Dr. Octavia "Alonge" Clarkson

As a first generation Black woman college graduate, my dedication to teaching African American literature comes from the fact that this literature was omitted from my K-12 education, yet it was the literature that would have legitimized my existence in the classroom. It was not until my undergraduate career that I began to reach literature from the African/African American literary canon. Through this literature, I found validation for my artistic expression and creativity. Learning diverse literature built a foundation that inspired me to do the same for my own students.

It is because of this experience that I understand why it is imperative to diversify my syllabi and pedagogy to educate students from diverse backgrounds. Within my classroom, I prioritize student centered learning, where I utilize individual and group inquiry to check for reading comprehension and understanding of lessons. This is an important aspect of my pedagogy, as I consider the many languages my students speak and countries where my students have immigrated from.

I strive to create passionate readers, critical and creative thinkers, and highly effective scholars that will have a wide range of strengths to make a global impact upon graduation. I develop and teach courses like “American Visions” and “The Black Arts Movement (BAM)” to survey some of the most popular yet intellectual works within African American literary canon. Additionally, I teach the “Introduction to African American Studies” and “Race in America,” in a way that empowers students from diverse backgrounds to provide critical analysis and embrace the richness of African American culture, literature, and history. Specifically, I prioritize enhancing students' annotation, comprehension and research skills through their weekly graded assignments. This prepares them to have the confidence in what they argue and provide evidence for in their work.

Within my community, I have served as the Service Learning Director to provide high schoolers from underserved populations with the opportunity to build soft and transferables skills to utilize daily. It was my role to introduce them to different ways to think about what success looked like for them, in their friend groups, at school and in the community. Through the creation of presentations, travel opportunities and group reflection, each member was able to brainstorm their most attainable goals after high school. I also oversaw the community food distribution, where we disbursed nutritious food to those in need and informed the community about our community meals. These opportunities taught me that the needs of students may differ given their background, access to literacy, or something I had yet to consider. However, my job as a Professor is to acknowledge the ways that diversity shows up in the classroom, be empathetic and willing to present classroom literature in a way that everyone may have a vantage point.