Rhetorical Education & Religious IdentitiesThe question of how evangelical Christians engage in academic writing and how best to teach them to participate in academic inquiry and prepare them for civic engagement have been widely discussed in the field of rhetoric and writing studies, with scholars such as Shannon Carter, Michael-John DePalma, and Jeffrey Ringer arguing that religious discourses and literacies can be resources for students, not merely constraints. However, studies of undergraduate writers have not yet adequately addressed the influence of “the secular” on students’ academic writing and rhetorical development.
My book, Evangelical Writing in a Secular Imaginary, addresses the question of how the secular both constrains and supports undergraduates’ academic writing with special attention to how it shapes social identities, perceptions of academic genres, and discursive choices. Specifically, this project draws on qualitative interviews with evangelical undergraduates at a public university and qualitative document analysis of their writing for college, grounded in scholarship from social theory, writing studies, sociology of religion, rhetorical theory, and social psychology, to describe the multiple ways these evangelicals participate in the secular imaginary that is the public university through their academic writing. I argue that the conception of a “secular imaginary” provides an explanatory framework for examining the lived experiences and academic writing of religious students in American institutions of higher education. By examining the power of the secular imaginary on academic writers, this project offers rhetorical educators a more robust vocabulary that makes visible the complex social forces shaping our students’ experiences with writing. |
Affirming & Inclusive Education for Neurodivergent StudentsI am thrilled to be part of a multi-institutional research team focused on the educational experiences of neurodivergent undergraduates. As part of the 2024 – 2026 Research Seminar on Affirming and Inclusive Engaged Learning for Neurodivergent Students, facilitated through Elon University's Center for Engaged Learning, my colleagues and I will use qualitative and quantitative methods to study systems, supports, pathways, and pipelines for neurodivergent students to facilitate access to and participation in high-quality engaged learning experiences.
|