Rebekah Buchanan is the Director of English Education at WIU, where she teaches primarily English Education methods and professional writing courses. She also leads a Harry Potter study abroad course to the United Kingdom. Her work examines the role of stories in people’s lives. She has published on popular culture and music in the classroom, youth’s out of school literacy practices, zines in the classroom, and Riot Grrrl rhetoric in zines. Most recently, she is researching the experiences of first-year high school English Language Arts teachers in rural schools and is conducting interviews with Harry Potter fans about their relationships with the series.
Before coming to Western, Buchanan spent a number of years teaching high school English, creating an alternative high school in a CBO, designing summer writing programs for middle and high school youth, and doing writing center administrative work.
Buchanan Co-Directs the Expanding Cultural Diversity Project at WIU and does literacy work on and off campus. She also does writing workshops in area prisons, jails, and youth detention centers.
Most importantly, she is a die-hard Cub fan and is ready for another World Series at Wrigley.