Stephanie Wade

Coda: Community Writing + Creative Work

Just as musical codas persist beyond the end of musical work, Coda–a new section of the Community Literacy Journal devoted to creative writing–offers  space for the representation of the lingering effects of community engagement, public engagement, and activism. Coda publishes creative writing in a range of genres and voices in a move to expand conversations about writing studies, to document and preserve the work of community writing, and to encourage more creative writing. Please see our website for more information.

Poetry Sunday

An Ecological Approach to Antiracist Writing Instruction

As a part of a team of white writing program administrators at a primarily white liberal arts college that prioritizes the recruitment of and support for students from minoritized backgrounds, I developed and adopted an ecological approach to antiracist writing instruction that distributes antiracist theory and practices through multiple channels on campus and off campus in curricular and co-curricular programs. We enacted this approach by integrating antiracist research, pedagogy, and practices into our course for tutor training; our in-semester support for writing tutors; our contributions to new faculty orientation; our ongoing support for continuing faculty development; and our participation in campus-wide, local, and national and community events. The results of these efforts included student research, support from our Office of Equity and Inclusion, support from our Dean of Faculty, and attention from student and staff news outlets, which has raised awareness of the need for antiracist approaches to writing instruction and contributed to changes in practice and the Martinson Award for Innovation from the Small Liberal Arts Consortium of WPA. More details here.

The Almanac of Garden Writing

Over the past seven years I have been designing and teaching community-engaged classes that focus on food justice and educational equity.

In these classes, college and K-12 students worked together in school and community gardens; they wrote together; and in the most recent classes, the college students developed research projects and engaged in public writing that serves community needs.

From these experiences, I have collaborated with colleagues to create the Almanac of Garden Writing-a series of writing prompts that align with seasonal gardening projects. The next step of the project will be a publication template, so groups using the prompts can publish and share their garden-based writing. More here.