This month we’re delighted to debut the first of our Teach Ecotone guides. Each guide includes discussion questions, writing prompts, and activities focused on specific issues of Ecotone. Our featured instructor today is writer and educator Carlina Duan, whose one-week guide to the Craft Issue offers new ways to think about image and place, leaping off from Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s essay “Monsoon and Peacock.” The guide is available on the Ecotone website and as a PDF for download. As you prepare for spring classes, we hope you’ll check it out!
Here’s Carlina on teaching:
I entered writing through an incredible constellation of teachers, who saw me for who and where I was: curious, cautious, hungry for new light. Being a student—within the space of a traditional classroom and beyond it—opened my world to a community of thought. It gave me opportunities to reflect upon and challenge my interior life. Ani DiFranco sings, “The alphabet took us on a wild goose chase.” In teaching, I hope to make space for the wild, the joyous, the strange, and the unknown. I hope to celebrate reflection, and to invite contradictions. I hope to see my students for who they are and where they are, to continue growing and questioning along with them.