2021年11月5日
格伦Retief, associate professor of 创意写作, who is currently in 南非 on a 富布赖特U.S. 浩博体育app award, recently participated in a U.S. 大使馆车间.
车间, which marked World Teachers’ Day, was at the David Hellen Peta Secondary School in Pretoria and focused on sharpening teachers’ 创意写作 skills. Retief told The Pretoria News that his mission in 南非 “is to help address problems in the education system, particularly with pupils’ writing skills.”
Retief said his goal was to show teachers how they can be more effective in assisting their pupils to improve their writing skills. 车间 involved giving teachers a writing prompt, and then having them conduct a peer critique of each other’s writing, using discussion questions Retief developed for his 创意写作 classes at Susquehanna.
English teacher Mandisa Ndaba said she would love to see children from local schools improve their writing skills because even university/scholarship applications required writing.
“If English teachers are equipped, then learners and the whole nation will be equipped as well,恩达巴说.
Principal Tlhabana Nkwe said the workshop would boost the confidence of teachers when they returned to classrooms, thus benefiting the pupils. 工作坊结束后, teachers told Retief that they usually just corrected their pupils’ grammar on writing assignments, and that being able to respond in a more holistic and thoughtful way would almost certainly increase learner motivation and success.
雷蒂夫被授予a 富布赖特U.S. 浩博体育app award in 2020 to help develop the writing component of a college bridging program in Mamelodi, 南非. Offered by the University of Pretoria, the program aims to leverage 创意写作 to build self-confidence and reading/study habits among educationally disadvantaged adults. As part of this prestigious award, Retief will publish research on how 创意写作 teaching can more generally serve educational development.
Retief grew up in a 南非n game park during the apartheid era but emigrated to the U.S. in 1994. 他的回忆录, 杰克银行 (SMP, 2011), won a Lambda Literary Award and was selected as a Book of 2011 by the Africa Book Club.
Retief earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Cape Town, a Master of Fine 艺术 from the University of Miami and a doctorate from Florida State University. From 2014 to 2019 he directed Susquehanna University’s nationally recognized 创意写作 program.