The 2023 issue of Minnesota English Journal marks my seventh year as Editor—about as long a tenure as any past editor of the journal. I love this work; helping brilliant and passionate contributors reach our large and growing audience is a pleasure that sustains me through all the challenges that come with this role. Still, … Continue reading A New Co-Editor, and a Note on Documentation of Sources in MEJ
A College Class Responds to Book Bans by Kathryn Van Wert
Assembled here is a selection of final projects from ENGL 4395: Banned, Burned, and Challenged, an upper-division special topics course offered at the University of Minnesota Duluth in spring 2023. We studied frequently challenged texts from the last seventy years, including classics, memoirs, graphic novels, and young adult fiction, and we explored the controversies surrounding … Continue reading A College Class Responds to Book Bans by Kathryn Van Wert
Four Poems by William Tecku
THE BAYFRONT BLUES FESTIVAL Deaf to the singing day the Aerial Lift Bridge rings its bell.A steel girder curtain of sky rises.Upstage from Lake SuperiorGreat Lakes boats and oceangoing ships promenadeunder the bridge and cymbal ride into the harbor. Shy as guys who trip up to girls to ask them to dance,green, red, and white … Continue reading Four Poems by William Tecku
Help Minnesota Teachers Do Better: Fund Culturally Sensitive Training by Tanya J. Stafsholt Miller
A quote attributed to Maya Angelou reads, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better” (qtd. in Treuer). The Minnesota public education system has made significant strides toward improving the education of Native American students. At different intervals throughout history, attempts have been made to improve the … Continue reading Help Minnesota Teachers Do Better: Fund Culturally Sensitive Training by Tanya J. Stafsholt Miller
Hunger Would Be Creation: Leveraging Diverse Brains by Bryan Boyce
In 2015, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld a policy about when to execute people with intellectual disabilities that was crafted on an 80-year-old work of fiction. I’m an English teacher. Our class motto my last year teaching K-12 was “reading and writing are opportunities to decide how we live our lives.” It’s hard … Continue reading Hunger Would Be Creation: Leveraging Diverse Brains by Bryan Boyce
Using Film to Teach Style by Susan Decker
The elusive concept of style is all around us – from those HGTV buzzwords like “Dutch colonial” and “farmhouse” to the revolving door of fashion trends like vintage, couture, and athleisure. However, despite our constant engagement with style, our students have a difficult time identifying an author’s particular style, often simplifying their observations to bland, … Continue reading Using Film to Teach Style by Susan Decker
Offering a Hand Up: Insights and Aid for First-Generation Students by Whitney Jacobson
*Essay adapted from a 2022 MCTE Spring Conference presentation I have taught at the university level for over nine years. I’m the editor of Confluence (formerly CLArion), the annual newsletter of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth. I’m also an assistant editor of Split Rock Review, a … Continue reading Offering a Hand Up: Insights and Aid for First-Generation Students by Whitney Jacobson
Meg Carney Is Still Climbing by Burke Scarbrough
The morning I became a real college professor, I met Meg Carney. She was one in a cohort of fifteen undergraduate teaching majors who were sizing up their newly-hired advisor and instructor. They were now in the business end of their degree program; liberal education and literature courses were giving way to classes about teaching … Continue reading Meg Carney Is Still Climbing by Burke Scarbrough
Introducing the MEJ Archive
58 years of Minnesota English Journal When I began editing MEJ in 2017, I was discovering the journal for the first time. I had lived and taught in Minnesota for only five years, and apart from a shelf of back issues that I carried to the recycle bin as I moved into Linda Miller Cleary's … Continue reading Introducing the MEJ Archive
Meeting Students Where They Need: A First-Year Reflection by Kassandra Rood
Don’t finish the book if you hate it. Find something you like. Pencils are on my desk. If you’re tired, rest your eyes. Yes, you can eat food here. All phrases I never thought I would say in my classroom. This is an English class; of course they have to finish every book they start. … Continue reading Meeting Students Where They Need: A First-Year Reflection by Kassandra Rood
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