Research on deaf writing pedagogies is theoretically and practically underwhelming. This affects deaf students learning to write in higher education and deaf students with additional disabilities, like Autism Spectrum Disorder and Language Deprivation Syndrome. The general problems are: uncritical theory, underdeveloped empiricism, and weak, un-reflexive classroom praxis. This research base is dominated by nondeaf or nondisabled researchers or teachers who generate trivial background information or produce uncritical technician-focused methods, where writing is shown as a value-neutral skill or assessed using standards exogenous to deaf populations' situated needs. In contrast, this chapter critically interprets research and uses autoethnography to describe practical methods about deaf and disabled writers, depicted as capable, creative scholars. The chapter asks and responds to two questions: What does a critical analysis of research on deaf writing pedagogies show about deaf writers and teaching writing to deaf students? And how does autoethnographic praxis-analysis support critical deaf pedagogy?
TopIntroduction: Theoretical Assumptions And Practicalities In Deaf Research
Research on deaf writing pedagogies is theoretically and practically underwhelming. This statement characterizes general research about deaf students learning to write in higher education. It also exemplifies research about deaf students with additional disabilities, like Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), deaf blindness, emotional or behavioral disabilities, and Language Deprivation Syndrome (LDS), among others (Skyer, 2021). The general problem is exacerbated by a combination of baseless assumptions, uncritical theory (Mayer, 2016), and underdeveloped empiricism (Swanwick, 2012). It results in weak, un-reflexive praxis that, as some research shows, negatively affects classroom-based pedagogical practices for teachers and learning experiences for students (Hunter 2015).
In the absence of adequate research on deaf-centric writing pedagogy, it is necessary to write it.
This chapter is organized with two primary questions. Both function as heuristics toward synthesizing research about teaching deaf writers. First, What does a critical analysis of research on deaf writing pedagogies show about deaf writers and teaching writing to deaf students? The first goal of my chapter is to interpret the growing research base and highlight strong studies about deaf writing pedagogy. To do this, I found it necessary to illustrate a profusion of gaps and problems. Hence, a second methodological inquiry is needed: How does autoethnographic praxis-analysis support the development of deaf critical writing pedagogies? The chapter’s second aim is to empirically assess autoethnographic data and findings sourced from my own teaching and curriculum-development as one means to support classroom teachers and spur new research efforts to fill some of the identified gaps.
To adequately answer both queries, it’s necessary to expel deficit theorizing about deafness and reject detrimental or pathological ideologies about disability (Skyer, 2020; Vygotsky, 1993). Therefore, I subsume my arguments about teaching writing to deaf and deaf and disabled students within positive, prosocial theories about deafness like deaf epistemologies and deaf ontologies (Hauser et al, 2010; Kusters, De Meulder, & O’Brien, 2017). At the head and again throughout the chapter, I highlight educational forms of deaf gain (Bauman & Murray, 2014; Skyer, 2015; 2018). These theories variously emphasize that deaf writers are capable, creative, and critical individuals who are valid artists, rhetors, and scholars.Then, using these stances as springboard, I endeavor to illuminate practical teaching methods I’ve uncovered working with diverse deaf students that enhance these innate traits.