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About Yasmine

My work as an educator is guided by the premise that practitioners of a student-focused education model necessarily commit themselves to promoting socially-just values that start in course design. In addition to contextualizing course material within historical moments and literary/art movements, I resist the premise that there is “good” and “bad” art. Instead, I encourage my workshops to consider rhetorical situations, “read like a writer,”construct personal writing manifestos, and draw connections between their own ideas about what art “should” do and their value systems. Ultimately, I am passionately disinterested in teaching writers how to write how I write; I am interested in asking students questions that help them self-discover their own writing ambitions. My courses’ reading lists prioritizes range. I prioritize not only historically-resilient writers but also varied styles, historical moments, subjects, and genres. When I teach creative nonfiction, I teach lyric essay; when I teach fiction, I teach vignettes, and when I teach poetry, I teach prose poetry. My work always comes back to the literal and figurative borderlands. You can learn more about me on my website www.yasmineameli.com and on Instagram @yasmineameli.com.