Rukhsana is adept at tailoring a presentation to the themes of any conference. The following are some presentations she has delivered to great acclaim. They are examples of Rukhsana’s style and ability. These presentations can be adapted to serve any audience and/or Rukhsana can create entirely new presentations to suit the needs of event organizers.

Living Your Most Authentic Life: Making Every Moment Count!

Life is a rollercoaster ride, it will have its ups and it will have its downs. Eighty percent of living a successful life comes down to the attitude you bring to it. In this inspirational presentation, Rukhsana relates the challenges she’s faced as a woman of color from a highly misogynistic culture and how she was able to rise above them and thrive in the highly competitive field of children’s literature. The life lessons she shares are universally applicable and will encourage audience members to rise above any challenges they face too.

Freedom of Speech vs Cultural Sensitivity

Based on her speech in Denmark, Rukhsana tackles the Danish cartoon incident and other issues where Western values of freedom of speech come in direct conflict with the need of ethnic minority cultures to be respected. Watch her Youtube version of the speech HERE or read the speech HERE.

The Muslim World in Children’s Literature

This presentation deals with issues of inclusion and the portrayal of Muslims in children’s literature. The presentation Includes a bibliography of acceptable resources that can help educators address these concerns.

Universality in Folktales

This program combines literacy skills with storytelling and multiculturalism to explore how stories can reach past racial and ethnic barriers to the humanity within all of us. By focusing on story structure, students will learn what makes a story universal and how to shape their stories.

Storymaking in the Classroom

This workshop picks up where the Universality in Folktales presentation leaves off. It involves practical exercises for teachers to conduct with their students that will tap into creativity followed by editing exercises that make the piece they’ve written, stronger. Also included are tips to get students excited about writing.

The Importance of Inclusive Literature in the Classroom

A healthy inclusive environment in the classroom is the ideal environment to foster learning and acceptance. Using her own experiences growing up as an ESL student as well as her experiences as an author/storyteller presenting in the classroom, Rukhsana discusses practical ways teachers can create an inclusive environment for all their students. Resources include a list of multicultural authors and websites that will facilitate this task.

Bringing Oral Cultural Stories to the Page

Students from predominantly oral cultures face particular challenges when trying to express themselves in literary form. This workshop focuses on strategies to bridge the gap between oral tradition and the written page. (This workshop was developed for the 2004 International Board on Books for Young People (I.B.B.Y.) South Africa Congress.)