The Michigan College English Association

Tag: Michigan College English Association

  • Registration Form for the Michigan College English Association Zoom Conference Online on Saturday, October 4, 2025

    https://michigancea.org

    Themes: Survival and Healing

    Featured Speaker: Gail Griffin, poet and creative nonfiction writer

    Registration and Membership Information

    Name:                                                                                                                                                          

    Institutional Affiliation:                                                                                                                                 

    Email Address (print clearly):                                                                                                                      

    Phone Number(s): __________________________________________________________________

    I would be willing to serve as an MCEA Campus Representative (circle one):       Yes            No

    (If you are unsure, please ask Janet Heller at janetheller@charter.net about these very minimal duties.)

    New address? Note it here.    ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________                                                                                              

    The registration fee includes registration for the conference and a 2025-2026 academic year membership in the MCEA.  Please make checks out to the “Michigan College English Association.” 

    Full-time Faculty — $40.00                                                                              $ ___________                    

    Part-time, Lecturer, Adjunct, and Retired Faculty — $20.00                          $   ___________                 

    Students — $0 – free registration                                                                    $___________

    I can’t be at the conference, but here is my membership fee — $20.00        $ _______                 

    I would like to sponsor a student to attend — $10.00                                     $ __________

    TOTAL ENCLOSED                                                                                       $ _____________                    

    Mail this form with your check to the Michigan CEA 2024 Treasurer and Conference Registrar: David Settle, 1749 Woodgate Drive, Lowell, MI 49331.

    All registrations must be snail-mailed by Sept. 24, 2025. 

    If you are unable to send a check, please contact the MCEA Treasurer, David Settle, about the possibility of a PayPal transfer at mceatreasurer1@gmail.com .

  • Call for Papers: Michigan College English Association Conference via Zoom on Saturday, October 4, 2025

    https://michigancea.org

    Call for Papers: Michigan College English Association Conference via Zoom

    Saturday, October 4, 2025

    Themes: Survival and Healing

    Featured Speaker: Gail Griffin, poet and nonfiction writer*

    Our world has been torn by recent political upheavals, environmental damage, prejudice against people who are different in any way, and wars. How can we survive and heal from these conflicts? How can we discuss these issues in our classrooms? What kind of writing assignments can help students process and understand our turbulent era? Which works of literature illuminate these themes? The conference program chairs welcome papers from a pedagogical perspective, creative responses to the themes of Survival and Healing, and literary analyses of works with these themes.

    The Michigan College English Association accepts proposals from experienced academics, young scholars, and graduate students. We encourage a variety of papers, including pedagogical work, scholarly essays, creative writing, as well as workshops, creative writing circles, and other activity-directed sessions. All proposals will be peer-reviewed. Participants do not have to live in Michigan or the United States, though we often feature in-state work.

    We are also seeking documentarians to attend the sessions, take notes and write short reports to share with the Board in the weeks following the conference. The reports of previous years’ documentarians were invaluable.

    We give $50 cash awards to graduate students: one for the best scholarly essay, one for the best creative writing. Any participant wishing to submit work to the contest should send a complete scholarly paper or creative piece to Ed Demerly at edemerly@aol.com by September 18, 2025.

    Here are some possible topics for presentations:

    fiction, poetry, drama, creative nonfiction                       classroom management

    curriculum development                                         computer or on-line instruction    

    race, class, and gender studies                           literacy                                              

    English/writing departments and our society       the creative process

    union/administration differences                           film studies

    textual analysis                                                        preparing students for the work world

    teaching composition, literature, linguistics professional expectations, evaluation, and assessment

    Conference proposals are due by September 18, 2025.  Early submissions are welcome.  Please send your name, university affiliation, e-mail address, phone number, time preference, and a 200-word abstract or sample of creative writing to Program Chair David Settle via e-mail at mceatreasurer1@gmail.com . To submit a panel proposal, please include the information for all members (5 maximum participants) in the same proposal.

    Topic Tags:  call for papers, Michigan College English Association, conference, survival, healing, resilience, generative AI, teaching, creative writing, composition, literature, linguistics

    *Gail Griffin is the author of the poetry book Omena Bay Testament (Two Sylvias Press, 2023), which won the 2021 Two Sylvias Press Wilder Poetry Book Prize. She also wrote Peripheral Visions (Headlight Press, 2024). Her poetry won three awards in 2024.

    Born in Detroit, Gail Griffin grew up in the suburbs and fell into a lifelong romance with the woods and waters of northern Michigan during the summers. After college and graduate school, she returned to Michigan to begin a 36-year career at Kalamazoo College, teaching literature, writing, and women’s studies. She won both college awards for teaching and for creative work/scholarship, and in 1995 she was named Michigan Professor of the Year. In the larger community Gail became involved in anti-racist work, offering workshops on the nature and implications of whiteness. She also leads occasional community workshops in memoir writing.

    Through her work and relationships at the college, Gail discovered creative nonfiction, which became her professional focus, and poetry, which has taken second place until recently. She is the author of four books of nonfiction, including “The Events of October”: Murder-Suicide on a Small Campus (2010) and Grief’s Country: A Memoir in Pieces (2020). Her essays, flash nonfiction, and poems have won Pushcart nominations, “Notable” designations in Best American Essays, and genre awards in journals. When her first poetry chapbook, Virginals, appeared in 2021, Gail was sifting through 30 years of poems and found Omena Bay Testament, her first full-length collection. Though it looks mystical on the cover, Omena Bay is real. It curves into the Leelanau Peninsula, Michigan’s “little finger.”

  • Michigan College English Association 2023 Conference Program

    Themes: Comfort, Healing, and Hope
    Saturday, October 7, 2023
    All Sessions Online via Zoom
    ALL SESSIONS HELD IN EASTERN STANDARD TIME
    Plenary session and all “A” sessions: You must register to receive the Zoom links and passwords.
    Password:
    All “B” sessions:
    Password:


    8:50 a.m.–9:00 a.m. Opening remarks and welcome
    Cheryl Caesar, Michigan College English Association President

    9:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.

    Session 1a: Healing, Hope, and Humor in Literature and Pedagogy
    Moderator: Dawn Burns
    Healing from Haunting through Literature, Honesty, Activism, and Comfort in Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence (9:00-9:15)–Lori Burlingame, Eastern Michigan University
    Our Mythical, Epical, Literary Past: Provider of Hope and Solace to Reconstruct the Present (9:15-9:30)–Uma Ray Srinivasan, Victoria Institution (University of Calcutta)
    Comfort, Healing & Hope in the Classroom During a Mental Health Crisis (9:30-9:45)–Cynthia Pope, University of Minnesota
    Humor and Satire of Higher Education in James Thurber’s “University Days” (9:45-10:00)–Janet Heller, Michigan College English Association

    Session 1b: Literature and Creative Writing
    Moderator: Cheryl Caesar
    Hope for Avoiding Tragedy: Identifying Misguided Perception and Self-Righteous Judgment in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (9:00-9:15)–David Urban, Calvin University
    Light from Shadow: Hope and Healing in Poetry and Prose (9:15-10:00)–Ronan Mansilla, Cari Gamlin, Olivia Vitale, Erin Letourneau, University of Detroit Mercy Students

    10:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

    Session 2a: Memoir, Nonfiction, and Poetry
    Moderator: Lori Burlingame
    “Letter from the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo” (10:30-10:45)–Dawn Burns, Michigan State University
    Hope, Healing, and Horses in Creative Nonfiction (10:45-11:00)–Lisa Whalen, North Hennepin Community College
    Living in the Ulu: Letters from a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia, 1967-68 (11:00-11:15)–Ed Demerly, Henry Ford Community College, retired
    Selected Poems from Fulgurite and Other Works (11:15-11:30)–Catherine Broadwall, DigiPen Institute of Technology

    Session 2b: Video Project on Multilingual Learners
    Moderator: Joyce Meier
    Comfort, Healing, and Hope: A Video Project Centered in and around Multilingual Learners (10:30-11:30 with 15 minutes for questions)
    Joyce Meier and Cheryl Caesar with Students Nadiah Hasnol and Viv Sandoval Martinez, Michigan State University

    12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Plenary Session
    GUEST SPEAKER: Rick Bailey, essayist and memoirist
    Rick Bailey grew up in Freeland, Michigan, on the banks of the Tittabawassee River. He
    taught writing for 38 years at Henry Ford College. Teaching composition online the last
    15 years of his career, he wrote for and with his classes, developing voice and content
    that became the basis for his first collection of essays, American English, Italian
    Chocolate     (2017) and successive collections (2019, 2021), published by University of
    Nebraska Press. A Midwesterner long married to an Italian immigrant, in retirement he
    and his wife divide their time between Michigan and the Republic of San Marino. His
    most recent book is And Now This: A Memoir in Essays.

    1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.

    Session 3a: Teaching and Learning: Hope and Engagement
    Moderator: Ed Demerly
    “If you Teach Them, They Will Come”: Using Popular Culture to Increase Student Engagement and Performance (1:00-1:30)–Rasheeda Brown with Students Abbriel Weathersby, Kameron Mack, Kennedy Jones, and Tytiana Young, Claflin University
    Hidden Hope: Texas Constitution Race Provisions Contextualize P-20 Black Emancipatory Curricula (1:30-1:45)–Zenobia C. Joseph, Independent Scholar
    Lower Your Expectations: A Teacher’s Survival Guide (1:45-2:00)–Aram Kabodian and Robin Boswell, Michigan State University’s Red Cedar Writing Project

    Session 3b: Poetry of Hope and Healing
    Moderator: Lori Burlingame
    A Poetic Dialogue on Grief, Survival, and Hope (1:00-1:30)–Deidre Fagan and Debbie Courtright-Nash, Ferris State University
    Healing through Poetic License: Tell the Truth but Tell it Slant (1:30-1:45)–Susan Serafin Jess, Lansing Community College
    “The Unheard Melodies” and “Muse’s Monologue” (1:45-2:00)–Maryam Qureshi, Independent Scholar

    2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.


    Session 4a: Rhetoric, Research, and Writing
    Moderator: Ilse Schweitzer
    Critical Reading and the Process of Healing: Applying Tagmemic Rhetoric to Understand Divisive Public Controversies (2:30-2:45)–John Dunn Jr, Eastern Michigan University
    Academic Crisis Communication as Transformational (2:45-3:00)–Adrienne Lamberti, University of Northern Iowa
    Embracing Empathy: Concretizing Empathetic Practice as Hope in Writing Students Focus Groups (3:00-3:15)–Colleen Hart, Wayne State University
    Comfort, Healing, and Hope: A Creative Response (3:15-3:30)–Joyce Meier, Michigan State University

    Session 4b: Literary Analysis, Creative Writing, Research Writing, and Memoir
    Moderator: Lori Burlingame
    Subversive Romance and Feminist Freedom in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (2:30-2:45)–Holly Nelson, University of Michigan
    Passing as a Convention in Memoir: Racial and Gender Identity in 21st-Century America (2:45-3:00)–Kaylee Tucker, Concordia University Ann Arbor
    Ten Things I Learned (or Remembered) about Research Writing from Writing a Wikipedia Article (3:00-3:15)–Cheryl Caesar, Michigan State University

  • Program for the Michigan College Association Conference via Zoom on Friday, September 30, 2022

    Theme: Vulnerability

    All Sessions Online via Zoom

    **ALL SESSIONS HELD IN EASTERN STANDARD TIME**

    Opening remarks, plenary sessions, and sessions 1A, 2A, 3A: Hosted by Ilse Schweitzer

    Session 4A:   Hosted by Joyce Meier                        Session 5: Hosted by Joyce Meier

    All “B” sessions: Hosted by Cheryl Caesar

    9:00am—9:15am

    Welcome and Opening Remarks — MCEA Board Members

    9:15am—10:45am

    Session 1A   Climates, Crises, and Colonization in Literature — Literature

                Moderator: Ilse Schweitzer

    Colonization, Vulnerability, and Hope in Tommy Orange’s There There–Lori Burlingame, Eastern Michigan University

    Current Climate Emergency and Shakespeare–Uma Ray Srinivasan, University of Calcutta

    Reading Maud Martha in 2022–Renee Bryzik, St. Clair Community College

    What is Midwestern about the Poetry of Lisel Mueller?–Janet Heller, Michigan College English Association

    Session 1B  Multilingual Learners Panel — Pedagogy/Panel

    Moderator: TBD

    Discussion: Making Vulnerabilities Visible: Challenges Faced by Multilingual Learners, and Some Proposed Solutions–Joyce Meier, Cheryl Caesar, and First-Year Writing Students, Michigan State University

    10:45am—12:15pm

    Session 2A   Rethinking Teaching and Evaluation  —  Pedagogy

    Moderator: Lori Burlingame

    The Survival of Speech and Debate Education–Sean Lee, Independent Scholar

    Hierarchies of Growth vs Hierarchies of Domination–Carlos Toledo, Iowa State University

    Analyzing the Impact on KPIs of Templates and Worksheets Used to Support Student Success in the Online Composition Classroom–Beth L Virtanen, American InterContinental University Online

    Traditional Grading: A Reconsideration–Janelle Wiess, University of Michigan, Flint

    Session 2B  Stories and Lyrics of Identity — Creative Writing and Literature

    Moderator: Cheryl Caesar

    The Role of Storytelling in Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys–Selina Hakim, University of Detroit, Mercy

    Choose Your Own Adventure: Assignments Lead to Greater Cultural Awareness–Mackenzie Krzmarzick, University of Wisconsin

    Poetry reading–Rosalie Petrouske, Lansing Community College

    Poetry reading and commentary–Susan Serafin-Jess, Lansing Community College

    LUNCH BREAK–12:15-12:30 p.m.

    12:30pm—1:30pm

    Plenary Session: “Go Outside, But Don’t Just Go Outside”

    Alison Swan, Faculty Specialist, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Western Michigan University, 2008-2022

    1:30pm—3:00pm

    Session 3A Teaching and Learning in Times of Trauma                             Pedagogy

    Moderator:  Lori Burlingame

    Vulnerability as Identity: Using Identity Texts to Support Students in Uncertain and Challenging Times–Mikayla Peters, Independent Scholar

    Theory and Praxis of Trauma-Informed Pedagogy–Lorelei Blackburn, Michigan State University

    Meditation in First-Year Writing–Tracie Swiecki, Parisse Paige, and Claire Reinhardt, Michigan State University

    Session 3B Memoir in Times of Trauma  —  Creative Writing – Memoir

    Moderator: Cheryl Caesar

    Embracing Vulnerability, Embracing Life: Facing Terminal Illness by Calling the Shots–Deidre Fagan, Ferris State University

    A Vulnerable Soul in Mid-Michigan in the Mid-Twentieth Century–Ed Demerly, Henry Ford College

    Fidgeting and Forgetting: Reflections on Neurodivergence and Self-Disclosure–Grace Walter, Wayne State University

    from Teacher–Michael Copperman, Michigan State University

    3:00pm—4:30pm

    Session 4A   Language, Ideology, and Technologies  —  Pedagogy    

    Moderator: Joyce Meier

    Twitter: An Interactive and Engaging Tool for Educational Contexts–Jule Thomas, Wayne State University

    Using General Semantics to Defuse the Classroom–Matt Nikkari, Ferris State University

    White Supremacist Lang Ideologies in FYC–Andrew Moos, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

    Can Grace and Care be Measured?–Mike Ristich, Kirk Astle, and Dave Medei, Michigan State University

    Session 4B  College Writing in Vulnerable Times: Some Reports from One Campus —  Pedagogy / Panel                                                                                        

    Moderator: Lori Burlingame

    Adventures in Quarantine 2020 – 2022: EMU Freshman Write about the Pandemic and Social Justice–   Cheryl M. Cassidy, Eastern Michigan University

    Professional Writing and UX Design: Shifting Views of Emotion, Vulnerability–Steve Benninghoff, Eastern Michigan University

    Argument in the Face of Vulnerability: Advanced Composition Students Encounter Rogerian Argument and Its Implications–John Dunn, Eastern Michigan University

    4:30pm—6:00pm

    Session 5  Creativity in Times of Vulnerability — Creative Writing – mixed genres                     

    Moderator: Joyce Meier

    From Songs of Cardinal–Maryam Qureshi, Independent Scholar

    From Evangelina Everyday–Dawn Burns, Michigan State University

    From “Remember Arturo?”–Matt Rossi, Michigan State University

    Selected poems–Melissa Lewis, Davenport University

    The MCEA Business Meeting will be on October 7 at 4 p.m.  Please let Janet Heller know if you want to attend on Zoom.  All are welcome to join.