Art Ableism An Accessibility Analysis of Writing Center
Art & Ableism An Accessibility Analysis of Writing Center Pedagogy, Conferences, and Publications
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3 Art & Ableism
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5 Access for the Masses • Broad understanding of accessibility • Focus on reaching larger audience
6 Examples of Broad Access • Social media for sharing artwork • Traveling exhibits • Classroom art presentations
7 Access for the Disabled • Do the social media posts provide image descriptions of the art? • Are the traveling art exhibits wheelchair accessible? • Are the classroom presentations available in sign language?
8 Focused Accessibility • Considers those with disabilities specifically • Actively works against ableism
9 Lennard Davis (2018) Ableism is “the insistence on being normal and the accompanying conscious or unconscious discrimination against disabled people. Ableism is like racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination. ” (p. 5)
10 Jay Dolmage (2018) In an ableist society, “barriers are created that impede the ability of disabled people to participate, live fully, join the public conversation, and determine their own lives. ” (p. 33)
11 Photo Credit: Hollingworth (2008)
12 George Wurtzel “I have been told not to touch sculptures that were fully intended to be outside in the elements where the pigeons can shit on ‘em. I am absolutely convinced that I am less of an encumbrance to the long-term existence of that piece that pigeon shit is. ” (qtd. in Cantor Fine Art, 2016)
The Vessel 13 (Crook, 2019)
14 (Sara, 2019)
15 Session Outline
16 Groups to Be Discussed 1. Teachers 2. Artists and Artisans 3. Organizations
17 1. Teachers
18 (Sara, 2019)
19 Writing Center Pedagogy 1. Read out loud 2. Give indirect feedback 3. Avoid editing
20 Contradiction of Values • Claim to value individualized instruction and student agency • Teach limited practices and contexts that dissociate learning from individuality, ability, and disability
21 1. Reading Out Loud • Values verbal communication, ability to hear, and ability to recognize errors orally • Should be negotiated (Babcock, 2008 b; Yabe, 2018)
22 2. Indirect Feedback • Conflicts with Deaf culture (Babcock, 2012) • Is not preferred by students in research studies (Hewett, 2015; Peguesse, 2013)
23 3. Anti-Editing Policies • Are discriminatory (Babcock, 2008 a, 2012) • Ignore that scholars and professionals learn from hands-on editing (Rafoth, 2016; Shamoon & Burns, 1995).
24 4. Face-to-Face Services • Place burden of physical presence
Some Students and Tutors May… ● ● ● 25 Navigate in non-normative time frames Encounter inaccessible pathways and buildings on their way to the writing center Concentrate better in familiar or private locations Have difficulty leaving their homes on any given day Prefer an appointment through technology
26 Art Blogger “the assumption looms large that passion and dedication imply working 24/7 and being ready and able to ignore such basic needs as eating or sleeping” (sdankwa, 2015)
27 Disclosure • Accommodations require disclosure • Disclosure requires selfidentification, costly tests, and lack of privacy (Dolmage, 2017; Kleinfield, 2018)
28 Kerri Rinaldi (2015) “What my disability is, quite frankly, is none of your business. ”
29 Tutor Training • Introduce a range of strategies • Encourage flexibility and creativity • Discuss disability and accessibility as core concepts • Teach “access-as-practice” (Price, 2011)
30 Teaching Agenda Setting • Assign articles by Rinaldi (2015) and Yabe (2018) • Discuss negotiation strategies from the perspective of deaf tutors • Recognize disability and disabled tutors
31 Inclusion Assignment • Assign Kleinfield’s (2018) article and inclusion analysis assignment • Ask tutors to locate barriers in their writing center, larger institution, local community, or local art museum
32 Avoid Readings That… • Describe disability with negative language • Encourage tutors to diagnose students • Suggest certain practices are only beneficial to specific disabilities or impairments
33 2. Artists & Artisans
34 Andrew Myers (part 1) “Probably about 6 years ago, 5 years ago, I had created one of these screw pieces. And there was a blind man at a show that walked up to my booth. And someone was walking him around and describing the art to him. And I thought, ‘Well, you know, that’s not fair. ’ … (continued on next slide)
35 Andrew Myers (part 2) … And I didn’t tell him what it was. And he walked up to it and put his hand on this piece and started feeling it. And all of a sudden, he got this huge smile on his face. ” (qtd. in Cantor Fine Art, 2016)
Too Many Writing Center Articles… ● ● 36 Portray disability in negative and problematic ways Don’t recognize disabled people as an audience For example: Corrigan, 1997; Faerm, 1992; Hewett, 2000; Mc. Donald, 2008; Mullin, 1994; Neff, 1994; Schmidt, Bunse, Dalton, Perry, & Rau, 2009; Schramm, 1991; Sisk, 2001
Problematic Discussions Include… ● ● ● Generalizing about disability Not including disabled perspectives Listing characteristics to diagnose students Describing sessions with disabled students as something to be feared or frustrated by Discussing disability without citing disability scholarship, or any scholarship 37
38 Researchers • Include disabled voices in all areas of research • Challenge and disprove assumptions, rather than create new ones • Design studies to be accessible to disabled participants • Actively recruit disabled participants
39 Conference Presenters • Expect disabled tutors and professionals to attend • Design for verbal and visual communicators and learners
Presentation Ideas ● ● ● Print full written transcripts Verbally describe images in slideshows Clarify the beginning and ending of quotations Choose videos with edited closed captions Put materials online for download Design materials to be used by screenreaders 40
41 Access Advocates • Visit the Composing Access Project (2019)
42 3. Organizations
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45 Art Organizations • 3 D printing historical paintings • Hosting tactile tours • Displaying signs in large print and braille (Dupere, 2016; Urist, 2016)
46 Conference Organizers • Place responsibility of access on disabled attendees (see Price, 2009) • Expect disabled attendees to disclose disabilities and request accommodations
But Organizers Aren’t Expected to… ● ● 47 Book wheelchair-accessible buildings and rooms Distribute screenreader-friendly conference materials Add edited closed captions to their videos Provide transcripts or real-time transcriptions for keynote speakers
48 Journal Editors • Design digital presence for nondisabled scholars • Prioritize aesthetics over accessibility in their reliance on PDF documents
49 PDF Documents • Often less accessible than Word documents and HTML webpages • Are the writing center equivalent of the “do-nottouch” sign
50 Scanned PDFs • Don’t allow for selecting or searching text • Can’t be read by screenreaders or similar technologies (Society for Disability Studies, 2016)
51 Writing Lab Newsletter • 44% (165 out of 371) of PDFs are scanned images • 46% (18 out of 39) of articles on disability are in scanned PDFs
52 Writing Center Journal • Has closed access archive • Restricts information based on finances or institutional affiliation
53 Praxis • Provides first 8 volumes through a program called ISSUU, which is not screenreader friendly (Demirgian, 2018)
54 Editors and Reviewers • Publish and distribute the problematic articles we discussed earlier • Give credibility to ableism
Recent Articles Have… (part 1) ● ● ● 55 Labeled experiences with disabled students as “frustrating and unsatisfying” (Hewett, 2000, p. 1) Described a visually impaired student as “masterful at manipulating” (Sisk, 2001, p. 7). Associated mental illness with violence and shootings (Mc. Donald, 2008)
Recent Articles Have… (part 2) ● 56 Warned that when working with a deaf student for the first time, “fear may overtake your ability to read, speak, and think like a writing consultant” (Schmidt, Bunse, Dalton, Perry, & Rau, 2009, p. 9)
57 Ideas for Journals • Recruit journal reviewers and editors with a knowledge of disability • Prioritize usability for disabled readers
Publications in Disability Studies ● ● ● Disability Studies Quarterly has published its issues in HTML since 2000 Curriculum Transformation and Disability is available as a PDF and Word documents Academic Ableism is available in print and in HTML 58
59 Ideas for Conferences • Form local accessibility committees • Seek advice from disabled students, tutors, or community members, as well as local disability support centers
60 Disability Committee • • Advise IWCA on accessibility Create accessibility guides Host SIG on disability Create online conference opportunities
61 Conclusion
62 Is Our Art Accessible? • Can’t answer with simple “yes” or “no” • Must consistently find ways to increase focused accessibility, as a shared responsibility
63 Teachers’ Responsibility ● ● ● Revise local pedagogy Incorporate disability into tutor training Invite more disabled tutors
64 Artists’ Responsibility ● ● Better consider disability in scholarship Invite more disabled voices into our work
65 Organizations’ Responsibility ● ● ● Ensure more accessible conferences and publications Distribute less problematic work Invite more disabled scholars to positions of leadership
66 Jay Dolmage (2017) “ableism is everywhere. [. . . ] we are all responsible for looking for it, recognizing our roles in its circulation, and seeking change. ” (p. 31)
67 Suggested Readings
Suggested Readings (part 1) ● ● ● 68 Babcock, R. D. (2008). Outlaw tutoring: Editing and proofreading revisited. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 38(2), 63 -70. Babcock, R. D. (2012). Tell me how it reads: Tutoring deaf and hearing students in the writing center. Gallaudet University Press: Washington, DC. Cobrin, P. , & Quinby, S. (2017). Project OWL (Options in Writing and Learning): Exploring attitudinal, programmatic, and physical access for students with disabilities. In R. D. Babcock & S. Daniels (Eds. ), Writing centers and disability (pp. 277 -304). Fountainhead Press. Davis, L. J. (Ed. ) (2018). Beginning with disability: A primer. Routledge: New York, NY. Dolmage, J. T. (2017). Academic ableism: Disability and higher education. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI.
Suggested Readings (part 2) ● ● ● 69 Elston, M. M. (2015). Psychological disability and the director’s chair: Interrogating the relationship between positionality and pedagogy. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 13(1). Greoneveld, S. (2011). It begins with a mentality: Disability and the writing center. Another Word. Higbee, J. L. (Ed. ) (2003). Curriculum transformation and disability (CTAD): Implementing Universal Design in higher education. University of Minnesota. Hitt, A. (2012). Access for all: The role of dis/ability in multiliteracy centers. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 9(2). Hitt, A. (2012). #iwca 2. 0: The need to diagnose. Accessing Rhetoric.
Suggested Readings (part 3) ● ● ● 70 Hitt, A. (2017). Foreword. In R. D. Babcock & S. Daniels (Eds. ), Writing centers and disability (pp. vii-x). Fountainhead Press. Kiedaisch, J. , & Dinitz, S. (2007). Changing notions of difference in the writing center: The possibilities of Universal Design. The Writing Center Journal, 27(2), 39 -59. Kleinfeld, E. (2018). Taking an expansive view of accessibility: The writing center at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Composition Forum, 39. Konrad, A. (2014). What I’ve learned from working with blind and visually impaired writers. Another Word. Konrad, A. (2016). Access as a lens for peer tutoring. Another Word.
Suggested Readings (part 4) ● ● 71 Lewiecki-Wilson, C. , & Brueggemann, B. J. (Eds. ) (2008). Disability and the teaching of writing: A critical sourcebook. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Mucek, S. A. (2017). Identity and disabled tutors: The possibilities of reconstructing selfhood in peer writing conferences. In R. D. Babcock & S. Daniels (Eds. ), Writing centers and disability (pp. 105 -128). Fountainhead Press. Price, M. (2011). Mad at school: Rhetorics of mental disability and academic life. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI. Rinaldi, K. (2015). Disability in the writing center: A new approach (that’s not so new). Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 13(1).
Suggested Readings (part 5) ● ● 72 Ryan, H. , Miller, G. O. , & Steinhart, S. E. (2017). Informed practices: Destabilizing institutional barriers in the writing center. In R. D. Babcock & S. Daniels (Eds. ), Writing centers and disability (pp. 257 -276). Fountainhead Press. Yabe, M. (2018). The journey of a deaf translingual writer. Writing on the Edge, 28(2), 73 -85.
73 References
References (part 1) ● ● ● 74 Babcock, R. D. (2008 a). Outlaw tutoring: Editing and proofreading revisited. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 38(2), 63 -70. Babcock, R. D. (2008 b). Tutoring deaf college students in the writing center. In C. Lewiecki-Wilson & B. J. Brueggemann (Eds. ), Disability and the teaching of writing: A critical sourcebook (pp. 28 -39). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Babcock, R. D. (2012). Tell me how it reads: Tutoring deaf and hearing students in the writing center. Gallaudet University Press: Washington, DC. Cantor Fine Art. (2016). Please touch the art [video]. Composing Access Project. (2019). Composing access: An invitation to creating accessible events.
References (part 2) ● ● ● 75 Conference on College Composition & Communication (CCCC). (2019). Committee on Disability Issues. Corrigan, J. (1997). A guide for writing tutors working with dyslexic writers. Writing Lab Newsletter, 21(10), 1 -3. Crook, L. (2019). Thomas Heatherwick designed the Vessel to "bring people together. " dezeen. Davis, L. J. (2018). Introduction. In L. J. Davis (Ed. ), Beginning with disability: A primer (pp. 3 -14). Routledge: New York, NY. Demirgian, A. (2018). The issue with ISSUU: A full-screen reader is not a screen reader.
References (part 3) ● ● ● 76 Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ). (2019). Archives. Dolmage, J. T. (2017). Academic ableism: Disability and higher education. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI. Dolmage, J. (2018). Disability rhetoric. In L. J. Davis (Ed. ), Beginning with disability: A primer (pp. 28 -36). Routledge: New York, NY. Dupere, K. (2016). 5 innovative ways art is becoming more accessible to the blind community. Mashable. Faerm, E. (1992). Tutoring Anne: A case study. Writing Lab Newsletter, 16(7), 9 -10. Hewett, B. L. (2000). Helping students with learning disabilities: Collaboration between writing centers and special services. Writing Lab Newsletter, 25(3), 15.
References (part 4) ● ● ● 77 Hewett, B. L. (2015). The online writing conference: A guide for teachers and tutors. Bedford/St. Martin’s: Boston, MA. Higbee, J. L. (Ed. ) (2003). Curriculum transformation and disability (CTAD): Implementing Universal Design in higher education. University of Minnesota. Hitt, A. (2017). Foreword. In R. D. Babcock & S. Daniels (Eds. ), Writing centers and disability (pp. vii-x). Fountainhead Press. Hollingworth, G. (2008, June 2). Touch not ok [photograph]. Kleinfeld, E. (2018). Taking an expansive view of accessibility: The writing center at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Composition Forum, 39. Lopez, J. (2017). Museum on the move: How LACMA is making art accessible to all. Departures.
References (part 5) ● ● ● 78 Mc. Donald, M. M. (2008). Assessing and responding to clients with severe mental disorders. Writing Lab Newsletter, 32(10), 8 -9. Montero, R. (2019). Meet the digital curator making art accessible to the masses. Forbes. Mullin, A. E. (1994). Improving our abilities to tutor students with learning disabilities. Writing Lab Newsletter, 19(3), 1 -3. Neff, J. (1994). Learning disabilities and the writing center. In J. A. Mullin & R. Wallace (Eds. ), Intersections: Theory-practice in the writing center (pp. 81 -95). National Council of Teachers of English: Urbana, IL. Peguesse, C. L. (2013). Assessing the effectiveness of tutor comments in email sessions. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 44(1), 95 -104.
References (part 6) ● ● ● 79 Praxis. (2019). Vintage Praxis. Price, M. (2009). Access imagined: The construction of disability in conference policy documents. Disability Studies Quarterly, 29(1). Price, M. (2011). Mad at school: Rhetorics of mental disability and academic life. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI. Rafoth, B. (2016). Faces, factories, and Warhols: A r(Evolutionary) future for writing centers. The Writing Center Journal, 35(2), 17 -29. Rinaldi, K. (2015). Disability in the writing center: A new approach (that’s not so new). Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 13(1). Sara, E. (2019). Fighting the art world’s ableism. Hyperallergic.
References (part 7) ● ● ● 80 Schmidt, K. , Bunse, M. , Dalton, K. , Perry, N. , & Rau, K. (2009). Lessening the divide: Strategies for promoting effective communication between hearing consultants and deaf student-writers. Writing Lab Newsletter, 33(5), 6 -10. Schramm, M. J. (1991). Just like Joe. Writing Lab Newsletter, 15(10), 9 -10. sdankwa. (2015). Disability, ableism and the body in art schools. Art. School. Differences. Shamoon, L. K. , & Burns, D. H. (1995). A critique of pure tutoring. The Writing Center Journal, 15(2), 134 -151. Sisk, K. (2001). Assisting the visually impaired in the writing center. Writing Lab Newsletter, 25(7), 6 -9. Society for Disability Studies. (2016). Publishing accessible books.
References (part 8) ● ● ● 81 Urist, J. (2016). A new way to see art: Museum programs for the blind challenge notions of how people connect with great works. The Atlantic. Writing Lab Newsletter LLC. (2019). WLN archives. Yabe, M. (2018). The journey of a deaf translingual writer. Writing on the Edge, 28(2), 73 -85.
82 Cite This Presentation Dembsey, J. M. (2019, October). Art and ableism: An accessibility analysis of writing center pedagogy, conferences, and publications. International Writing Centers Association. Columbus, OH.
83 Contact Me J. M. Dembsey jmdembsey@gmail. com JMDembsey. com
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