Join us from November 14-21, 2022 when Kim Evelyn will share reflections on teaching Caribbean Literature at @jwilonline. In an increasingly distracting world pulling our students’ attention in different directions, it can feel like a struggle to keep students engaged in the close reading work of literary studies and foster their appreciation for literary texts. Fortunately, the world of Caribbean literature and cultural studies is rich with compelling texts, controversial ideas, radical figures, and fascinating stories. Educators can tap into this wealth of resources with engaging pedagogical strategies that work in both general literature courses and Caribbean literature courses. Providing recordings of poetry readings/performance poems, documentaries, lectures, and interviews allow students to hear and see writers or other important figures off the page. Assignments such as creating playlists, conducting interviews, writing articles or non-fiction/personal essays, and researching archived works draw students into the joys of close reading and help them see the relevance of literary texts and other cultural products to their own lives and cultures. As a bonus, online tools offer students opportunities to develop career-relevant audience awareness and tech savviness as they collaborate on shared documents, dig into digital archives, or create timelines and maps. In this series, we’ll explore opportunities for engagement in meaningful pedagogy in Caribbean literature and cultural studies. I hope you’ll share your best practices too.
Bio:
Dr. Kim Evelyn is an Assistant Professor of English at Bowie State University where she teaches Caribbean literature, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and composition. At BSU, Dr. Evelyn has been recognized for her service to students and serves as a Fellow with the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Her work has appeared in the Journal of West Indian Literature, The Caribbean Writer, Postcolonial Text, Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, South Atlantic Review, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in the edited collection, The Affects of Pedagogy in Literary Studies. In addition to Caribbean literature, her research interests include: diaspora, nation, and migration; dub poetry; Creole/Patwah languages in literature; media, propaganda, and advertising; and collaborative, engaged pedagogy. Dr. Evelyn earned her PhD in English at the University of Rhode Island where she taught writing and literature courses and served as Project Manager for the university’s National Endowment for the Humanities NextGen PhD grant. She tweets at @KimCEvelyn
You can read Kim Evelyn’s essay “Using Digital Tools and Collaborative Writing to Engage Students with Kamau Brathwaite’s Poetry” in the April 2022 issue of JWIL.
