The English Department at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) is offering a summer institute for English language arts teachers on “Teaching Drama (without Fear).” The four-day institute provides 20 hours of professional development, covers a wide range of topics, and is taught by TCNJ faculty.
Register here: https://tinyurl.com/y82zwd8u
Summer Institute Flyer 2018
For more information about registration, contact George Hefelle (hefelleg@tcnj.edu)
For more information about the institute’s curriculum, contact Glenn Steinberg (gsteinbe@tcnj.edu)
The English Department
The English Department at TCNJ boasts 22 full-time faculty with expertise in literature from Homer to Toni Morrison. Faculty approach literary study from a variety of theoretical foundations, including feminism, gender and sexuality studies, ecocriticism, reception and reader-response theory, new historicism, and postcolonial studies. Faculty publications include books from Iowa University Press, Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, Princeton University Press, Indiana University Press, Cornell University Press, and the University of Minnesota Press, as well as articles in Modern Philology, Comparative Drama, Quaker Studies, PMLA, Radical Teacher, Auto/Biography Studies, American Drama, and many more.
Graduates of the English Department are a highly accomplished and energetic group. Each year, school districts in New Jersey, New York , and Pennsylvania hire dozens of teachers trained in the English Department, often commenting on the high level of preparation that they have received. Other graduates have found an array of satisfying careers in publishing, advertising, media relations, the pharmaceutical and financial industries, and in both the state and federal government. In recent years, our graduates have studied law at such schools as Georgetown, Yale, William and Mary, Michigan, and Rutgers. They have earned advanced degrees in language and literature from NYU, Princeton, UNC-Chapel Hill, Indiana, Maryland, UPenn, and the University of Chicago.
The Summer Institute- July 9-12, 2018
Drama is a genre particularly well-suited to classroom study and yet often neglected, perhaps because language arts and English teachers have not always studied drama in much detail. Drama is a communal genre – written to come to life through a company of performers and artists and to be played before a crowd of patrons. Unlike the novel, which is written to be privately appreciated, drama lends itself to classroom study and exploration. This summer program is designed to increase teachers’ confidence and resources in reading, analyzing, teaching, and critiquing drama from the Western tradition – both Europe and America.
Each day of the institute follows the same schedule:
9:00-9:30am – check-in and light breakfast (provided)
9:30-11:30am – morning workshop
11:30am-12:30pm – lunch (not provided)
12:30-1:30pm – discussing classroom applications with the coordinator
1:30-3:30pm – afternoon session
Complimentary copies of the main texts for the workshops will be provided to participants.
Institute Goals
While each day of the institute features its own specific goals, the institute as a whole has been designed so that participants will
- develop greater confidence teaching drama;
- to understand and appreciate dramatic texts as literature;
- expand their own critical repertoire and be able to deploy that expanded critical toolkit in designing and delivering material to their students;
- participate in a community of teachers that promotes curiosity and inquiry and that offers mentorship from experts in drama, the English language, and pedagogy.
Throughout the week, participants are provided with specific examples of how teaching drama (without fear!) aligns with the New Jersey Student Learning Goals for English Language Arts: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language (6-12).
Day 1: Drama: History, Genre, Performance Space facilitated by Prof. Diane Vanner Steinberg
Day 2: American One Acts/Theater as Public Ritual facilitated by Prof. Lincoln Konkle
Day 3: Shakespeare’s Language/Translating Shakespeare facilitated by Prof. Felicia Steele
Day 4: The Tragic Flaw of the Tragic Flaw/Writing an Agon facilitated by Prof. Glenn Steinberg
Institute Coordinator
Emily Meixner, coordinator of TCNJ’s Secondary English Education program, meets daily with participants to consult about the topics of the institute and practical classroom applications. She is also available to consult individually with participants who want to develop a personalized project (lesson plan, curriculum, teaching materials, or other).
Emily Meixner (institute coordinator)
Emily Meixner is the coordinator of TCNJ’s Secondary English Education program. She received her B.A. in English, French and Secondary Education from Loras College (Dubuque, IA), her M.A. in American Studies from Michigan State University, and her Ph.D.Curriculum Theory & Multicultural Teacher Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Meixner regularly teaches secondary English methods courses and courses on children’s and young adult literature. Her research interests include teacher identity formation, LGBTQ young adult literature, and multicultural pre-service teacher preparation. She also works regularly in local school districts providing professional development on such topics as reading/writing workshop, reading strategies and close reading, reading in the content areas, and young adult literature. Professor Meixner’s scholarship has been published in Radical Teacher, The ALAN Review, Voices from the Middle, English Leadership Quarterly, and Multicultural Perspectives.