club, the monocultural, monolinguistic prescriptions of the National Defense Education Act and the commercial interests of the educational publishing industry. These historically entrenched dispositions toward literacy fail to recognize the range of cultural knowledges and languages that arrive in our classrooms, keeping Strunk and White style a perennial text on syllabi. Her most recent publication can be found in the Anti-Oppressive Composition issue of Radical Teacher (fall 2019): “White Fears of Dispossession: Dreyer’s English, The Elements of Style, and the Racial Mapping of English Discourse.”

You can follow Laura on Twitter @lauralhny.

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.

“These aspirational, middlebrow pieces of 20th literacy [like The Elements of Style] that are still with us are very much connected to systemic racism, the white supremacy of academic language and academic discourse.” @lauralhny

“I want students to be a little bit mad…I try to encourage students to think about injustice and inequity and how language is a part of that.” @lauralhny

“Some of the most successful classes that I’ve had are the ones where I was able to have the Instagram essay be the final assignment…Social media is great academic writing.” @lauralhny

“The problem is that it’s trying to mimic a real classroom, and it’s not. How can we do this better? How can we take advantage of the affordances [of online learning]?” @lauralhny

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.

8. Writing Bad w/ Alejandro Escudé

Episode 8 runs the gamut! We talk to award-winning poet and teacher Alejandro Escudé about learning from your idols (and meditating with Gary Snyder!), finding inspiration in urban environments and current events, transitioning to remote and hybrid forms of learning, taking risks in your work, being mindful of audience and context in a digital world, and giving yourself permission to write badly.

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.

“Whether the poem is good or not, I send it.” -Alejandro Escudé

“Nothing is real right now.” -Alejandro Escudé

“It’s up to poets to say, ‘We’re not letting you off the hook.'” -Alejandro Escudé

“My personality online is a lamb. I save all of my wolf stuff for my writing.” -Alejandro Escudé

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.

7. Erasing [ ] w/ Erik Fuhrer

In our seventh episode we talk to poet, artist, and educator Erik Fuhrer about erasure poetry and collage, the embodied nature of writing, and ethically incorporating other authors and texts into our work.

You can learn more about Erik on his website and follow him on Twitter @ErikFuhrer.

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.

“There is something I think to be said about…paying attention to your body when it comes time to write…Finding the rhythm.”

Erik Fuhrer

“I’m interested in the ways that, especially in erasure but in any kind of poem, intention and randomness overlap or intersect.”

Erik Fuhrer

“The world is sliding its back toward Bethlehem, and we are the rough beast, and the falcon is the reason we are still looking.”

Erik Fuhrer

Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio issues. 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.