Papers by Christie Launius
Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies, 2020
This article reports on a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project in the introductory... more This article reports on a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project in the introductory women's and gender studies course, occasioned by a curricular redesign to focus the course on four threshold concepts within the field: the social construction of gender, privilege and oppression, intersectionality, and feminist praxis. The authors identify the metaphors students used to describe their learning, focus on the roles of metacognitive development and affective learning, and discuss the most difficult course concept for students: intersectionality. KEYWORDS SoTL, women's and gender studies, social construction of gender, intersectionality, privilege and oppression, feminist praxis, student learning outcomes As long-time faculty members of the UW System–a coalition of women's and gender studies (WGS) program directors and department chairs from across the state–we have organized and participated in many conversations and workshops focused on teaching the introductory Women's and Gender Studies course, and more specifically, on what we hope students learn in the course. Because of our close connections as transfer institutions and our shared interests in WGS, conversations productively turned toward what key ideas, skills, and knowledge students in this critical class should cultivate before moving on to more advanced coursework. Starting in 2010, these workshops and conversations came to focus on the identification of threshold concepts of the course, and of the field of Women's and Gender Studies more generally. The term " threshold concept " was coined by educational theorists Ray Land and Jan Meyer (2005) in order to distinguish between " core learning outcomes that represent 'seeing things in a new way' and those that do not " (p. xv). According to Land and Meyer, threshold concepts " can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking " (p. xv). Crossing a threshold of understanding, then, affords a student " a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something " (p. xv). Land and Meyer also argue that a student's learning within a field cannot progress until they have crossed the threshold. Their work, along with that of David Perkins, has also focused on the " troublesome " nature of some threshold concepts, in that transformed understanding and new ways of thinking entail " a letting go of earlier, comfortable positions and encountering less familiar and sometimes disconcerting new territory " (p. xv). Meyer and Land's work on threshold concepts has been generative in many disciplines across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences; indeed, Land, Rattray, and Vivian (2014) note that
NWSA Journal, 2005
The call for contributions to this special forum on "Women's Studies in 'Other' Locations" arrive... more The call for contributions to this special forum on "Women's Studies in 'Other' Locations" arrived in my inbox a scant two weeks after I had begun my new job as a beginning assistant professor of English and director of the women's studies program at a relatively small (more than 6,000 students) regional state university in the South. Though only two weeks into the job, I had a sneaking suspicion that I would have much to say on this topic. Now, with one completed semester under my belt, my suspicions have been confi rmed. My remarks here will center on some of the issues that arise from directing a one-person program, and will attempt to unpack a statement I have jokingly made several times in the last several months: namely, that I am Women's Studies at my institution.
A feminist reading of four prominent literacy narratives-Mike Rose's Lives on the Boundary, Richa... more A feminist reading of four prominent literacy narratives-Mike Rose's Lives on the Boundary, Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory, Victor Villanueva's Bootstraps, and Keith Gilyard's Voices of the Self-shows that conflicts and anxieties about the consequences of schooling on working-class masculinity animate these texts. Each of these writers experiences, manages, and ultimately resolves, to greater or lesser degrees, his conflicts over masculinity, at least textually speaking, and does so, moreover, in ways that are linked to his views on literacy and education.
Drafts by Christie Launius
Blog Posts by Christie Launius
Working-Class Perspectives, 2019
Textbook by Christie Launius
Reviews by Christie Launius
Journal of Working-Class Studies, 2019
Having been a fan of her journalistic writing about class inequality, working-class politics, peo... more Having been a fan of her journalistic writing about class inequality, working-class politics, people, and culture, it was with great anticipation that I approached Sarah Smarsh's memoir Heartland.
Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, 2006
The fourteen essays collected in this anthology are wide ranging and ambitious, tackling the issu... more The fourteen essays collected in this anthology are wide ranging and ambitious, tackling the issues of welfare reform, representations of welfare recipients, poor women's access to higher education, and the support (or lack thereof) they receive once they are there. The immediate context of this anthology is the passage, in 1996, of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA); in the wake of this welfarereform legislation, many women who had previously been working toward postsecondary degrees found that staying in school became more difficult, if not impossible. Significantly, the contributors to this volume are themselves women from poverty-class backgrounds, and in articulating and analyzing their own interactions with the welfare system and with various academic institutions, they are breaking silence and attempting to shift the terms of our understanding of welfare reform and welfare recipients. Among the goals for these essays, according to the editors, is that they will "clear a space for the articulation and valuation of the stories of other poor women in and out of the academy" (7).
Books by Christie Launius
A Guide to Teaching Introductory Women's and Gender Studies: Socially Engaged Classrooms, 2021
This book provides a practical, evidence-based guide to teaching introductory Women's and Gender ... more This book provides a practical, evidence-based guide to teaching introductory Women's and Gender Studies courses. Based on the findings of a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning project that analyzed 72 Intro students’ written work, the authors equip instructors with key principles that can help them adapt their pedagogy to a range of classroom environments. By putting student learning at the center of course design, the authors invite readers to reflect on their own investments in and goals for the introductory course. The book also draws on the authors’ combined decades of teaching experience, and aims to help instructors anticipate the emotional, intellectual, and interpersonal challenges and rewards of teaching and learning in the introductory WGS course. Chapters focus on course design, including identifying desired learning outcomes (in terms of course content, skills, and dispositions or habits of mind); choosing course materials; pedagogical activities; and assessing student learning.
This book will be an invaluable resource for experienced WGS instructors and those seeking or planning to teach it for the first time, including graduate students and high school teachers.
Uploads
Papers by Christie Launius
Drafts by Christie Launius
Blog Posts by Christie Launius
Textbook by Christie Launius
Reviews by Christie Launius
Books by Christie Launius
This book will be an invaluable resource for experienced WGS instructors and those seeking or planning to teach it for the first time, including graduate students and high school teachers.
This book will be an invaluable resource for experienced WGS instructors and those seeking or planning to teach it for the first time, including graduate students and high school teachers.