The Texas A&M Department of English invites you to join us throughout the spring for a series of talks and workshops surrounding the topic of how we can better teach writing now by addressing diversity, inclusion, and social justice in the writing classroom. Events are aimed at bringing together scholars doing research in social justice pedagogies, cultural rhetorics, and composition/professional writing in our rapidly changing media landscape.
The events are scheduled each week on different days and at different times to maximize accessibility. All events are free and open to the public; sign-up and log-in details for each event will be made available in advance. For further information, contact David McWhirter.
This virtual symposium is sponsored by The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, The Department of English, and the University Writing Center at Texas A&M University.
Schedule of Events
Thank you for joining us! Video recordings and transcripts of all events will be available to Texas A&M employees through September 2022. Use accordion menu below to access materials for each event. You will be asked to sign into your Texas A&M Google account through CAS. You may view, but not download, materials.
-
Watch Part 1 of the Teaching Writing at the Border Panel.
Watch Part 2 of the Teaching Writing at the Border Panel.
Read the transcript of the Teaching Writing at the Border Panel.Welcome by English Department Head Maura Ives (Texas A&M University)
Chair: David McWhirter (Texas A&M University)
Speakers include:Laura Gonzales presenting "Ni de over here, ni de allá: Bilingual Professional Language Practices on the Mexico/US Borderland." Gonzales is an Assistant Professor of Digital Writing and Cultural Rhetorics in the English Department at the University of Florida. Her research threads connections between language diversity, community engagement, and technology design. She is the author of Sites of Translation: What Multilinguals Can Teach Us about Digital Writing and Rhetoric, for which she was awarded the 2016 Sweetland/University of Michigan Press Digital Rhetoric Collaborative Book Prize, the 2020 CCCC Advancement of Knowledge award, and the 7Cs Technology Innovator Award. Victor J. Del Hierro presenting "Culturally Sustaining Border Pedagogy." Del Hierro is an Assistant Professor of Digital Writing in the English Department at the University of Florida. Victor is a proud graduate of the Texas A&M English Department receiving his MA in 2013. Victor’s research broadly focuses on the intersection between community, cultural rhetorics, and technical communication. He is currently working on his first monograph titled The DJ is Precedent: Hip Hop, Technical Communication, and Community and co-editing the collection Methods and Methodologies for Research in Digital Writing. Victor graduated with his Ph.D. in 2017 from Michigan State University and previously worked as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. Randall W. Monty and Marlene Galván presenting "You're not listening, or I'm not saying it right: Reflecting on Borderland as Method."
Monty is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, & Literacy Studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His research interests include critical discourse studies, writing center studies, professional and technical writing, and border studies.
Galván is the Director of the Writing Center at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and PhD student in the Technical Communication & Rhetoric program at Texas Tech University. Her research interests include cultural rhetorics, Chicana feminist rhetorics, and border rhetorics.
-
Watch Dr. Inoue's Keynote Address.
Read the transcript of Dr. Inoue's Keynote Address.Welcome by Dean Pamela R. Matthews (Texas A&M University)
Keynote Address to be given by:Asao B. Inoue is Professor and the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Equity, and Inclusion for the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University. He is the 2019 Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and has been a past member of the CCCC Executive Committee, and the Executive Board of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Among his many articles and chapters on writing assessment, race, and racism, his article, “Theorizing Failure in U.S. Writing Assessments” in Research in the Teaching of English, won the 2014 CWPA Outstanding Scholarship Award. His co-edited collection, Race and Writing Assessment (2012), won the 2014 NCTE/CCCC Outstanding Book Award for an edited collection. His book, Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing for a Socially Just Future (2015) won the 2017 NCTE/CCCC Outstanding Book Award for a monograph and the 2015 CWPA Outstanding Book Award. He also has published a co-edited collection, Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and The Advancement of Opportunity (2018), and a book, Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom (2019).
-
Watch Part 1 of the Workshop.
Watch Part 2 of the Workshop.
Read the transcript of Dr. Inoue's Workshop.Hosted by:
Asao B. Inoue is Professor and the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Equity, and Inclusion for the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University. He is the 2019 Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and has been a past member of the CCCC Executive Committee, and the Executive Board of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Among his many articles and chapters on writing assessment, race, and racism, his article, “Theorizing Failure in U.S. Writing Assessments” in Research in the Teaching of English, won the 2014 CWPA Outstanding Scholarship Award. His co-edited collection, Race and Writing Assessment (2012), won the 2014 NCTE/CCCC Outstanding Book Award for an edited collection. His book, Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing for a Socially Just Future (2015) won the 2017 NCTE/CCCC Outstanding Book Award for a monograph and the 2015 CWPA Outstanding Book Award. He also has published a co-edited collection, Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and The Advancement of Opportunity (2018), and a book, Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom (2019).
-
Watch the roundtable discussion.
Read the transcript of the roundtable discussion.Organized by Sara DiCaglio (Texas A&M University)
Participants include: Michael Collins, Marian Eide, Marcela Fuentes, Hyunjung Kim, Matthew McKinney, Regina Mills, and Landon Sadler (Texas A&M University)
-
Watch the recording of the Social Justice Matters Panel.
Read the transcript of the Social Justice Matters Panel.Chair: Claire Carly-Miles (Texas A&M University)
Speakers include:Sue Hum presenting "Mentoring Visual Ambassadors to Advocate for Social Justice: Knowledge-Telling and Knowledge-Construction." Hum is associate professor of English at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She specializes in quantitative literacy and visual rhetoric in technical and professional writing contexts. Her latest project investigates the influence of viewing practices and visual design on race and ethnicity. She is co-principal investigator on over $800,000 in grants from the National Science Foundation, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund for diversifying STEM education. Her publications have appeared in journals, including College English, JAC: Journal of Advanced Composition, and Technical Communication Quarterly. Her latest book is Persuading with Numbers: A Primer for Engaging Quantitative Information, (Kona Publishing & Media Group, 2017). She is co-editor of Open Words: Access and English Studies, available through WAC Clearinghouse. She has previously served as the Assistant Dean of Assessment and the Quality Enhancement Plan in the College of Liberal and Fine Arts. In 2015, she received the President’s Distinguished Award for Core Curriculum Teaching. Natasha N. Jones presenting "Citation Practices: Shifting Paradigms." Jones is a technical communication scholar and a co-author of the book Technical Communication after the Social Justice Turn: Building Coalitions for Action (2019). Her research interests include social justice, narrative, and technical communication pedagogy. Her work has been published in a number of journals including, Technical Communication Quarterly, the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, the Journal of Business and Technical Communication, and Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization. She has received national recognition for her work, being awarded the CCCC Best Article in Technical and Scientific Communication (2020, 2018, and 2014) and the Nell Ann Pickett Award (2017). She currently serves as the Vice President for the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) and is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University in the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures department. Jennifer Sano-Franchini presenting "Programmatic Efforts to Address Anti-Blackness in Technical and Professional Writing." Sano-Franchini is Associate Professor of English and Director of Professional and Technical Writing at Virginia Tech. Her research and teaching interests are in the cultural politics of user experience design and Asian American rhetoric. Her publications include articles on Facebook’s interface design, Asian American sonic rhetorics, and emotional labor on the academic job search in journals such as Technical Communication; Rhetoric Review; Enculturation; and Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization.
-
Watch Part 1 of the Workshop.
Watch Part 2 of the Workshop.
Read the transcript of the Workshop.Hosted by Lori Arnold (Texas A&M University)
Presenters include: Janet Cho, Allison-Estrada Carpenter, Gwendolyn Inocencio, Landon Sadler, Edudzi Sallah, and Anneke Snyder (Texas A&M University)
-
Watch dr. vay's Keynote Address.
Read the transcript of dr. vay's Keynote Address.An Interview with: Valerie Balester and Florence Davies (Texas A&M University)
Keynote Address to be given by:Vershawn Ashanti Young, who goes by dr. vay, is a solo performance artist as well as a professor of communication, race, gender, literature, writing, and performance at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He is the author or co-editor of ten books, including the recent This Ain't Yesterday's Literacy: Culture and Education After George Floyd (Fountainhead Press, Jan. 2021), Other People’s English (Parlor Press, 2019), The Routledge Reader of African American Rhetoric (Routledge, 2018), and Neo-Passing: Performing Identity After Jim Crow (University of Illinois Press, 2018). dr. vay regularly tours his one man show "Your Average Nigga," titled after his book-length autobiographical study of Black identity of the same name. He is an equity, diversity and inclusion specialist, providing consulting services to schools and organizations. He is the current chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the largest educational organization dedicated to pedagogies of college communication and writing. Before this keynote address, you may want to:
-
Watch Dr. Vay's Keynote Address.
Read the transcript of Dr. Vay's Keynote Address.Keynote Address to be given by:
Vershawn Ashanti Young, who goes by Dr. Vay, is a solo performance artist as well as a professor of communication, race, gender, literature, writing, and performance at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He is the author or co-editor of ten books, including the recent This Ain't Yesterday's Literacy: Culture and Education After George Floyd (Fountainhead Press, Jan. 2021), Other People’s English (Parlor Press, 2019), The Routledge Reader of African American Rhetoric (Routledge, 2018), and Neo-Passing: Performing Identity After Jim Crow (University of Illinois Press, 2018). Dr. Vay regularly tours his one man show "Your Average Nigga," titled after his book-length autobiographical study of Black identity of the same name. He is an equity, diversity and inclusion specialist, providing consulting services to schools and organizations. He is the current chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the largest educational organization dedicated to pedagogies of college communication and writing. Before this keynote address, you may want to: