Dear Colleagues,
AEPL is excited to announce our fall 2024 online series of events, including sessions on writing for healing; a new memoir of Buddhism and teaching; and spontaneous writing and generative AI. All events are offered free of charge and will take place on Zoom. Click here to register for one or more of the events (or paste this link in your browser: https://forms.gle/mcBpe8mLQz33ct3m8)! Registered participants will receive a Zoom link 1-2 days before each event. **Presenter biographies follow below.**
Friday, October 25, 3-4:30pm (Eastern)
Playing With Words & Migrating Toward Wholeness©: Embodied Writing for Healing & Connection
Led by Liz DeBetta
Spoken word poetry and public performance are powerful ways to explore issues of identity, belonging, and establish empathy and connection to self and others. In this interactive workshop you will learn how emotional content coupled with the energy of performance can empower us to move, speak, and think differently about ourselves and our stories. Utilizing performance tools combined with the Migrating Toward Wholeness© method we will play with words and co-create a piece of spoken word performance that is both healing and cathartic. ”Playing with Words” will guide attendees through a process of using breath and body to connect to emotions with an emphasis on exploring “what is” to generate words and movement. Attendees will discover the therapeutic benefits of using writing and performance to unlock creative expression to migrate and heal embodied trauma.
Friday, November 15, 3-4:30pm (Eastern)
Reading and Discussion: Bensonhurst Sutra: Tales of an Italian American Buddhist
Led by Geri DeLuca
Bensonhurst Sutra is a collection of semi-autobiographical essays about an Italian-American woman growing up in the 60’s, on the cusp of the women’s movement, looking for a spiritual tradition that she could latch onto. She became an English teacher at Brooklyn College, a writer, a yogi, and finally a visual artist—all within the context of being told early and often that girls/women should not call attention to themselves. “No-self” in her culture meant, “If you open your mouth, people will know how ignorant you are.”
The antidote was finding herself among her students, many of whom were suffering from similar biases against women and people of color. When she discovered Buddhism, she brought contemplative practices into her classroom. And she wrote about everything that happened along the way.
Friday, December 13, 3-4:30pm (Eastern)
When Generative Writing Meets Generative AI: Fresh Insights to Support Authentic Student Writing
Led by Dan Weinstein
Timed spontaneous writing has long been thought to promote self-awareness and emotional growth. This workshop explores several spontaneous writing practices—from the mainstream to the arcane—that have been known to confer such benefits.
Think you’ve heard this already? Well, here’s a twist: recent advances in natural language processing offer new possibilities for analyzing spontaneous texts. AI-powered tools can examine writing for indicators of writers’ emotional state, cognitive processes, and social connectedness, as well as underlying beliefs and motivations.
By blending these techniques and technologies, teachers can help students become more self-aware writers, authentically connecting their language use and their own self-development through spontaneous writing coupled with feedback based on quantitative and qualitative textual analytics.
Presenter Biographies
Dr. Liz DeBetta, creator of Migrating Toward Wholeness© is an adoptee and independent scholar-artist-activist committed to changing systems and helping people navigate trauma through creative processes. She believes that stories are powerful change agents and when we write them and share them we connect and heal. Liz is a proud member of Actor’s Equity, SAG-AFTRA, Affiliate Faculty at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and part of the Diversity Scholars Network at the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan. She has published articles on autoethnography and adoptee narratives, has an award-winning one woman show called Un-M-Othered, and facilitates trauma informed healing workshops for adoptees and women. Her book Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal: Migrating Toward Wholeness is available from Brill Publishers.
Geri DeLuca is the outgoing chair of the AEPL executive committee and a retired professor of English at Brooklyn College. She now lives in Philadelphia, and thanks to zoom, maintains her long-time connection to the Insight Meditation Society in Lebanon, NH. She is also an ongoing student at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, which, for the last seven years, has nurtured and deepened her art and meditation practice.
Dan Weinstein, a wordsmith with a penchant for digital innovation, navigates the crossroads of creativity and technology in his role as Associate Professor of English and Director of the Kathleen Jones White Writing Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His journey reflects a deep-seated passion for nurturing student growth through cutting-edge educational tools. Perpetually fascinated by the psychology of creativity, Dan loves to explore how technology can foster learning and self-expression. Dan serves as an appointed member of the AEPL Executive Committee.
Please join us!
We’d love to include your work in our spring series. Please write to us at aepl.learning to let us know about a session you could offer!
With gratitude and encouragement,
AEPL’s Executive Committee
Click here to learn more about the Assembly’s work