Michael Reich
B.A. in English, Stony Brook University
M.A. in English, Stony Brook University
Ph.D. in English, St. John’s University
Michael Reich, PhD (St. John’s University) is a post-doctoral Teaching Associate at Northeastern. He studies and teaches how to utilize the political theory of deliberative democracy in writing classrooms. This begins with allowing students to make personal connections to social issues and learning about others’ concerns and experiences. After that, students argue for and evaluate different approaches to a problem, practice expressing agreement and disagreement, and learn to find common ground with those who have different views and experiences (Molnar-Main, 2017). Once students have found common ground, they come to understand it is ok to maintain their own views about an issue, which may differ from others in the class, as long as they feel comfortable working together.
In his teaching and writing, Michael argues for these deliberative practices as an antidote to the hyper-effects of political polarization occurring as a result of digital age propaganda. His poetry has appeared in Chagrin River Review. A chapbook of poems entitled “Bent Mind Sees Patterns” is soon on the way.