Faculty in the Spotlight: Carrie Simpson
by Joyce Yang | 26 May 2023 | Faculty in the Spotlight, News Decoder Updates, Tatnall School
Carrie Simpson of The Tatnall School centers global awareness, activism and inquiry in her teaching. She wins this month’s Faculty Spotlight award.
In the first year of The Tatnall School’s partnership with News Decoder, faculty liaison Carrie Simpson has embedded global citizenship and activism into her classes, modeling News Decoder’s focus on solutions journalism for our academic network.
Her students have been prolific, with nine published stories on our news site since January. One student story on eco-anxiety stands out as one of our most-read youth stories of the year. Under Simpson’s leadership, Tatnall students have also hosted two cross-curricular webinars, collaborating across borders and disciplines to investigate human trafficking and climate change.
This May, she wins News Decoder’s Faculty in the Spotlight prize.
Simpson has a range of teaching experiences — from rock climbing instructor to teaching at international schools in Turkey and Spain and teaching at the community college level. At the heart of her teaching, she said, are inquiry and curiosity.
In her current role as a high school English teacher at Tatnall, she has helped develop a new class on global literature and journalism. In it, Simpson embeds the News Decoder publication process directly into the curriculum.
“My foundation in teaching has always been experiential and inquiry-based,” Simpson said. “That’s why I was so attracted to incorporating News Decoder, because the students are experiencing first-hand these steps in the reporting process, rather than just reading about being a journalist. They are naturally asked to be curious about something they’re interested in, and follow that line of inquiry.”
Global citizenship rooted in activism
Simpson sees her classroom as a place to expand students’ global awareness. Through journalism and literature, she encourages her students to rethink their assumptions about the world around them.
“I think global citizenship entails a lot of perspective-shifting and open-mindedness and a close examination of one’s own country, culture, policies and ways of thinking,” Simpson said. “I think it requires a lot of creative and critical thinking on the parts of students to step outside of what they know, and look at other ways of perceiving and tackling issues.”
Simpson’s global pedagogy extends to action beyond the classroom. She hopes to impart the value of activism to her students. She cites Tatnall’s student-led webinar recording on human trafficking, which was passed into the hands of the Human Trafficking Unit of the Delaware Department of Justice, as one example of how reporting and research have the power to effect positive change.
In addition to classroom teaching, Simpson is also a published writer and poet. She credits her own creative writing experience as something that brings strength to her teaching, helping her model the revision process for students.
“It’s really hard to set up a good workshop where people give helpful feedback and those getting feedback don’t feel hurt,” Simpson said. “It takes a lot of building rapport and setting some good ground rules and modeling comments. So I think being a writer helped me facilitate these workshops in the classroom.”
In her spare time, Simpson enjoys exploring Delaware’s state parks with her daughter and reading pieces from American poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil. She looks forward to volunteering at the horseshoe crab count on the Delaware Bay this year.
News Decoder is grateful to faculty members at our school partners for their dedication to teaching global perspectives and media literacy to young people. To read past Faculty Spotlight features, click here.
Burningword Literary Journal 2022 Pushcart Nominations
Dormant
July 2021, Nonfiction
Delaware Division of the Arts Announces 2020 Individual Artist Fellowship Awardees
Wilmington, Del. (January 14, 2020) – Nineteen Delaware artists are being recognized by the Division for the high quality of their artwork. Work samples from 139 Delaware choreographers, composers, musicians, writers, folk and visual artists were reviewed by out-of-state arts professionals, considering demonstrated creativity and skill in their art form. The 20 selected fellows reside throughout Delaware including Dover, Lewes, Milford, Milton, Newark, New Castle, Rehoboth Beach and Wilmington.
Caroline N. Simpson, Wilmington
Established Professional Award in Literature: Poetry
By: Gail Obenreder
“Writing poetry is much more about process than product . . . There’s a stillness and a peace to being in this space. I’m more aware and feel more connected to the earth.”
Though she’s taught writing and literature throughout her career and has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Caroline N. Simpson only began to write poetry when she was 29 years old. Tasked with teaching it in “a rigorous course at an international high school in Ankara, Turkey,” Simpson prepared diligently, studying letters between poets and biographers as well as reading their writing. “By working so hard to figure out how to unlock poetry for my Turkish students, I found the key for myself.”
Simpson grew up in Princeton, New Jersey and has also been a teacher internationally in Spain. Also an educator in Montana and the Seattle area before her 2018 move to Wilmington, Simpson has taught in a variety of American locales and in differing educational niches – including at Delaware State University last year and at The Tatnall School now. The variety of “myths, history, and landscapes” that she’s experienced throughout her career has provided her with “a sense of ‘the other’ that is at the heart of [her] life and writing.”
First influenced by the poets she taught in Ankara – Seamus Heaney, Elizabeth Bishop, John Keats – Simpson is also influenced by imagists like William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound. To improve her language skills while teaching in Turkey, she began to translate the works of 20th century Turkish poet Orhan Veli, and spending “such intimate time” with his words helped her verse to be, “like his, richer in hyperbole and metaphor.”
Simpson’s artistic goal is to “make sense of [her] experiences in a way that’s beautiful and resonant for others,” and she works slowly through many drafts. “I am a revisionist. The initial draft and the finished product will be very different.” Challenged by finding writing time while caring for her daughter, she’s also been studying tango for ten years (beginning in Turkey) and as an avid outdoorswoman, she loves to rock-climb. Though they might seem widely divergent interests, both “turn off my language-brain and put me entirely in my body and the present.”
For a new Delawarean, the Fellowship means a welcome ability to connect with other local artists, as well as being able to offer readings and workshops, which she enjoys, feeling “they are part of [her] literary duty.” Simpson is working on a collection of poems, Unless I Swim Skyward, inspired by the tale of Orpheus, and she’s grateful for the warm reception she’s received here: “The Delaware writing community is a very special one!”
Chapbook Review, “Choose Your Own Adventure,” By Caroline Simpson. Panoplyzine. Submitted by Ryn Holmes, June 21, 2019.
For a novel and humorous take on that old, old story, male and female, one must jump in and sail away to the Galapagos Islands. It is there that Caroline Simpson cleverly draws upon the courting behavior of its native life to provide us with an analogy of both touching and ridiculous human romance in seven chapters of narrative poetry form.
As she compares and contrasts our behavior with such wild life as that of blue-footed boobies, frigate birds, giant tortoises, etc., the writer also links them by offering options; if the courtship style of one creature doesn’t suit your needs, jump backwards or forwards to a different poem and try out something else. Intriguingly, the seventh and final “chapter” relates the seductive behavior between an Ecuadorian sailor and a single American woman aboard a cruise ship bound for the Galapagos Islands. They try out many actions, such as various facial movements, touch, language, etc., to draw in each other with success.
She rounds out the chapbook with poems that continue the dance between men and women while still utilizing animal life in the opposite of anthropomorphizing, In “The Scent of a Man,” she effectively relates her interactions in various scent, becomes a snail in “A Snail’s Life,” youthful in “The Fawn,” and so on, wrapping it all up in the graceful, “Love Story.” Ms. Simpson’s language is provocative, approachable and well-suited to the topic and the “primitive” life of the Islands.
Review of Choose Your Own Adventure and Other Poems on Goodreads. Submitted by Nina Bennett, March 5, 2019.
Caroline Simpson, a two-time Pushcart nominee, is an adjunct assistant professor in Delaware State University’s Department of English and Foreign Languages. I was fortunate to meet her and purchase her chapbook at a reading. Some readers may be familiar with Choose Your Own Adventure: The Galapagos Mating Dance, from the October 2018 issue of Rattle.
Caroline Simpson took a trip to the Galapagos Islands, which proved to be the inspiration for her wonderful book, Choose Your Own Adventure and Other Poems. In an interview on Delaware Public Media, Simpson shares: “ our particular tour guide was very keen on teaching us about the mating rituals of these animals. So, as we’re learning about the sex lives and romance and patterns of commitment and gender roles of all these creatures, I couldn’t help but relate it to some of the partnership patterns I’ve seen in humans.”
She then set up her writing in a unique format, that of the choose your own adventure series many of us bought for our children. This lengthy poem, divided into seven chapters filling the first sixteen pages of her chapbook, while not x-rated, is certainly not for children. Simpson compares and contrasts the animal mating rituals with those of humans. She offers her reader an opportunity to alter an unappealing behavior by “return to Chapter One,” or “skip to Chapter Six.” There is a great deal of humor in these well-crafted poems.
From Chapter Six:
If you cannot handle
the emotional complexity
of an open relationship,
refer to Chapter Four.
If only relationships were that easy!
Radio interview: “DSU adjunct professor writes book of poetry” By Kelli Steele, Delaware Public Media, 91.1 Dover. Aired on Dec. 31, 2018.
Delaware State University adjunct professor Caroline Simpson has written a book of poetry relating the mating habits of exotic animals with those of humans.
Caroline Simpson’s new book is called Choose Your Own Adventure and Other Poems.
She describes how she came up with the idea for the book.
“In December 2016 my mom and I took a trip to the Galapagos Islands. My mom is a research biologist and this was one of her bucket list trips. What’s unique about the Galapagos Islands is that the animals have evolved into very unique species on each Island,” said Simpson.
Simpson says while she was there with her mom, their tour guide was keen on teaching them about the mating rituals of all the animals.
”And so while we were there, our particular tour guide was very keen on teaching us about the mating rituals of these animals. So, as we’re learning about the sex lives and romance and patterns of commitment and gender roles of all these creatures, I couldn’t help but relate it to some of the partnership patterns I’ve seen in humans,” Simpson said.
Simpson went on to say that the poems contain a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor.
Choose Your Own Adventure and Other Poems can be purchased on Amazon.comat the full retail price or for a discounted price from the author – Caroline Simpson – at csimpson@desu.edu.
University adjunct publishes book of poetry, Delaware State University, Dec. 13, 2018.
Caroline Simpson, an adjunct assistant professor in the University’s Department of English and Foreign Languages, has authored a book of poetry that relates the mating habits of exotic animals with that of humans.
Ms. Simpson, who arrived at the University for the fall semester 2018 to teach African American Literature and English as a Second Language, says her book Choose Your Own Adventure and Other Poems was inspired by a trip she took to the Galapagos Islands, which is part of and off the coast of Ecuador in South America.
“(The Galapagos Islands) is known for animals that evolve into unique breeds of species,” Ms. Simpson said. “The poems are about the mating rituals of animals there and likening them to the mating patterns of humans.”
She said the poems contain a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor. “But the poems have a lot to say about how humans partner up,” the author said.
A native of Rochester, N.Y. and raised in New Jersey, Ms. Simpson lived and taught at Edmonds Community College in Seattle, Wash., for five years before moving to Delaware last summer. She currently resides with her daughter in Middletown, Del.
Choose Your Own Adventure and Other Poems can be purchased on Amazon.com.
A review of the long form poem, “Choose Your Own Adventure: The Galapagos Mating Dance” by PMF Johnson, “Poetry Commentary: Commentary on poetry in current U.S. magazines,” June 21, 2018.
“Maybe the most original and creative poem in the [Rattle #60] issue is by Caroline N. Simpson. “Choose Your Own Adventure: The Galapagos Mating Dance.” “You are a single woman, about to embark upon your most challenging and dangerous mission.” The header explains what ‘you’ are to do — discover a useful mating ritual. Then it’s on to Chapter One: “You are a blue-footed booby. / A male approaches you… He offers you twigs and grasses.” The tone is so fun, the parallels with human rituals so apt. There are several chapters in this long poem, each describing the rituals of a different creature, with many laughs, but often rueful ones. There is such a loneliness underneath — they say true humor arises from the truth, and that is true here. Ms. Simpson is very much an ecologist of the heart. As the Chapters unfold, the reader is allowed at points to choose to move to a different section, depending on whether this current ritual appeals or not. What a genius structure. And the ending Chapter, Seven, has a most satisfactory conclusion. A poem worth hunting down this issue for.”
Caroline N. Simpson 