Proposal - Representation Matters Literature

Representation Matters Literature A new academic course for the St. Edward’s University Curriculum

Submitted to: St. Edward’s University ENGW, ENGL, and EDUC faculty.

Submit Date: Wednesday, April 24, 2019.

Submitted by: Senior Project - Princesleah Aguilera, Caitlyn Butterworth, Lilli Hime, and Kendall Shaw 3001 South Congress Ave. Austin, TX 78704 (512) 448-8400

Introduction:

St. Edward’s mission calls on us to recognize the human dignity in all, educating both hearts and minds as we spiral towards this goal. As students of the humanities, we have witnessed large gaps in the common student’s literature canon, and with our social justice perspective, we have to ask how a lack of representation of diverse communities and their issues has only lent to their erasure. To combat this and to lend to not only greater representation but a holistic understanding of how representation empowers students, we propose the course, “Diversity in Literature” to teach college students how literature can lend to greater inclusivity, respect and empathy for different communities, and confidence in discussing the issues plaguing those communities.

In this proposal we are introducing the “Diversity in Literature” course, contextualizing the issues of the current system, defining the objectives and goals of this course for potential students, presenting our teaching approaches, and showing the *risks* of proposing a course like this as well. Overall, we want this to be approved and offered by spring semester of 2020 or fall semester of 2020. ● This course will improve St. Edward’s ability to serve its diverse body of students to be able to take a course that makes them feel included in the curriculum. We want to offer this course for St. Ed’s students to encourage inclusivity in literary curriculums, starting from children’s literature to new adult. ● We also want to teach a course that shows the ways intersectionality and diversity is discussed in different age groups, as well as how people belonging to minority groups in these age groups are underrepresented. ● The course gives students background knowledge about the lack of diversity in publishing literature and the publishing industry as a whole. As English Writing and Rhetoric majors we will use this course to study and appreciate the diverse aspects of the book publishing industry, how the rhetoric differs in each age group and minority group, and the styles of creative writing that differs within each group as well. And the stylistic and interpretive differences that exist among these groups. ● We also plan on making this course a service-learning course that allows students to volunteer as a part of the internship program within the degree at organizations that work with the minority underrepresented groups.

Background: The current problems with the present system are the lack of inclusivity. St. Edward’s currently offers — American Literature, British Literature, Topics in World Literature, Children’s Literature, and other courses that don’t completely highlight what we are proposing. The literature program alone offers 10 different courses on European literature, meanwhile only 3-4 courses highlight minority groups, but don’t go as in-depth as we are hoping our course does.

If we are going to start discussing how this affects communities, we could begin to present the data taken from “Books about women don’t win big awards: some data” by Nicola Griffith.

Griffith is a British-American novelist in Seattle that reported on the statistics of literature awards and how the awarded differ amongst the gender gap. Along those lines, there is also the discussion highlighting the LGBTQ communities and representation with data and statistics presented in Malinda Lo’s blog entry, “LGBTQ YA by the Numbers: 2015-16.” Lo published the entry in late 2017. Since then the numbers have grown, showing some progress being made in the industry, but we still aren’t at the point of equality, barely reaching an increase of 10% at the most.

This also affects the community within the non-author employees hired by the publishing industry. This will be backed up by “The Diversity Gap in Children’s Book Publishing.”

Defining Diversity and Inclusion We define diversity and inclusion by talking about communities that are often left out or stereotyped in the mainstream media. This in inclusive of racial/ethnic communities, lgbtq+ communities, and body inclusive communities as well. When we talk about inclusivity, we are defining it in a way that is available and accepting of everyone that hasn’t been duly represented. We realize that there is still a long way to go, but we hope that with what we are proposing, we’re able to mend the gap little by little.

Objectives/Goals: We want to introduce our course focused on diverse literature with a social justice perspective to the WRIT, ENGL, and EDUC departments. We hope to show that studying the rhetorics within these age groups and minority groups benefit the rhetorical, literary, and mission-based thinking of our students.

Students will learn not only about the different minority communities and their issues but also gain the skills to rhetorically analyze how these groups create their own representation and integrate themselves into society through stories. By the end of the course, students will be able to use those rhetorical strategies themselves to approach learning about and discussing marginalized communities.

The long term goal of this course is to inspire different courses that splinter off, highlighting and delving deeper into each minority group. The success of this proposed course would serve to gauge student interest and interdisciplinary success within the separate WRIT, ENGL, and EDUC tracks.

We plan on measuring the success of the courses through student feedback via end of course evaluations, surveys through the course, and add-drop rate over two semesters.

Methodology: General Course Description: Our curriculum and syllabus plan would be based upon class discussions, short written responses through each week, longer written responses after each underrepresented group covered that week, and a final project covering the entirety of the semester coursework.

Listed are possible assignments, an outline of the syllabus, and a course schedule.

Service Learning Component to the course: We are also proposing a service learning component that dictates required volunteer hours within relevant social justice organizations to receive a one-hour, two-hour, or three-hour internship credits.

Listed are organizations we are considering a volunteer/internship partnership with are: ● Out Youth ○ This organization maintains numerous ongoing and scheduled volunteer opportunities including setup/ takedown of events, providing help for the #AustinOutProud community engagement series, and other miscellaneous activities. ● George Washington Carver Museum, Cultural, and Genealogy Center ○ The Carver Museum has group and individual volunteer opportunities for both special events and ongoing service. There is a required application process for applicants ● Austin Child Guidance Center ○ This organization provides children’s mental health services. There are multiple volunteer opportunities, including helping to cultivate their Healing Garden, and working events that they sponsor, such as the annual Austin Originals benefit concert in August. ● Texas Teen Book Festival ○ The Texas Teen Book Festival, historically located at St. Edward’s, has volunteer opportunities for their annual event that have previously been used for internship credit by WRIT students.

Planned Syllabus: REPRESENTATION MATTERS LITERATURE ENGL/WRIT/EDU St. Edward’s University Weekdays, Times, Location Professor Office: Office Hours: Phone Email: 1. COURSE DESCRIPTION In pursuit of our holy cross mission to recognize human dignity by educating hearts and minds, Representation Matters Literature seeks to familiarize students with different underrepresented communities, the unique cultures they are home to, and the issues they face. Equally as important as understanding people is understanding the craft of literature as a medium to achieve this goal.

Students will read a bevy of literature around specific underrepresented communities and analyze the texts as individuals and collectives to see how acceptance, empathy, and support can be created and nourished rhetorically and literary.

2. OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSE By the end of this course, students will: ● Maintain a deeper, more insightful, and respectful perspective on the selected communities. ● Demonstrate ability to analyze text for goals and rhetorical or liturgical devices ● Be able to use the analyzed devices for ones’ own way of thinking ● Read texts with a social justice mindset ● Develop critical reading, creative thinking, and solution-based thinking 3. CLASS STYLE & PROTOCOLS The class discussions and general in-class activities make attendance a necessity. Our semester will be split up into 3 sections, each one focused on serving and learning about a different community. We will read books of different age ranges about that community, hold class discussions, and have write-ups due in each section.

4. GRADING AND EVALUATION (percentage and grading scale determined by professor) Book Write-Ups Section Essays Class Discussions

Final Project - Building Your Own Curriculum

5. SCHEDULE Week 1

Class introduction, syllabus, start LGBTQ sections

Read LGBTQ children’s lit

Week 2

Read LGBTQ YA lit and write up, start LGBTQ YA

Week 3

Finish LGBTQ YA and write up, Start LGBTQ New Adult

Week 4

Class discussion on LGBTQ

Finish LGBTQ new adult and write up, section essay

Week 5

Start new section on Race/Ethnicity

Read race/ethnicity children lit and write up, start race/ethnicity YA

Week 6

Read Race/Ethnicity YA,

Week 7

Read Race/Ethnicity

Week 8

Class discussion on Race/Ethnicity

Finish Race/Ethnicity New Adult and write up, section essay

Week 9

Start new section on Body Diversity

Read Body Diversity children lit, Start Body Diversity YA lit

Week 10

Finish Body Diversity YA lit and write up, Start Body Diversity New Adult

Week 11

Finish Body Diversity New Adult and write up

Week 12

Class discussion on Body Diversity

Week 13

Assign Final project

Section essay due

Week 14 Week 15

Final Project due

Planned Assignments: Class Discussion

Class participation will be a major part of this course. Every class after your section essays are due, we will have a class discussion on how everyone is reading the text. Through this, we hope to start a nuanced conversation about this community and its issues and how literature is a medium for creating proximity and social change.

Assignment Requirements Before a discussion class, you will post 3 observations you found interesting from a single text or from reading the texts as a collective. You will then respond in 100-150 words or longer, citing the text or giving specific examples when possible. Some prompts to consider: ●

What communities are represented? How does this book differ from common representations of that community?

●

What issues or cultural elements are tied to this community? Is it universal or unique to them?

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What is the goal of this book? How does the author achieve this goal?

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What literary devices does the author use? Rhetorical devices?

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What was your experience reading these three texts in secession?

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How did the goals and rhetorical/literary devices change for different age groups?

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What did you find surprising to learn about this community?

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How can you use what you’ve learned during this unit in the future?

Written Responses and Final Essays This assignment is broken up into two parts based off of the class’s structure. Every 5 week section, we will focus on a different social issue and community by reading books about that topic that vary in age range - childrens, YA, and new adult. The goal is to learn about that specific community and to observe how literature creates proximity, empathy, and understanding for different audiences.

Book Write Ups For each book, you will write a 250-350 word response. This can be as casual as you want it, as it is mainly for the purpose of showing me you’re reading as well as helping you keep your thoughts in order for the final section essay. Consider what the book sought to teach about this community or social issue, what you personally learned, and how it accomplished this goal.

Section Essay Requirements At the end of each section or issue, you will write a 1,200 word essay discussing the issue and the community it affects, how the literature for this section moved its readers to a place of better understanding, and how such tactics or devices can be emulated. You should examine the texts individually as well as how they work together, thinking analytically and critically - keep in mind your final project will be creating your own literature curriculum so how can you learn from these collections?

Consider some of the following questions in these assignments: ●

What does the book seek to teach the readers about this community or social issue?

●

Why do you think this goal is appropriate for this age range?

●

How does the author move the readers towards that goal? Literary devices? Rhetorical devices?

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How do the goals between different age ranges change?

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What did you personally learn about the specific community from these texts?

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How did it change your perception of the community?

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What was the cumulative effect of reading these texts together?

Format: Your essay should have some identifiable structure with claims, arguments, and evidence. You will use MLA format (1-inch margins; Garamond, Times, or Times New Roman; double spacing; and MLA citations for all sources referenced).

Final Project - Building your own curriculum For your final project, you’ll be curating your own collection of hypothetical books centered around a community and issue that is important to you. You’ll use what you’ve learned over the course of the semester about goal setting for different age ranges, how literature accomplishes goals of education and proximity, and how to delve into different communities.

Think of this project like a proposal for a class you want to teach. However, since you don’t have time to read the books for research, you will be creating your own hypothetical books, considering what age range they will target, what community they seek to educate on, and how they will do so.

Requirements Checklist You’ll start by choosing the community you hope to uplift with your work. Please introduce them and provide background information about why they should be highlighted, their unique cultural elements and issues, as well as how they’re usually represented versus what you hope to do. Then, you’ll list your 3-5 hypothetical book recommendations, 300 words each with at least one book per age range (children’s, YA, New Adult).

Book Recommendations Since you’re fabricating these, they do not have to be fully fleshed out plotlines. It’s more giving an idea of how you would want to tell the story and what elements you would use. You will include: ● Age range/reading level ● Cultural aspects and issues you’ll represent ● Goal(s) of this book in regards to the age range and community represented ● What literary devices you’ll use to achieve this goal ● What your book will be doing rhetorically Section Requirements Your essay will include the following sections: ● Introduction ● Background information ● Book Recommendations ● Collective ○ What will be the effect of this collective as a whole? Rhetorically? Literary?

Representation-wise? ● Conclusion Format: Your essay should have some identifiable structure with claims, arguments, and evidence. You will use MLA format (1-inch margins; Garamond, Times, or Times New Roman; double spacing; and MLA citations for all sources referenced).

Resources Needed: To teach this course we would need the cooperation of several people. We are contacting Professor Mary Rist, the current department chair for the Literature, Writing, and Rhetoric department; Professor Elisabeth Johnson, the current professor of “Children’s Literature” and we plan on contacting other professors that would be interested in teaching or spearheading the proposal of the course as well. We would also need the authorization to plan the budget, access to databases that could potentially provide the reading materials to the class, and access to hiring or assigning a professor to teach the proposed course.

Below we outline what the “Course Description” and “Course Details” would look like on the St. Edward’s “Banner” website.

Course Description: St. Edward’s mission calls on us to recognize the human dignity in all, educating both hearts and minds as we spiral towards this goal. As students of the humanities, we have witnessed large gaps in the common student’s literature canon, and with our social justice perspective, we have to ask how a lack of representation of diverse communities and their issues has only lent to their erasure. To combat this and to lend to not only greater representation but a holistic understanding of how representation empowers students, we propose the course, “Diversity in Literature” to teach college students how literature can lend to greater inclusivity, respect and empathy for different communities, and confidence in discussing the issues plaguing those communities.

Class Details: Associated Term: This would be addressed when we find out the demand for this course.

Campus: Austin, TX Schedule Type: Undergraduate Instructional Method: Class Section Number: Subject: Writing and Rhetoric Course Number: Addressed when we find out the demand for this course.

Title: Diversity in Literature Credit Hours: 3 Grade Mode: S

Measurement and Reporting: As listed above we plan on measure the success of the proposed course with course evaluations, a mid-semester survey, and add/drop rates comparing to other new courses. We believe it would be most optimal to observe course success by offering “Diversity in Literature” a minimum of two semesters because it gives the university an opportunity to have an opinion about the course with a sufficient amount of time to process what the course is and how it would help other students in the major.

So far we’ve been able to see reports not only of the content of the books being published, but also of the staff of the publishing industry in general. We “resorted” back to Lee & Low Books’ “The Open Book Blog.” Lee & Low Books provided our group with insights to the diversity that isn’t as present in the media. Lee & Low books is the largest multicultural children’s book publisher as well as one of the few minority-owned publishing companies in the United States.

Lee & Low Books’ “The Open Book Blog” published a blogpost that addressed the lack of diversity in the publishing industry, showcasing pie charts representing diversity in the industry overall and at the executive, editorial, sales, marketing and publicity, and book reviewing levels.

These results were based off the Diversity Baseline Survey. The surveys were completely anonymous, and companies did not have direct access to the results. According to Lee & Low Books, “The DBS was deployed directly from each publisher or review journal. A link was sent to all staff from a member of each publisher’s or reviewer journal’s human resources or executive team, often with an introduction explaining why the company was participating. Some companies even wanted to add additional questions to their surveys. The results provided here are only for questions that appeared in every survey.” ● We also saw reporting on the general increase of diversity in literature within the subgroups that we created. Several blogs and literary critics helped us gather statistics and graphs to visually analyze just how imbalanced the literature world is. These graphs were built off how many books were published in the years being questioned.

Risks: Although we do have courses that are similar in the English Literature and Education majors, they are not interchangeable. The courses highlight aspects within one age group or one minority group while we plan on tackling multiple each way. We are proposing to expand the current curriculum by creating a course that is more inclusive to many age and minority groups. ● Course description for EDUC3336 - “Children’s Literature” ○ Literature appropriate to children: its sources, prominent authors and illustrators, critical evaluation and presentation. Attention is given to the fundamental principles underlying the choice of children’s stories and the techniques of selecting and telling stories. Students preparing to become bilingual teachers will become acquainted with Spanish children’s literature. (Same as READ 3334.)

Fall, Spring. ○ With this course, currently the seats for the fall semester are completely full. The course is only offered once on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:00-3:15 PM. ● Course description for ENGL2324.01 - “US Immigrants and Expatriates” ○ Topics and authors covered in this course will vary. Works written in English as well as works in translation will be included. The focus of a particular section might be the literature of a cultural group such as Hispano-America; literature developing a theme such as crime and punishment, or focused on a historical event such as the Holocaust; or literature concerned with philosophical matters such as the problem of evil, the idea of freedom, or the Faustian legend. May be taken for upper-level credit (ENGL 3339) with instructor permission. This course fulfills the Exploring Artistic Works requirement and a Writing Rich mission marker. Spring. ● Course description for 2324.06 - “Topics in World Literature” ○ Topics and authors covered in this course will vary. Works written in English as well as works in translation will be included. The focus of a particular section might be the literature of a cultural group such as Hispano-America; literature developing a theme such as crime and punishment, or focused on a historical event such as the Holocaust; or literature concerned with philosophical matters such as the problem of evil, the idea of freedom, or the Faustian legend. May be taken for upper-level credit (ENGL 3339) with instructor permission. This course fulfills the Exploring Artistic Works requirement and a Writing Rich mission marker. Spring

● Course description for SPAN2351.01 - “Representations of Children in Latin American Fiction & Film”

â—‹ Different topics in Hispanic studies will be presented under this heading, according to student interest, including topics covering the language, its written formats, or the culture of Latin America or of Spain. Requires a minimum of intermediate proficiency in reading, writing and oral skills. Prerequisites: SPAN 2312 with a grade of C or above, or permission of instructor. May be repeated for credit when topics change.

With these courses we see that there is a potential for repetition here and there, but as we’ve seen through the process, we want something that highlights how necessary visualizing these huge gaps are. We want to show the rhetorical, creative, and professional side of literature and the publishing industry as a whole. Although we see that there maybe an issue with the time constraints, this would be a possibility to show that we will eventually need more extensive courses in each of the underrepresented groups that we’ve highlighted.

Conclusion: With this course, we are addressing the lack of diversity in these areas of publishing/literature and the publishing industry as a whole. We see that there is a hole where balance should be while addressing the minority groups that we plan on highlighting with the course.

St. Edward’s brands itself as a diverse campus and champions students to work outside the box and be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Addressing the gap in the industry and bringing light to an overused “American” standpoint with these issues is just what St. Edward’s University and the English Writing and Rhetoric professors have taught us to do.

We as a group want to address this gap and provide one of many solutions for this. There is a demand for it. There is a need to be educated on what we’re proposing. We just need to be able to make this happen for the future students at St. Edward’s and the future authors and publishers in the programs.

Works Cited: Griffith, Nicola. “Books about Women Don't Win Big Awards: Some Data.” Nicola Griffith, 31 Mar. 2018, nicolagriffith.com/2015/05/26/books-about-women-tend-not-to-win-awards/.

Jalissa. “The Diversity Gap in Children's Book Publishing, 2018.” Lee & Low Blog, Lee & Low Books, 11 May 2018, blog.leeandlow.com/2018/05/10/the-diversity-gap-in-childrensbook-publishing-2018/.

Lo, Malinda. “LGBTQ YA by the Numbers: 2015-16.” Malinda Lo, 12 Oct. 2017. www.malindalo.com/blog/2017/10/12/lgbtq-ya-by-the-numbers-2015-16 Low, Jason T. “Where Is the Diversity in Publishing? The 2015 Diversity Baseline Survey Results.” Lee & Low Blog, The Open Book Blog, 10 Feb. 2016, blog.leeandlow.com/2016/01/26/where-is-the-diversity-in-publishing-the-2015-diversitybaseline-survey-results/.