Speakers Bureau: High School Speaker Request Form
Below is a catalog of WKU English faculty who are available as guest speakers in the region’s high school junior and senior English Classes. We can schedule visits to senior classes between September 10-December 14 and Junior classes between January 7 and May 10. Currently, we are piloting the program for the following school districts: Bowling Green City and Allen, Barren, Butler, Edmonson, Logan, Simpson, and Warren counties. We are also expanding our reach to the Nashville/Davidson County area. Our faculty are generally available to visit up to two individual classes per school visit. We can provide this service to an individual high school teacher once each academic year. Visits are subject to faculty availability.
Unless otherwise noted (or otherwise negotiated), speakers will expect to engage individual classes for 40 minutes, allowing time afterwards for follow-up interaction and a brief recruitment spiel.
Speaker requests should be made utilizing this web form. Please do not contact individual faculty directly.
Please plan ahead. Because our faculty have a variety of other duties, availability will be limited. Initial scheduling should be attempted at least three to four weeks in advance.
David Bell is the USA Today bestselling author of eleven novels which have been translated into more than a dozen foreign languages. He can speak about writing and publishing novels and short stories.
Dr. Jane Fife studies contemporary rhetoric, argument, and writing processes and is willing to conduct class sessions on topics like strategies to increase focus while writing, enhancing arguments through Burkean identification strategies, and rhetorical techniques of contemporary satire.
Jessica Folk has an M.F.A. in Screenwriting. She writes scripts in both film and television, surrounding topics related to the representation of women and the LGBTQ+ community. She also has a background in Young Adult fiction and playwriting. She can lead discussions related to the art of writing scripts, plays, and YA fiction. She is also able to lead discussions surrounding queer cinema and women in the entertainment industry.
Dr. Rob Hale studies 19th-century British literature and is willing to make presentations on the Romantic Period, the Victorian Period, William Wordsworth, 19th-century art and British literature or lead classes on Wordsworth’s “We Are Seven,” Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover,” Hemans’ “The Indian Woman’s Death Song,” or Rossetti’s “Goblin Market.”
Dr. Tom C. Hunley is the author of several books of poetry. He is willing to lead poetry workshops, walking students through prompts from his textbook, The Poetry Gymnasium: 94 Proven Exercises to Shape Your Best Verse.
Trish Lindsey Jaggershas an M.F.A in Creative Writing, poetry focus, and is an award-winning Kentucky poet and author. She is available to lead poetry-writing workshops where students will create new pieces while being introduced to "negation" (the art of using absence to highlight "presence") or micro-poetry (building a sense of place and identity from ordinary objects).
Dr. Angela Jones studies rhetoric and composition with an emphasis in professional and technical writing. She is available to lead discussions and provide workshops on the writing expectations of college teachers, the ways evidence is used to construct arguments in college disciplines, and how to analyze audience and purpose to write effectively in academic or workplace genres.
Dr. Alison Langdon specializes in medieval literature and offers presentations on the Anglo-Saxon hero, women in medieval literature, courtly love, Old and Middle English poetry, representations of animals in medieval literature, and the history of the English language. Some of her favorite texts to talk about are Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Dante’s Inferno, and “Bisclavret” (a poem about a medieval werewolf!).
Dr. David LeNoir works with future high school and college English teachers. He is available to lead writing workshops, especially for invention strategies, or make presentations on speculative fiction (especially classic science fiction or dystopian fiction) or young adult literature.
Dr. Alex Poole is an applied linguist who studies prescriptive/grammar and first and second language reading. He is available to present on topics related to grammar, second language learning, and strategic reading.
Dr. Dale Rigby teaches Nonfiction Prose and is willing to coax friendly discussions/workshops exploring any number of subgenres--Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, Narrative Essay, Critical-Experimental Essay, Lyric Essay--in order to explore useful literary strategies for moving beyond formulaic “school” writing in favor of more organic and re-searched attempts/essays. Relevant models might include works of Montaigne, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Eula Biss, Lee Martin, or Leslie Jamison.
Dr. Trini Stickle is an applied linguist who studies a variety of language issues from a practical, problem-solving approach. She is happy to offer insights into dialect and usage: for example, examining the differences in words, grammar, and pronunciation within the US, quirky differences such as who says “pop,” “soda,” or “coke,” or where in the US it would be acceptable to say “They might could tell you where to get whiskey” and where (and why) it would be considered “wrong.” Drawing on seven years of teaching English as a Second Language, she can provide perspective on both teaching and learning languages. Her primary research is on the language communication issues that arise in conversations involving persons with dementia and children with Autism. She would be delighted to share insights on any of these language areas.
Dr. Marla Zubel studies and teaches world literature and film. She is particularly interested in representations of race and otherness, the legacies of imperialism, refugee and immigrant literature, and twenty-first century transnationalism. She would be happy to lead a class discussion on these topics as they pertain to twentieth century works of world literature (such as Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart) and “great books” like The Odyssey, The Epic of Gilgamesh and Candide.
High School Speakers Request
Some of the links on this page may require additional software to view.