F241.
The Paper Mask: Writing Personas Our Students Put On
Friday, March 25, 2022
3:20 pm to 4:20 pm
In this panel, writers and educators discuss the ways in which students, particularly first-generation students, wear paper masks—personas in their writing to mask their own voices, which they may see as inadequate in academic settings. Panelists explore this phenomenon across genres in the teaching of creative nonfiction, poetry, and academic writing. We discuss theory, practice, and strategies to empower students to appreciate and use their own voices.
Participants
Elizabeth Threadgill is an associate professor of English at Utica College. She holds an MFA in poetry and a PhD in developmental education-literacy. Her poetry appears in Poet Lore, The Offing, Radar Poetry, Fugue, DIALOGIST, and Small Orange.
Suzanne Richardson earned her MFA at the University of New Mexico. She is currently a PhD student at SUNY Binghamton in Binghamton, New York. She is the writer of the Three Things column at No Contact Magazine. Her nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have appeared in various journals.
James Henry Knippen is the poetry editor of Newfound. He is the higher education opportunity program writing specialist at Utica College, where he also teaches literature and composition. His full-length poetry collection Would We Still Be won the 2020 New Issues Poetry Prize.
Sara Lupita Olivares is the author of Migratory Sound, which was selected as winner of the 2020 CantoMundo Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Field Things. She works as an assistant professor of English at New Mexico Highlands University.
Daniel Shank Cruz (he/they) is a queer disabled boricua who grew up in New York City and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He studies creative nonfiction in Hunter College’s MFA program and is the author of Queering Mennonite Literature.
