Yolande E. Brener
Yolande Brener has been teaching in CUNY colleges since 2017. After 25 years of experience working as a broadcast television technician for shows including PBS Newshour, the Martha Stewart Show and MTV’s Total Request Live, she completed her MFA in Creative Writing at CCNY. Prior to this, she earned a BA in Fine Art and Film Making at East London University and went on to complete a Postgraduate Certificate in Film and Video Making at Central St. Martin’s School of Art.
In 2019, she contributed to City College English Department’s OER Guide, presented at an OER workshop for faculty, and presented at the CUNY IT Conference. She is also an award winning author whose work has been discussed on Al Jazeera’s Newshour and Notebook Magazine. She is currently exploring ways to incorporate interactive and student-centered learning into digital platforms using open educational resources.
Expertise
- Creative Nonfiction
- Life Stories
- Contemporary Fiction and Poetry
- Prosody
- Digital Humanities
- WordPress
- Game-Based Learning
- Student-Based Learning
Degrees
- MFA Creative Writing from CCNY 2016
- Advanced Certificate in Film/Video Making from Central St. Martins 1987
- BA in Fine Art/Film Making from East London University 1985
Courses Taught
- English Composition is the standard freshman writing course. The course introduces students to academic writing. By its conclusion, students will be ready for English 201 and for the writing they will be asked to do in advanced courses across the curriculum. Students completing ENG 101 will have mastered the fundamentals of college-level reading and writing, including developing a thesis-driven response to the writing of others and following the basic conventions of citation and documentation. They will have practiced what Mike Rose calls the "habits of mind" necessary for success in college and in the larger world: summarizing, classifying, comparing, contrasting, and analyzing. Students will be introduced to basic research methods and MLA documentation and complete a research project. Students are required to take a departmental final exam that requires the composition of a 500 word, thesis-driven essay in conversation with two designated texts.
Prerequisite: Pass the CAT-R and CAT-W or Accuplacer tests
Course Syllabus - This is a course that builds upon skills introduced in English 101. In this course, literature is the field for the development of critical reading, critical thinking, independent research, and writing skills. Students are introduced to literary criticisms and acquire basic knowledge necessary for the analysis of texts (including literary terms and some literary theory); they gain proficiency in library and internet research; and they hone their skills as readers and writers. Assignments move from close readings of literary texts in a variety of genres to analyses that introduce literary terms and broader contexts, culminating in an independent, documented, thesis-driven research paper. By the conclusion of English 201, students will be prepared for the analytical and research-based writing required in upper-level courses across the curriculum; they will also be prepared for advanced courses in literature.
Prerequisite: ENG 101
Course Syllabus
Research and Projects
- Interactive learning
- Online learning
- Evolution of English language
- Contemporary Life Stories
Publications
- CCNY English Department OER Guide (co-author with Julia Brown, Janelle Poe) 2019
- Violet Capers, Fiction Magazine 2018
- From Harlem to Windsor, Harlem World 2018
Honors, Awards and Affiliations
- Official Selection, Frostbite Film Festival and Micromania Film Festival, Special Mention UK Seasonal Short Film Festival 2020
- Writer’s Digest, First Place, Life Stories E-book 2014
- NYC Parks Department, First Place, Poems in the Park 2010
