I help my students learn how to challenge the dominant narratives around social issues; how to research effectively to educate, inform, and persuade; and how to tell a great story to capture and engage the audience. This is why I use W. W. Norton’s Contemporary Public Speaking by Pat Gehrke and Megan Foley in my public speaking classes.
Category: In the Classroom
Setting the Stage Through Social Justice Speeches
Dr. Clariza Ruiz de Castilla highlights how she uses Contemporary Public Speaking to encourage her students to write speeches on social justice in an era where inequalities are increasingly discussed.
Reading Beyond the Text: How to Show Students That English Skills Are Career Assets
Associate professor and department chair of English Dr. Felicia Jean Steele teams up with W. W. Norton to preserve the English department. Read how she ensures her English students are prepared for any career and gain access to her career competencies table she provides all her students.
Speak Up! Personalized Support for First-Time Public Speaking Instructors
Assessment and curriculum coordinator Kendall Belopavlovich explains how W.W. Norton’s instructor resources and courseware prepared them for teaching public speaking sooner and allowed them to flourish as a first-time instructor. Read about the three things they couldn’t teach without.
“Digital Detox”: Using Norton Critical Editions To Promote Critical Thinking
The Norton Learning Blog has recently featured several posts that offer suggestions for generating greater classroom success by integrating ChatGPT and similar machine-learning-applications. (I find the latter a more accurate—and less anthropomorphizing—term than AI.) However, this particular post goes out to all who—for pedagogical, or numerous other reasons—search for the grail of LLM-free spaces.
Storying the Classroom: Why ELA Is the Perfect Place for Ethnic Studies
Since the fall of 2021, I’ve taught a class called English 12 Ethnic Cultures, a course designed specifically to incorporate Ethnic Studies principles into English Language Arts. After doing this work for some time, I am convinced that the Language Arts classroom is a perfect place for this kind of work. English teachers are natural storytellers, and our classrooms can be the place where students’ own stories emerge.
My First Year Teaching with a Global Approach: A Few Practical Tips
In Fall 2024, I moved to a new city, started a new job, and began to teach a new set of introductory art history courses. I had to become familiar with a large amount of content fairly quickly, and figure out how much to include and what to cut out. I used Thames & Hudson’s The History of Art: A Global View textbook and found many of its features to be helpful time savers in transitioning to teaching with a global approach.
The Best of Both Worlds: Using Print and Digital Tools in your AP® Literature Course
As an older Millennial teacher, I find that I am stuck between two worlds: the one I was born in and the one in which I grew up. The one I was born in was analog: paper, pencils and highlighters, and books. The one I grew up in—although it was ever-evolving—was decidedly not analog. It was keyboards, screens, and software updates. Like me, students are caught between these two worlds.
Making More Space for Student Attitudes about AI
Generative AI is everywhere, even in places we’d least expect it to be. Read how English professor, Traynor Hansen, served himself a taste of his own medicine to better teach his students new strategies of academic inquiry against a backdrop of AI.
Bringing a Gift to the AI Party: Teaching Ethical AI Use in First-Year Composition
What role can AI play in your classroom? Instructor and author Max Everhart emphasizes the importance of bringing meaningful work to the table when working with AI. Learn how to AI can support your students while honoring their own voice and critical thinking.