2/1/2020: “Relating Our Experiences” by Christina V. Cedillo and Phil Bratta

Today’s #AntiAbleistComposition feature is “Relating Our Experiences: The Practice of Positionality in Student-Centered Pedagogy” by Christina V. Cedillo and Phil Bratta.

Cedillo, Christina V. and Phil Bratta. “Relating Our Experiences: The Practice of Positionality in Student-Centered Pedagogy.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 71, no. 2, 2019, pp 215-240.

From the article:

“[W]e believe that teachers also have important stories to tell about their own experiences, especially those from marginalized or disadvantaged backgrounds that reflect those of their students. And, we believe that by sharing their stories, teachers can help students understand composition as a process of establishing relationships through language rather than a matter of producing prescribed texts.” (217)

Christina V. Cedillo, Ph.D. is as an Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric. She graduated from Texas A&M University in 2011 with her doctorate in English, specializing in rhetoric and composition. Her research focuses on the role of embodiment in communication, particularly in relation to race, gender, and disability. She also examines how mainstream teaching practices affect students from minoritized populations to consider how we can make education more inclusive of people from all cultures. Dr. Cedillo is also the Lead Editor of the Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics.

Phil Bratta an assistant professor in the Department of English at Oklahoma State University. His research uses an interdisciplinary approach to digital-visual rhetorics, cultural rhetorics, embodiment, rhetorics of activism and art, digital writing and technology use, and pedagogy. He has published or has forthcoming work in edited collections and journals, including College Composition and Communication, Computers and Composition, Feminist Teacher, Enculturation, Visual Culture and Gender, and The Journal of American Culture. Bratta has also been involved with a number of (art) activist projects: PACT (Public Action for Today), The Cradle Project, One Million Bones, and #midwesthungeris.