The Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics Speaker Series in the English Department is welcoming Professor Asao Inoue of Arizona State University for a workshop on Friday, November 5, 2021, from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm.

Workshop: “Bravely Challenging Our White Language Supremacy in Our Assessments of Student Writing”

This workshop will challenge participants to bravely investigate their own classroom assessment practices, particularly their orientations toward student writing as embodied in their feedback to that writing. The workshop will consider habits of White language that inform assessment practices in our own classrooms as well the White supremacy culture that shapes those same courses. We’ll pause to reflect upon sample feedback on a student paper that participants bring from a past course of theirs. Participants should bring to the workshop one sample paper with their feedback or assessments to the student on it or attached, and any materials or handouts the teacher provided students that explain the assignment. This should demonstrate the typical kind of feedback the teacher provides. This workshop asks participants to be brave in the ways that Arao and Clemens describe “brave spaces” for doing antiracist work and to be compassionate to themselves and their colleagues. Participants will get a handout of resources. Anyone who teaches or evaluates writing at UTK is encouraged to attend.