Teaching Queer: Radical Possibilities for Writing and Knowing

by Stacey Waite

Teaching Queer looks closely at student writing, transcripts of class discussions, and teaching practices in first-year writing courses to articulate queer theories of literacy and writing instruction, while also considering the embodied actuality of being a queer teacher. Rather than positioning queerness as connected only to queer texts or queer teachers/students (as much work on queer pedagogy has done since the 1990s), this book offers writing and teaching as already queer practices, and contends that the overlap between queer theory and composition presents new possibilities for teaching writing. Teaching Queer argues for and enacts “queer forms”—non-normative and category-resistant forms of writing—those that move between the critical and the creative, the theoretical and the practical, and the queer and the often invisible normative functions of classrooms.

216 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 17, 2017

About the author

Stacey Waite was the winner of the 2004 Frank O'Hara Prize for Poetry for her first chapbook entitled Choke, as well as the 2006 Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest for her chapbook Love Poem to Androgyny. She lives with her partner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she studies Tai Chi, searches for old clay roof tiles and walks through Frick Park with her greyhound, Rohen. She has been teaching writing and gender studies courses at the University of Pittsburgh for the past four years, including such courses as Queer Theory, Writing and Consciousness, Fieldwork with the Body, and Sexuality and Representation. Her poems have appeared most recently in Poet Lore, Nimrod, 5AM, West Branch, Chiron Review, and Pearl. She enjoys tending to the ficus tree, ridding the yard of dead pine needles, and sweeping the front porch.

Reviews

[Stacie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an engaging, well-written book (that has me questioning what exactly "engaging" and "well-written" even mean). Will change my approach to both writing and teaching.