Last updated on November 26, 2023
Autistic students and their parents contact me all-too-often about writing courses at colleges and universities. For some reason, writing pedagogies (the theories and methods instructors embrace) prove particularly problematic for students with disabilities. Writing courses are tailored for the “normal” students, those without any physical, cognitive, or mental health challenges.
Much of what we do that is poorly designed for the disabled is the result of good intentions for the average student. The most discriminatory of activities and lessons is often justified by a lot of research and theory… grounded in the needs of students perceived as representative of average and normal. Teachers seldom intend to create barriers or to discriminate, yet that is the end result of poor activity and assignment choices.
Time-based activities and assignment are serious problems for the disabled. We know this, yet many teachers resist adapting their classes to reduce the discriminatory nature of time-based work.
(The following summary by Virginia Anderson):
Reviewing scholarship in composition on “the intersection of disability studies (DS) and composition studies” (261), Wood notes that writing theorists have long been concerned about access but, in some cases, may have assumed that the process- and discussion-oriented pedagogies common to most writing classes do not pose the same problems as do lecture-based classes with heavy test-taking components (261). Wood contends that such assumptions elide the myriad ways that time affects students with disabilities in composition classes (261). Wood’s premise is that “time” as structured in writing classrooms reflects largely unexamined ideologies of normativity and ableism.
Pedagogies emerge from experience and the inherited wisdom of the past. New research emerges, yet we are slow to integrate suggestions that are too radical into our courses. Writing is taught much as it was in the 1980s, protestations from within the field aside. Writing courses are often taught by non-tenure track instructors, graduate assistants, and adjuncts with little time (or authority) to improve instructional practices. Writing is taught by a community short on time, resources, and security. Whatever works well enough is what remains in writing courses. We teach to the middle and hope for the best.
Over thirty or forty years, and largely since WWII in the United States, writing has adopted a process-based approach. Define your topic, develop questions, conduct research, refine the topic some more, outline, reorganize, draft, revise… and eventually there is a final paper following an artificial process that is intended to naturalize and internalize whatever a good writing process must be.
I despise many of our activities because I understood their limitations through personal experience. Firsthand recognition of problems should not be discounted as anecdotal, which is why qualitative research should inform later quantitative research. Examples of writing process issues my firsthand experiences foreground:
- Partial paralysis limits my physical writing speed, so time-based issues become a battle against a disabled body.
- Mobility issues with my back and legs make movement about a space difficult some days.
- Cognitive challenges slow my decoding speed, causing me to read extremely slowly compared to peers.
- Communication challenges associated with autism slow my interactions in peer groups.
These are only some examples. The design of most writing courses alienates students with one or more disabilities. I recently composed the following paragraph for a conference proposal:
“When Process is Ableist: Well-Intentioned Obstacles to Inclusive Courses”
Many well-intentioned strategies for teaching process create exclusionary barriers for students with special needs. Every activity should be accessible for those with challenges of mobility, hearing, vision, and cognition. Instructors must also demonstrate awareness of “invisible” disabilities, including dyslexia, autism, anxiety, PTSD, and other differences. As consultant evaluating complaints of students and disability services, the speaker has observed how common writing class activities led to trauma and conflicts. Required writing courses become barriers to otherwise successful college experiences.
We need to design our courses with broader perspectives of what constitutes a normal college writing student. Returning to Anderson’s overview of Tara Wood’s research:
Quoting Margaret Price, Wood says of “crip time” that it is “a concept in disability culture that ‘refers to a flexible approach to normative time frames’” (264). As an attitude toward time, it “avoid[s] rigidity and lower[s] the stakes of writing” (270). Wood distinguishes such an approach from the kinds of responses to disability most common in academic settings, which focus on individual and sometimes “ad hoc” solutions (263) burdened by connection with “medical and legal models” (262). Wood presents crip time as a more systemic, philosophical response to the complexities presented by disability.
Unfortunately, I don’t embrace negative terms like “crip” and find “crip time” is insulting, but I realize this is only my perspective. I do not wish to be “crip” or “gimp” or anything else. No thank you. As with the autism community, I am not part of this “disability culture” mentioned by Wood in her reference to Margaret Price. Yet more segregation doesn’t appeal to me. When we segregate ourselves, we reinforce some negative stereotypes. (There is a difference between segregating and collaborating, too.)
I’ve had teachers tell me I didn’t need accommodations. The other extreme would be those teachers suggesting the accommodation of an online course. Basically, the end result is “out of sight, out of mind” for the disabled student.
Teachers need to think more inclusively from the moment they start to plan a syllabus. Every activity, every lesson, every assignment, and every outcome should offer an equal opportunity for success, dependent on student effort. Writing courses are not like other courses, because college composition is required of all students regardless of major program. A teacher can argue that a video production class doesn’t accommodate vision impairments, but you cannot argue that writing pedagogy should be inflexibly based on an ideal body and mind.
Too often, writing teachers play therapist, a problem I’ve commented on in various forums. The idea that forcing a student to complete a task becomes celebrated. I’m sorry, but what if that student physically cannot write quickly on a piece of paper during a class session? You cannot speed up a body to meet an artificial notion of what the right number of words per minute might be. Timed writing essays are inherently discriminatory, no matter the pedagogical argument in favor of “thinking quickly.” Sorry, but thinking and physical output might not correlate.
Timed tasks need to be carefully reconsidered and redesigned.
For Wood, the assumption that individual fixes devised by disability-service offices are adequate is one of several flawed approaches. She found a subset of instructors who deferred to the expertise of disability professionals rather than expressing a willingness to negotiate with students (271). Similarly, she reports a “disability myth” that students given extra time for assignments will “take advantage of an accommodation,” creating a situation that isn’t “fair to other students” (263). In contrast, the study explores students’ conflicted responses to the need for accommodation and the “pedagogical fallout” that can result (269). Wood also discusses “the tacit curative imaginaries” that cast disability as a “disease or illness” (270) and its correction as “compulsory,” with “able-bodiedness as the ultimate, ever-desirable end” (264).
Wood’s account focuses specifically on two components of writing classes, timed in-class writing and time requirements for assignments. Her interviewees reported on how their disabilities made producing “spontaneous” writing within set boundaries (267) a source of serious anxiety, which, in the views of some scholars, has itself been defined as an illness that “teachers must ‘treat’” (270). Wood quotes Alison Kafer to argue that teachers must become aware that their normative expectations for “how long things take” are “based on very particular minds and bodies” (268). In Wood’s view, crip time applies a sensitivity to difference to such assumptions (264).
I’m going to submit a series of posts on the topic of disability and writing courses because rhetoric and composition are both doing a poor job of helping students with challenges succeed. Our classes have a history of gatekeeping through the maintenance of race, class, gender, and disability stereotypes. Meanwhile, the professional icons make too many references to social justice and advocacy without implementing foundational changes within our disciplines.