Course Syllabus

What is queer pedagogy? 

This is the question that we will be working together to answer over the course of this course.  

A tentative definition:

Queer pedagogy is the notion that we need to radically examine and
redefine how we think about and conceptualize the act of teaching, our
notions and practices of knowledge, and our formal and informal
curriculum.

Course Introduction

This course is a 17-week course with two extra weeks because of the Winter break.   The course starts with a basic orientation to the principles and practice of queer pedagogy.   Students develop a proposal for a practical queer pedagogical intervention project and then  work individually and collaboratively to develop and implement their projects.  

This course gives students an opportunity to read and discuss readings on these topics and to use this knowledge base in order to

construct an individual project implementing the principles of queer pedagogy.

During the course, students will read an article of their choice in teams of two or three and use collaborative annotation software to share their thoughts and comments on the article.  These articles should preferably be from freely available online resources but may also be chosen from an article database if students have access to one.  Assignments throughout the six weeks guide students through the process of developing their own practical intervention project.   There are many options for possible projects.  If one is currently teaching a course somewhere, it could be a lesson plan, curriculum, or a change in classroom practices.  If one is in an activist group, it could be a training workshop or resource for that organization.   Students could found their own organization, start a website, start a blog, contribute to an existing website, write an academic article to submit for publication, or write a letter to the editor of a newspaper... the only requirement is that it be designed and be implemented in order to intervene in the real world in some fashion.

After the proposal has been designed, the focus is on creating and revising students' projects.  Using online collaboration tools,
students read and comment on each other's work.  They could have
the option of working with another student or by themselves.
Assignments focus on clarifying, creating, editing, and revising
their work.  the project culminates with the implementation of the project and some reflections on the results of what was done.

Technologies: There will be a variety of technologies that we utilize in this class.  I am available through skype, AIM, Yahoo, and by telephone if you need help with these technologies.  Please don't let technology be a barrier that keeps you from participating in the course.

Dec 5  Week One: Introduction to Queer Pedagogy

Assignment: Work in groups of two to three to work further on your sign-up task (brainstorming around the terms 'queer', 'pedagogy', and 'queer pedagogy.'   Record your original contributions, clearly attributed.  Then come up with group definitions for each of the three terms.   Explore around on the internet.  Write a paragraph about how the definitions you found of the three terms online are similar to or differ from the ones that you found.   We will then discuss these as a class and come up with a shared definition.

Synchronous meeting: In the first week, we will be scheduling a meeting in which we are all able to communicate simultaneously.  Depending on the technology students have available, this may be video, voice, or text-based.

Dec 12 Week Two: Foundations of Queer Pedagogy

Dec 19, 26, Jan 2 Week Three, Four, Five: Brainstorming Project Ideas

Assignment: Work as a class to brainstorm ideas for a project.    Choose your topic.  Decide if you want to work alone or in a team.

We will be holding a second synchronous meeting in Week 5 where we are all present at the same time in order to choose topics and see who might want to work together.

Jan 9 Week Four: Project Outline, Further Development of Foundations

Assignment:  Begin using the project outline to develop your project.  Work with 2-3 other students to choose another article available freely online in .html format (I can convert a .pdf or.doc if needed) and use the diigo toolbar to annotate it.

Jan 16

Assignment: Peer Revising of project proposals.

Jan 23

Assignment: Final revision of project proposals

Jan 30 Final proposal due.   We will have one final synchronous meeting in which students will have an opportunity to present their final proposal to the class, and we will discuss the next steps in the course and what part two will look like.

Feb 6 Mid-course check in-- we will discuss how the course is going so far, give and receive feedback to/from each other, and discuss any concerns we have about the course at this time.

Feb 13, 20, 27 Carry out project, reporting on progress to the rest of the class, and utilizing collaboratively technologies to share your work with the rest of the class.

Mar 5, 12, 19 Write up oroject and work with other students to give feedback and revise work

Mar 26 Concluding exercises and evaluation