As a former teacher consultant for the University of Mississippi Writing Project (UMWP), Burns conducted staff development workshops for high schools throughout North Mississippi and at the Gulf Coast Writing Conference in Point Clear, Alabama. On March 23, 2006, she presented “The Values of Porch People from the Mississippi Delta: the Role of Author in Clifton Taulbert’s Eight Habits of the Heart” at the 58th annual convention of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in New York City. In 2015, Burns received a NEH grant to attend a summer institute in Columbus, Ohio, on research of Dunbar. Afterwards, she presented on the topic “Paul Laurence Dunbar and The American Literary Tradition.” Burns has a special affinity to the presentation on Jimmie Lunceford, as he was the first cousin of her maternal grandmother.