Proposal Draft / Questions for Conference Paper

One of the things I was most excited about when I entered graduate school was that, for the first time in my life, I was going to get to teach, to be the one at the head of the classroom. Four or five years later, I’m still just as excited about teaching in the university setting. But, increasingly, issues associated with sexuality have come into play as regards myself and my place and purpose as a college teacher. As a gay man, should I be at all concerned with the problematics of sexuality in relation to the fact that I am the one in the position of authority now in the classroom? In other words, am I obligated to, in effect, come out to my students just because I am a gay man? Should my sexuality have any effect on the education my students receive from me? Shifting the focus just a bit, do I have an obligation to other GLBQT people—past, present, and future—to be open and honest about my sexuality in the classroom? To do what I can as a gay educator in the college environment to change things, hopefully for the better? If I were to attempt to queer the composition classroom(s) I am responsible for, how would I go about doing so? What would the texts I use in the classroom look like? What methodologies and pedagogies would I employ? What would be the goals and purposes of a queer composition classroom?