Racial Literacy

Writing Counterstories: Ways to Challenge Dominant Narratives in FYC

Anti-Racist Pedagogy, cultural awareness, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity, Racial Literacy, rhetoric, rhetorical appeals and argument, rhetorical situation, Volume 7 /

Sana Sayed Volume 7 Chapter Description This chapter draws from Aja Martinez’s concept of counterstories as a rhetorical research methodology in rhetoric and writing studies and encourages you, a first year writing student, to draw upon your experiential knowledge to both challenge and reframe master narratives that are accepted by the majority. In first-year composition […]

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Using Reflection and Metacognition to Develop Your Half Essay

critical thought and analysis, drafting and revising, Racial Literacy, reflection, Writing Transfer /

Lindsay Knisely Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description I created an exercise for first-year writing students titled “Using Reflection and Metacognition to Develop Your Half Essay” because I wanted my students to use reflection recursively, as a tool to strengthen the analysis in their essays while they were still engaged in writing the essays themselves.

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Personal and Cultural Identity Through Food: A Multimodal Cultural Cookbook

Assignments, collaboration and group work, cultural awareness, identity, prewriting and invention, Racial Literacy, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Andrea Janelle Dickens Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description The first year of college offers ample opportunities for students to think about identity. Students are in a new school, and sometimes in a new city or country. They are meeting new people. This gives them the chance to think about who they are, and the

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What Color Is My Voice? Academic Writing and the Myth of Standard English

Anti-Racist Pedagogy, narrative and storytelling, Racial Literacy, Volume 5 /

Kristin DeMint Bailey, An Ha, & Anthony J. Outlar Volume 5 Chapter Description In this chapter, a community college writing professor and two of her first-year writing students collaboratively address the issue of Whiteness in academic writing. Specifically, we challenge the notion that academic language is neutral as well as the expectation that all academic

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Exploring Ideology in Written Language: A Translingual Approach

Activities, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity, Racial Literacy, translingualism, writing in global contexts /

Alex Way Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description There are power dynamics at play in spoken and written language. Language is wielded by people and institutions to exert power over others or to maintain the power they already possess. But power dynamics in language are not always obvious. For instance, one manifestation of power dynamics

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Literacy Autobiography

Anti-Racist Pedagogy, Assignments, critical thought and analysis, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity, narrative and storytelling, Racial Literacy, translingualism /

Anita Chaudhuri & Subrata Bhowmik Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description Writing a personal narrative assignment is commonplace in first year composition classrooms and the proposed assignment presents it as a literacy autobiography (LA) which can, according to Canagarajah, focus on individual learning journeys and underline “in-between identities and discourses” (p. 13). The transnational identities

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Non-standardized Grammar Assignment

Anti-Racist Pedagogy, Assignments, critical thought and analysis, grammar and mechanics, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity, narrative and storytelling, prewriting and invention, Racial Literacy /

Cheyenne Franklin Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description “… dont nobody’s language, dialect, or style make them ‘vulnerable to prejudice.’ It’s ATTITUDES” (Young 110). Vershawn Ashanti Young, along with Asao Inoue, Geneva Smitherman, and more recently April Baker-Bell, have long fought against oppressive language standards in education. It is not enough, they have jointly argued,

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Writing Science in the First Year of College: Why It Matters to STEM Students and How STEM Students Benefit from It

genre and discourse community, Racial Literacy, STEM, Volume 5, writing across the curriculum /

Chris Thaiss and Stephanie Wade Volume 5 Chapter Description This essay aims to help students who have interests in STEM fields make the most of their first year by showing them how to find opportunities to explore STEM topics in typical first-year writing classes, as well as in the STEM courses they will take, and

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Writing toward Racial Literacy

Anti-Racist Pedagogy, Racial Literacy /

Mara Lee Grayson Volume 4 Chapter Description Curricula that engage students in reading and writing about race and racism are increasingly common in composition classrooms, but writing about race, even when guided by an instructor well-versed in critical race theory and critical pedagogy, isn’t easy. Racial literacy requires that students develop a discursive toolbox with

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