Interdisciplinary Professional Development Seminars for Teachers

October 17, 2025, 9 a.m.-noon

It Does Happen Here: The Literary and Cultural Roots of American Authoritarianism

U.S. national politics have, for nearly a decade now, veered in a decidedly authoritarian direction.  That nearly half the nation seems to crave autocratic rule and repression, can’t simply be a brand new development.  Despite the fact that prominent trailblazers in American literary study such as F.O. Matthiessen defined American literature precisely by its strong democratic impulse and individualist spirit, one finds from even a cursory study of the U.S. literary tradition a powerful and canonical anti-democratic politics. In the works of such writers as T.S. Eliot and William Faulkner, to name just two, one finds unapologetic supremacist values.  Even the romantic individualism of Emerson and Thoreau, read closely, endorse autocratic behavior, eschewing the rule of law that is a key principle of democracy.  This seminar invites us to scrutinize what values we are transmitting to our students as we teach U.S. literature, reflecting on how the institution of literary study itself has participated in creating our current national condition.

Timothy Libretti, English Department
t-libretti@neiu.edu

October 24, 2025, 9 a.m.-noon

Empowering Students with Disabilities

The focus of this workshop will be on the empowerment of students with disabilities and their families through language use. We will look at language through a critical disability lens to show how language differences create marginalization. We start by discussing the development of Critical Disability Studies, including why we no longer classify language acquisition as “normal/normative” or “abnormal/ non-normal/non-normative.” Then we explore how to reframe language to be positive and proactive when working with students and families. Participants will practice having difficult conversations and learning alternative ways to share honest information with families.

Richard Hallett, Linguistics Department
r-hallett@neiu.edu

Jody Siker, Literature, Leadership & Development
j-siker@neiu.edu

November 7, 2025, 9 a.m.-noon

Teaching Metaphors, Teaching Politics

This seminar will help teachers develop lesson plans for teaching metaphors in the classroom, and equally important, explore why metaphors are central to shaping our literary, social, and political imagination. In conjunction with learning about how to teach metaphors at all levels—from elementary school through high school—this seminar will explore how metaphors shape social and political thinking in a range of discourses, including ecological poetry, political speeches, and memoirs that center on class, race, and gender. 

Ryan Poll, English Department
r-poll@neiu.edu

November 14, 2025, 9 a.m.-noon

Understanding Trauma in the Classroom

While people often talk casually about trauma, trigger warnings, and mental health, how do actual prior traumatic experiences play out in a classroom setting? This interactive workshop will focus on the ways that students’ prior trauma may manifest themselves in a classroom setting along with practical strategies to cope with these issues. Concrete ideas for supporting students will be shared along with signs that a student may need professional help.

Catherine Korda, Child Advocacy Studies
c-korda@neiu.edu

November 21, 2025, 9 a.m.-noon

Re-Imagining the Teaching of Literature & Writing in Times of Change

In a time of division and change, humanistic education becomes more important than ever--and often more controversial. In this seminar, we will explore some of the changes facing English Studies today, as well as some of the conflicts, for example:

1)     AI’s effects on the ways we read, write, and teach;
2)    The need to adapt to a constantly changing landscape (What kind of “writing,” for example, do students need these days and what will they need five years from now? How do we know?)
3)    Concerns about diversity, intersectionality, and social justice and how such issues fit into a contemporary English class when some parents, politicians, and students reject these topics out of hand.
4)     The role of reading in a world that offers little time or incentive for critical thinking or slow study.

We will not find final solutions in this seminar. However, we will consider issues such as these to strengthen our vision of English for the future and to imagine an educational landscape that includes the best of English Studies for all students.

Timothy Barnett, English Department
t-barnett1@neiu.edu

February 6, 2026, 9 a.m.-noon

Handing Students the Reins: Student-Led Discussions

In teaching, we want to empower our students as life-long learners. One way to do that is to have students lead discussions themselves, though this can be difficult to implement and facilitate. Thus, student-led discussions give rise to a unique set of opportunities and challenges. In this seminar, we’ll review the benefits of student-led discussion, share strategies for implementing it, and consider logistical challenges we might encounter. This will be interlaced with philosophical discussions (led by seminar participants) on issues of equity, agency, and well-being in the classroom. I’ll share my experiences of running student-led discussions in a philosophy class for college Freshmen, but I welcome participants who teach any subject matter. This seminar is both for teachers who have never tried student-led discussions before and are seeking guidance on how they might, and for those who already do it and want to troubleshoot specific challenges or share best practices. 

Stacey Goguen, Philosophy Department
s-goguen@neiu.edu

February 13, 2026, 9 a.m.-noon

Using Ekphrasis in the Writing Classroom

In writing and thinking about the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker, who may have been the first woman to paint herself nude, writer 
Marie Darrieussecq notes that museums are packed with pictures of women but there are very few by women: “Women have no name.” In an exploration of the artist Francesca Woodman, Candace Wuehle writes that “some lipsticks are better than others/ for writing your name on a mirror.”

This seminar will be a brief introduction to some current examples of ekphrasis (writing about art) and to the ideas about a raced and gendered gaze suggested by them, and an examination of possible art-based writing prompts for students working in any mode. Participants will tinker with and share ekphrastic constraints and work. The goal is to empower students to rely on their own authentic and contextualized gazes as a source of inspiration and information.

Olivia Cronk, English Department
o-cronk@neiu.edu

February 27, 2026, 9 a.m.-noon

To "A.I." or "Not to A.I.": Using AI Tools to Boost Students' Creativity, Writing Proficiency, and Academic Success

This workshop will focus on how AI technology, in its many forms and applications, can be an effective tool in course design to help boost students’ creativity in integrating ideas from a course and apply AI technology to help formulate strategies to develop projects and draft papers. AI tools will be introduced and examined concerning pitfalls to avoid, as well as potential benefits, in creating course-related assignments and in-class activities. Workshop participants will be shown and do “hands on” AI tools examples with specific teaching ideas/assignments from their classrooms.  We’ll have an ongoing group discussion about teachers’ perceptions of AI usage with students, while we pair up to design an AI-related class activity that will be conducted during the actual workshop.

Lisa Hollis-Sawyer, Psychology Department, 
l-hollissawyer@neiu.edu

March 6, 2026, 9 a.m.-noon

We the People in Pop Music and Hip Hop: Understanding and Teaching the U.S. Constitution as a Living Constitution

A great advantage of the United States Constitution is that it is a written document elaborated through amendments and court cases. We can pick it up and read it. This advantage, however, is sometimes an impediment to understanding the Constitution as an historical and culturally vital political framework for us now.  

In this seminar, we investigate how to comprehend and teach a living constitution that is more than the legal documents we commonly use to define “we the people.”  Declarations, movements, songs, wars, and literature are reflected in and animate American constitutional politics historically.  To demonstrate this creativity in art and action today, the course analyzes relationships among three protests songs: Buffalo Springfield’s “For What Its Worth” (1966), Public Enemy’s “He’s Got Game” (1998), and Beyoncé’s “American Requiem” (2024).  Each of these songs offers a vision of we the people, and the latter two sample and rewrite the original. This pattern of borrowing and revision—think jazz, blues, and hip-hop sampling—provides a template for understanding the enactment of the historical, cultural and written American constitution.

Sophia Mihic, Political Science and Philosophy
s-mihic@neiu.edu

March 13, 2026, 9 a.m.-noon

The Nuts and Bolts of Taylor Swift: A Strategy of Engagement

News stories about Taylor Swift’s struggle to re-possess her work from greedy third parties in the middle of 2025 may or may not have made your students’ feeds, but it does lead us to an important question: How often, in Language Arts classes, do we address the way books (or any other cultural form) get produced, and might that be a way to engage many of our students? In this seminar, we will share two strategies: 1) how we introduce students to literature and culture as material objects physically made, sold, and advertised by people other than their “authors,” and 2) how we can show students they ways these material facts are intimately related to the ideas or “content” they usually hear about or write about only in idealist terms?  I’ll bring examples bearing on work by Edgar Poe and Harriet Wilson in the 19th century and William Faulkner and Ngugi wa Thiong’o in the 20th, but I look forward to hearing yours as well.

Timothy Scherman, English Department
t-scherman@neiu.edu
 

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