Research

My scholarship asks:  What is the relationship between writing and justice in the lives of service and care-workers? And how can students experience just writing instruction across transitions from High School to college to work?  

Research about Service and Care-work 

I use participatory and ethnographic research methods to value essential workers’ literacies and knowledges. Through this work, I have collaborated with writers who are also high school English teachers, student employees, university janitorial staff, day care providers and parents. 

Research about Teaching 

I have been collaborating with students to co-lead class workshops based on students’ lived experience. These lessons are designed to center and leverage their literacy experiences and expertise learned outside of the classroom context. 

My current project connects transitions from high school and college through dual enrollment. It involves a collaboration between K-12 concurrent enrollment, 2-year, and 4-year colleges to work toward vertical writing alignment that supports all student success.

Sample Publications 

Reflections: A Journal of Community Engaged Writing

The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics

The Community Literacy Journal

Inside Higher Education

Funding 

My research has been supported by The Spencer Education Foundation, the University of Denver Center for Community Engagement to Support Scholarship and Learning, The Faculty Research Fund at DU, and 4-D.  

Teaching

I design learning environments to center students’ lived experiences with writing, language, and accessibility. 

I began my career as a K-12 special educator and my courses draw from that experienece to leverage creative and qualitative methods that simultaneously investigate how writing can be used to reproduce, challenge, and reimagine injustice.

Courses

WRIT 1122: Writing and Language Justice

In this course, we question what good writing is, who decides, and who benefits. We experiment with genres like dedications, interview poems, and speculative nonfiction using multiple languages and multiple modes. Drawing from artists, organizers, and students as well as traditions like Black Feminism, Chicana Feminism and Disability Justice, we work together imagine a more just future.

WRIT 1133: Writing and Researching for Access 

In this course, we leverage our own experiences and the experiences of people we care about to study access and Disability Justice through accesible research methods. We draw from the work of disability justice scholars and activists to leverage our data and narrate a more accessible and just future. 

Workshops 

I faciliate writing workshops about accessible and inclusive pedagogies.