Pushing Pedagogical Boundaries: Alternative Assessments, Environments, and Texts in Teaching Literature and Culture

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

This roundtable will address approaches to teaching Russian and non-Russian literature and culture using alternative assessment types, incorporating non-canonical works, and in non-traditional settings. The speakers will discuss their study of, experimentation with, and implementation of assessments that push the boundaries of tradition, such as analytical team assessments, role-playing exercises, and the unessay. The goals and outcomes of these alternative assessments will be explored alongside the content that informs them, some more traditional and other more emergent or peripheral. The discussion of content will include Indigenous poetics and literary traditions, literature of incarceration, fairy tales, and the adaptation of one art form to another. The pedagogical approaches discussed in this roundtable seek to answer questions including: What can students gain from the inclusion of peripheral and non-canonical perspectives? How can alternative assessments increase student engagement, understanding, and retention of learning? Can we assess students in a way that reduces their reliance on artificial intelligence? Are there humanizing assessment forms that can be used in carceral classrooms?

Sub Unit

• Professional Development, Non-language Pedagogy, State-of-Field

Chair

• Madelyn Stuart, U of Virginia

Roundtable Speakers

• Sharisa Aidukaitis, Independent Scholar

• Holly Myers, U of Delaware

• Mira Nikolova, U of Virginia

• Madelyn Stuart, U of Virginia