Mission
To foster a university-wide and long-term conversation on the foundational role of writing for university students.
To provide faculty with resources they need to support the inclusive teaching of writing in their respective contexts.
Goal
To provide theoretical and research-based information, practical applications, and student lived experiences that can help faculty to do the work of inclusive writing instruction.
History
In 2021, Laila Ferreira and Rebecca Carruthers den Hoed put out a call to faculty and staff across the University of British Columbia who were committed to teaching writing in a way that was inclusive and responsive to student diversity. Out of those initial meetings, they spearheaded a working group who grappled with the purpose of student writing in university classes, why it is necessary to teach writing inclusively, and what inclusive writing instruction means for instructors and students. Key themes from those conversations included the following:
- Writing and the teaching of writing often has a gatekeeping function—it celebrates certain experiences & knowledge and excludes others
- Instructors often assume students already understand the writing expectations in their fields
- Students often assume there is one ‘correct’ way to write in the academy
- Writing and the teaching of writing is a strategic location to critically evaluate and address institutional and disciplinary injustices
- A commitment to antiracism, decolonization, and disability justice necessitates inclusive and accessible writing instruction in all classrooms
These discussions led to the development of ten key characteristics of inclusive writing instruction and a successful Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) application. This was used to further refine the characteristics, develop a website and accompanying resources, pilot these resources in UBC classrooms, and assess their impact on instructors and students.
The current website is the result of many months of collaborative research and writing, resource development, and designing by the project’s core faculty team, student team members, and UBC’s Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology (CTLT), Indigenous Initiatives, and Arts Instructional Support and Information Technology (Arts ISIT) staff. All aspects of the project have been piloted in classrooms, assessed by instructors and students, and finalized in consultation with the project’s advisory committee.
Get involved
We are eager to hear about your experiences with the website and/or the application of inclusive writing instruction in your classrooms. We would be interested in adding these to the use cases and resources.
In addition, we can tailor workshops on the inclusive teaching of writing for your department or unit.
Please use this contact form to reach out to us for any of the above.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this project provided by UBC Vancouver students via the Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund.