Professors of Comparative Literature, Ayesha Ramachandran and Marta Figlerowicz, each served as a national seminar leader for the 2025 program of the Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools.
Established in 2005 by the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, the Initiative offers seminars led by Yale faculty for K-12 teachers from participating school districts across the country.
Ramachandran’s national seminar, “Teaching with and through Maps,” explored how maps both create narratives about space and influence how we experience and shape our worlds. Figlerowicz’s seminar, “Graphic Narratives as Teaching Tools,” focused on the history of graphic novels and how they can be useful in teaching a variety of topics, ranging from history, science, and philosophy to art. The seminars ran from May to August, including a two-week Intensive Session in July when the seminar met daily. Each Fellow completed the seminar by creating a curriculum unit to teach in their classroom.
Ramachandran noted that the opportunity to work with teachers from high-need public school districts “felt really meaningful.” “It’s a real honor to be part of that,” she said. Similarly, Figlerowicz spoke of the experience: I love working with the teachers. It is such a joy to work with people with whom I share pedagogical convictions and values. It felt like we were a room full of teachers figuring things out together.”