Crafting accessible writing pedagogies: disability knowledge and technē in writing
Date
2023
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Using a disability lens to study how teachers craft accessible writing pedagogies, this dissertation examines rhetorical strategies of access-making, or a technē of access. Technē is often associated with craft, skill, and how-to knowledge within the classical rhetorical tradition; meanwhile, access is a process of rhetorical making that determines participation. The technē of access model forwarded in this dissertation traces how teachers develop and implements accessible writing pedagogies. This work builds on the scholarship, activism, and lived experiences of writing teachers who advocate for accessibility in all writing pedagogy. At its core, the project offers a technē of access model to forward multiple entry points for teachers to craft accessible writing pedagogies. ☐ Implementing narrative inquiry methodology, this study incorporates data collected from twenty qualitative interviews with ten teachers of writing. The study design and data analysis incorporate a critical definition of technē to focus on the embodied and relational ways teachers act as access-makers. During data analysis, critical technē focused attention on theories and practices of making as well as the “arrangements of knowing and making” that influence access-knowledge (Hamraie 5). Drawing on teachers’ narratives about crafting accessible writing pedagogies, three types of making emerged: 1) making space, 2) making sense, and 3) making sure. This triad of making represents how a technē of access intervenes in and articulates the rhetorical knowledge and strategies responsible for disability knowledge in writing instruction. ☐ This study demonstrates that disability knowledge is a lens for thinking about and making accessible pedagogies from a transdisciplinary perspective to writing instruction. Furthermore, this study values disability knowledge to articulate, perceive, interpret, identify, disrupt, intervene, and interact with normative writing pedagogies to engage socially just responsibilities for accessible and inclusive learning experiences. Ultimately, this dissertation presents stories and commitments to access-making through writing. “Crafting Accessible Writing Pedagogies” contends that a technē of access model encourages questions of access and making that shape how writing studies scholars, teachers, technical communicators, professional writers, and program administrators think of writing and its participation in processes of access, inclusion, and equity.
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Keywords
Accessibility, Disability, Writing pedagogy, Rhetorical making