I study, teach, and design equitable writing experiences, spaces, & programs across modes. Trained in rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies, I examine issues of learning, equity, and accessibility in the classroom, across the university, and in communities, identifying implications for pedagogy, theory, and the discipline of rhetoric and composition/writing studies.
Using a mixed-methods approach, since 2014 I've been studying the impact of classroom infrastructure on the delivery on writing instruction. Although this project began with a focus on active learning, it has expanded to consider writing pedagogy and program design in classrooms of all types, drawing on survey and interview data from classroom teachers and WPAs to identify implications for writing instructors and WPAs that range from individual classroom and programmatic decisions to professional development/training, and repositioning writing programs as leaders of learning space management.
I'm a founding member of Santa Clara University's SWIRL Initiative, a multidisciplinary group studying and shaping writing and information literacy instruction across disciplines at our institution. The work of this group illustrates the promise of transdisciplinary collaboration as a promising avenue for WPA work, suggesting ways to leverage writing studies' disciplinary expertise in the 21st century. The work SWIRL produces is particularly influenced by UNLV's Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) Project, and is working to develop and refine our Writing and Research Instrument for Transfer and Equity (WRITE) Assignment Design Tool which extends the TILT checklist to substanively guide the scaffolding of writing- and research-intensive assignments. A spin-off of this project is a collaboration with a FYW colleage and a librarian investigating the impact of targeted research instruction on FYW students' development of critical information literacy and analytical writing skills.
Since 2018 I've been working with Meghan Sweeney (St. Mary's College of California) and Tricia Serviss (UC Davis) to on WIEP, which examines the extent to whic instructors incorporate diverse content and accessible/inclusive pedagogies, responding to the calls of Asao Inoue (and many other scholars of color) for white faculty to center issues of race, language, and equity in our scholarship and teaching. Beginning with a sample of instructors who've taught FYW at our three Northern California campuses since 2016, we're especially interested to see how these issues are being addressed given the current climate on our and other college campuses, given the resurgence of political activism, hate speech incidents, student- and faculty-led protests, and mandates to impose changing regulations about immigration, Title IX, and other controversial issues. Using syllabi and interviews with instructors and students, we examine what's happening in FYW classrooms to provide a snapshot focused on equity and inclusion specifically, identifying root causes of the outcomes we observe, and recommending programmatic measures to address the evidence of inaccessbility, intolerance, and inhospitality we find.
Complete CV, listing published work & presentations (updated July 2019)
With Meghan Sweeney and Tricia Serviss. "A Heuristic to Promote Inclusive and Equitable Teaching in Writing Programs." forthcoming in WPA: Writing Program Administration.
“WPAs as University Learning Space Managers: Theorizing and Guiding the Creation of Effective Writing Classrooms.” WPA: Writing Program Administration, vol. 43, no. 2, 2020, pp. 109-130.
With Tricia Serviss. “Researching Writing Program Administration Expertise in Action: A Case Study of Collaborative Problem-Solving as Transdisciplinary Practice.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 70, no. 3, 2019, pp. 446-475.
“Who Learns from Collaborative Digital Projects? Cultivating Critical Consciousness and Metacognition to Democratize Digital Literacy Learning.” Composition Studies, vol. 46, no. 1, 2018, pp. 57-80.
With Lillie R. Jenkins. “Essence of Mom 2.0: Media, Memory, and Community across an Extended African American Family.” Racial Shorthand: Coded Discrimination Contested in Social Media, edited by Cruz Medina and Octavio Pimentel, Computers and Composition Digital P/Utah State UP, 2018.
“‘Our door is always open’: Aligning Literacy Learning Practices in Writing Programs and Residential Learning Communities.” Across the Disciplines, vol. 13, no. 4, 2016.
“To Teach, Critique, and Compose: Representing Computers and Composition through the CIWIC/DMAC Institute.” Computers and Composition, vol. 36, no. 1, 2015, pp. 16-31.
With Beverly J. Moss. Introduction: Questioning, Challenging and Advocating: Advancing Knowledge in Composition and Rhetoric. The Best of the Independent Rhetoric and Composition Journals 2012, edited by Julia Voss et al, Parlor Press, 2014. pp. vii-xvi.
With Beverly J. Moss et al, editors. The Best of the Independent Rhetoric and Composition Journals 2012, Parlor Press, 2014.
“‘So my computer literacy journey…’: Re-creating and Re-thinking Technological Literacy Experience through Narrative.” Stories That Speak to Us: Exhibits from the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, edited by H. Lewis Ulman, Scott Lloyd DeWitt, and Cynthia L. Selfe. Computers and Composition Digital P/Utah State UP, 2013.