Thrid Year Brittain Fellow Dracy Mullen began her semester with a retrospective on assigning cookbooks as an example of American Literature in her English 1102 classes, which appears on the Pedagogy & American Literary Studies blog. Alongside photos of her dog, Caleb, posing with the books she's read (what she calls #bookselfies with #souphound), Mullen reflects on how students often mistake genres in their nomenclature for literature. Mullen's post is titled "Cookbooks Not Novels" and explores how cookbooks make rhetorical moves discussing Critical Race Theory as well as Feminism and Queer Theory, which influence her pedagogy and the WOVEN artifacts she assigns her students. Please read her essay here.

PALS describes themselves as the following: "The goal of this site is to foster discussion about pedagogy in the American literature college classroom. While there are print resources and journals dedicated to teaching American literature, the digital landscape is much smaller than related fields. For example, any question one might have about teaching composition can be answered with a quick Google search. We want our blog to contribute to an easily searchable field of information about approaches to teaching American literature."

PALS is always looking for thoughtful contributors. Please contact Darcy Mullen for more information. For more information, go to: https://teachingpals.wordpress.com/about/