Conceptually Speaking

In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I sit down with Marcus Luther, a 13th-year high school English teacher and co-host of The Broken Copier podcast. After spending his first eight years teaching in Arkansas, Marcus recently returned to the Pacific Northwest, bringing with him a wealth of classroom experience and a passion for teacher-centered conversations. Our discussion explores the evolving landscape of teacher community-building, from the early days of Teacher Twitter to the current fractured digital spaces where educators seek connection and growth.

Key Concepts from the Episode:

The Digital Teacher's Lounge

• How online spaces can recreate the collaborative spirit of in-person professional learning communities
• Moving beyond transactional networking toward authentic relationship-building
• The role of digital platforms in sustaining teacher enthusiasm and preventing isolation

Communities of Practice

• Understanding teaching as fundamentally community work that extends beyond school walls
• The "generosity journey" of sharing resources and learning from fellow educators
• Balancing local collegial relationships with broader professional networks

Storytelling and Resistance

• Addressing the vacuum of positive narratives about classroom possibilities
• The urgent need to highlight what's working in public education
• Using authentic teacher voices to counter deficit-based reform narratives

Navigating Professional Boundaries

• Managing the relationship between classroom practice and public educator identity
• The ethics of sharing experiences while maintaining privacy
• Setting sustainable limits on development and growth outside the classroom

Marcus brings a refreshing perspective on how educators can remain committed to the classroom while recognizing the power of broader professional community. His conviction that we need to tell better stories about the transformative potential of teaching offers hope in an era of educational uncertainty. Whether you're an early-career teacher seeking community or a veteran educator looking to reinvigorate your practice, this conversation demonstrates how authentic professional relationships can sustain both individual growth and collective advocacy for the teaching profession.

Links:

https://thebrokencopier.substack.com/

https://web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/marcusluther.bsky.social

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In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I sit down with Dr. Matt Seybold, host of the American Vandal podcast and scholar at the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College. Our conversation traverses the changing landscape of literary studies as it moves beyond traditional academic boundaries into digital spaces, revealing both new opportunities and persistent challenges in how we create and share knowledge. Dr. Seybold shares the origin story of American Vandal—born as a pandemic response when in-person programming was suspended—and how it evolved into a platform that builds relationships with scholars and reaches an unexpectedly global audience. Together, we explore the fascinating contradiction that while humanities departments face serious funding crises, public hunger for thoughtful literary and cultural analysis continues to flourish across platforms and borders.

Key Concepts from the Episode:

Democratizing Academic Discourse

• How podcasting allows scholars to communicate more naturally about complex ideas
• The surprising global reach of academic content when freed from traditional constraints
• Why digital media complements but cannot replace forms of scholarship housed in academic institutions

Digital Media in Humanities Education

• Engaging students with diverse media experiences across multiple platforms
• Balancing traditional written texts like articles and monographs with emerging forms of communication
• Understanding the unique affordances of different media formats rather than creating hierarchies

Bridging Academic & Public Humanities

• Challenging the "crisis in humanities" narrative by revealing genuine public interest in literary discourse despite decades of Ponzi austerity 
• Distinguishing between institutional defunding and the persistent cultural appetite for humanistic inquiry
• Promoting authentic creative production through engagement with "real world" media genres

Our conversation offers practical insights for educators, researchers, podcasters, and anyone interested in how literary scholarship evolves in the digital age. Dr. Seybold reminds us that despite institutional challenges, the humanities must continue to resist through rhetorical agility, media savvy, and (perhaps most importantly) organized political action. 

Check out more of Matt's work:

• The American Vandal Podcast
• Center for Mark Twain Studies

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In this thought-provoking episode, I sit down with Dr. Remi Kalir,  the Associate Director of Faculty Development and Applied Research with Learning Innovation and Lifetime Education at Duke University, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Center for Applied Research and Design in Transformative Education. He has also completely revolutionized my thinking about annotation. As someone who was relatively ambivalent about annotations, Remi's perspective transformed me into a fan, believer, and enthusiastic practitioner. Our conversation challenges conventional wisdom about annotation, as Remi argues that we're all annotators, from the grandmother scribbling recipe modifications to fans dissecting Kendrick Lamar's lyrics on Genius. He also shares fascinating examples from his upcoming book "Re/Marks on Power" (MIT Press, 2025), including Harriet Tubman's previously unexamined annotations in pension files, protest markings on Confederate monuments, and how the US-Mexico border itself represents a form of annotation—a line drawn imprecisely on a map as an exercise of power.

Key Concepts from the Episode:

Annotation as a Social Practice

• Annotation is more than a reflection of individual comprehension
• Annotations have a "social life" that extends beyond the text and time
• Annotation is dialogic rather than an isolated literacy act

Annotation as a Tool for Critique

• Annotation serves as a tool for critique and challenging authority
• Annotation can circulate counter-narratives and resist dominant ideologies
• E.g. Harriet Tubman's use of annotations on pension documents

Annotation as an Embodied Practice

• Annotations can be embodied and geographic 
• Protests and interventions on monuments represent forms of annotation
• Digital annotation practices are all over spaces like TikTok, Genius, etc.

Particularly compelling is our discussion of annotation's unique affordances: its proximity to the original text, its capacity for "rough draft thinking," and its ability to make our responses visible to others across time and space. Remi invites us to see annotation not as an isolated comprehension check but as a dialogic practice with profound implications for critical literacy, social justice, and civic engagement. For educators struggling to make annotation meaningful beyond compliance, this episode offers both theoretical insights and practical inspiration to transform this everyday practice into something that can, as Remi says, "live, speak, and inspire."

Re/Marks on Power (Newsletter)

Re/Marks on Power (Book)

Join me and socially annotate the transcription!

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In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I explore the evolving landscape of disciplinary literacy with three distinguished professors and teacher educators: Dr. Jacy Ippolito from Salem State University, Dr. Christina Dobbs from Boston University, and Dr. Megan Charner-Laird from Salem State University. Drawing from their collaborative work on the second edition of "Disciplinary Literacy Inquiry and Instruction," this conversation delves into how educators can authentically engage students in disciplinary literacies while challenging their traditional boundaries.

Key Concepts from the Episode:

Reimagining Disciplinary Literacy

• Moving beyond traditional apprenticeship models to critique and expand disciplinary boundaries
• Examining whose norms and traditions shape disciplinary practices
• Exploring how students remix and reinvent ways of belonging in academic communities
• Understanding disciplinary literacy as both access and transformation

Critical Inquiry and Identity

• Supporting teachers in examining their own disciplinary identities and biases
• Creating spaces for collaborative questioning and knowledge construction
• Embracing uncertainty and open-ended exploration in classroom discussions
• Connecting personal passion for disciplines with student engagement

Practical Implementation Across Grade Levels

• Extending disciplinary literacy practices into elementary education
• Balancing disciplinary practices with critique and remix
• Finding opportunities for change within existing curricular constraints
• Starting with small but meaningful adjustments to existing practices

The conversation highlights how disciplinary literacy can reignite both teachers' and students' love for learning when approached through a critical, inquiry-driven lens. The authors share practical insights for educators while acknowledging the complex challenges of implementing these approaches within current educational structures. Their discussion emphasizes the importance of making space for joy, authenticity, and student voice in disciplinary learning.

Whether you're a classroom teacher, educational researcher, or interested in the evolution of literacy practices, this episode offers valuable perspectives on creating critical and culturally sustaining ecologies of disciplinary learning. The authors demonstrate how educators can provide access to powerful academic discourses while opening new possibilities for student engagement and knowledge creation.

Disciplinary Literacy Inquiry & Instruction (2nd edition)

Critical Disciplinary Literacy: An Equity-Driven and Culturally Responsive Approach to Disciplinary Learning and Teaching

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In this episode of Conceptually Speaking, I sit down with Dr. Annie Abrams, author of Short Changed: How Advanced Placement Cheats American Students, to explore the complex relationship between policy, pedagogy, and the purpose of English education in America. Our conversation weaves between critiques of AP's corporatization of liberal arts education and deeper questions about what it means to teach literature meaningfully. Annie and I wrestle with how institutional forces shape (and often constrain) the rich interpretive practices and humanizing ethos that make English teaching worthwhile.

Key Concepts from the Episode:

Corporate Mediation

• AP's shift from facilitating teacher-professor collaboration to prescribing standardized curriculum
• The "AP brand" becoming synonymous with rigor while potentially undermining authentic liberal arts experiences

Spaces of/for Literary Discourse

• Lack of institutional support for teachers to engage deeply with texts and scholarship
• Disconnect between growing public appetite for literary criticism and classroom spaces

Vision for Change

• Drawing on Ralph Ellison to balance critique with hope for the American project 
• Need to move beyond standardized frameworks to build sustainable communities of practice with institutional support

For teachers wrestling with their own relationship to AP or seeking ways to cultivate more meaningful literary experiences in their classrooms, this conversation offers both validation and vision for what might be possible. While we may not have all the answers, the episode demonstrates the value of creating spaces where we can explore these questions together.

Check out more of Annie's work here:
Short Changed (book)
Teaching Ellison (article)

Show Information:
My Site
My Substack

Music Credit:
Infraction - No Copyright Music

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For this episode I'm joined by friend of the show Rod Naquin, a Louisiana based education leader and doctoral student whose research and writing explores the intersection between dialogue, learning, and large language models. Drawing on thinkers and theories from his research, Rod invites educators to stop viewing artificial intelligence as a completionist tool or sentient machine and instead regard it as a new form of dialogic computing. His articulation of LLMs challenges common perceptions of AI as merely a productivity tool, instead proposing a more interactive, discourse-driven approach to using language models in educational settings.

Rod offers concrete examples of how educators can apply this approach, emphasizing AI's potential as an analytical partner rather than an omniscient source. He advocates for a nuanced approach that leverages AI's capabilities while preserving essential human elements in the learning process. This episode provides valuable insights for educators, researchers, and anyone interested in the future of AI in education. 

Key concepts explored in this episode:

1. Dialogic Computing: Reframing AI interactions as collaborative dialogues rather than simple input-output exchanges
2. Paradigm Shifts: Examining parallels between historical communication changes and current AI-driven transformations
3. Post-Literacy: Considering the emergence of an era where AI-mediated text takes on speech-like qualities
4. Dynamic Equilibrium: Balancing AI assistance with human comprehension and critical thinking
5. Affordances and Constraints: Understanding the capabilities and limitations of AI in educational contexts

In addition to his research on dialogue, Rod has deep expertise in high-quality instructional materials and hosts The Science of Dialogue podcast. A husband and father of twins, he resides in Bayou Gauche. You can find Rod on Twitter/X.com as @rodjnaquin and read his writings at rodjnaquin.substack.com.

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To say we’re living through a moment of education polarization would be a mild understatement. Considering the digital echo chambers we all find ourselves in, I believe it’s more important than ever to engage with people who may move in different circles and have different perspectives, but share some foundational beliefs about democracy, wisdom, and advancing the public good. My guest this week is Dr. Ashley Rogers Berner—and she was the perfect person for just such an exchange. As the director of and professor for John Hopkin’s Institute for Educational Policy, she is well versed in the history of educational policy both in the states and abroad. One of the more compelling parts of our dialogue was Dr. Berner’s insight into the way many European systems fund and operate their schools. In fact, her comparative research serves as the basis for the fairly unique, heterodox views on educational policy explored in her recent book: Educational Pluralism and Democracy. Though we have contrasting thoughts on a number of pedagogical approaches and policy prescriptions, Ashley was a generous interlocuter who shares my love for the Humanities, pluralism, and the fledgling project of American democracy. Considering I don’t have too many policy conversations on the podcast, I think I learned more in this episode than in most others I’ve recorded. I hope you find it as informative and thought provoking as I do.

Dr. Ashley Rogers Burner's Faculty Page

Educational Pluralism and Democracy: How to Handle Indoctrination, Promote Exposure, and Rebuild America's Schools

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One of the best things about attending conferences is the conversations, connections, and collaborations that emerge after the sessions are over. Last year, I was lucky to meet Dr. Andrea Gambino at NCTE 2023 in Columbus. Andrea earned her Ph.D. in Education from UCLA in 2023 and is an active co-organizer of the annual Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas. Her research and practice draws on her experiences implementing critical media literacy as a tool for advancing self, social, and environmental justice. The passion, sincerity, and depth of knowledge she brings to to her research and practice is incredible and made for a powerful conversation. One of the things that makes Andrea’s research particularly unique is that, in addition to having a rich understanding of how to teach critical media literacy, her scholarship also considers the rich, embodied experiences of teachers wrestling with that work in their classrooms. Andrea is an incredibly engaging conversationalist and really got me fired up about ways we can support teachers and students efforts to better navigate the dumpster fire that is our current political discourse and media ecosystem. There’s much to learn, so enjoy!

UCLA's Critical Media Literacy Guide
Dr. Gambino's LinkedIn

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The emergence of ChatGPT has sent shockwaves through many secondary and post-secondary English departments. There’s no shortage of doomsaying and prognosticating about the future of writing instruction, even the discipline itself, in the wake of the large language model revolution. Luckily for us, my guest today is Dr. J Palmeri—Professor of English and Director of the Writing Program at Georgetown University. J’s work exploring the past, present, and future of multimodal composition is some of the richest, most comprehensive scholarship I’ve seen. Better still, J practices what they preach in the classroom. Over the course of our dialogue, J details the ways they use new media pedagogy to learn with students, embrace play, compose for real audiences, hack technology, center learning, and ultimately to rethink teaching and learning. There is no shortage of philosophical questions and practical suggestions, but my favorite part of this episode is the way J situates his work on multimodality within a broader story—one that will likely resonate with many of you. This episode is a powerful reminder of why technology is only a tool. Whether that technology is tactile, digital, or artificial intelligence, there is no replacing the deeply human parts of teaching, learning, and communicating alongside others.

Faculty Page
100 Years of New Media Pedagogy (Open Source Book)
Academic Research (Google Scholar)

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For anyone who’s been tuned into Conceptually Speaking for a while, you know I love finding new approaches, perspectives, and frames to tackle complex issues. Despite the fact that’s a staple on the show, my guest for this episode, Dr. Sheena Mason, takes things to the next level. Dr. Mason is an author, professor, and creator of the theory of racelenss. A theory that, in her words, is a creative and forward-thinking approach that helps people stop the underlying causes and effects of racism—the existence of race itself. Unlike naturalists, who see race as biological, or constructionists, who regard race as a social construction, Dr. Mason invites readers to become race skeptics—in other words—to understand that what traits we attribute to race, can be more accurately described by terms like ethnicity, culture, social class, and economic class. For, as she argues in her upcoming book, The Raceless Antiracist, fighting racism by reifying the idea of race is like trying to stop a flood by dousing it with water. In short, Dr. Mason envisions a future that transcends race in ways that allow us to celebrate our shared humanity AND value our many differences. Building on sociologists like Karen and Barba Fields, authors like Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, as well as a bevy of literary scholars and critics, Dr. Mason’s work is paradigm-shifting work. So! Hold onto your brains, listen with an open mind, and brace yourself for a very different look at antiracism work.

Note: The introduction contains some direct verbiage from the "Racelessness: The Final Frontier" graphic essay.

https://www.theoryofracelessness.org/
https://twitter.com/SheenaMasonPhD

The core rules of the theory of racelessness or raceless antiracism are as follows: 

1. Our belief in “race” and practice of racialization are not meaningless, because racism and valuable aspects of humanity hide behind what we call “race.” 
2. “Race” does not exist in nature for humans or as a social construction. Although we are all racialized by ourselves and others, we are raceless. 
3. Race/ism (i.e., racism) is a system of economic and social oppression that requires the belief in “race” and the practice of racialization to subsequently reinforce various power imbalances.
4.  Racialization is the process of applying an inescapable social hierarchy—race/ism—along with its attendant power imbalances. 
5. Racism does not exist everywhere in the same way and can be overcome.

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