The Problem with Standardization:

Moving Away from Retrofit Accommodations

Why They Can't Write by John Warner and Rhetorics of Overcoming by Allison Harper Hitt provide two tellings of the same story: schooling and standardized writing practices are draining teachers and students alike. Invalid standardized assessments measures, objective close reading and writing, and retrofitting disabled students into the curriculum has created rampant burn out, anxiety, and disengagement from schooling and education. What now? Looking at accessibility as the responsibility of all rather than something that happens after for only certain students to make ineffective practices work is the key.

As a disabled person, learner, and educator pratices that push me out of learning or isolate me within my learning is something I know all too well. Therefore, my own research after reading Why They Can't Write, which put mildly is a scathing indictment of standardizaiton, led me to these questions:

How do we move beyond standardized writing practices?

How do we make writing more accessible?

How do we make writing meaningful for disabled, neurodiverse, and chronically ill learners?

The key is changing every practice, not the student. As Hitt points out in Rhetorics of Overcoming, the problem is practices and environments, not the people. Rather than asking all students to perform to a preset standard of writing on a 5 paragraph essay, my research looks at the various methods of creating and storytelling that empower rather than silence students who are outside the standard.

This research also asks a lot of the reader; changing the practice not the person asks us to reconsider disability, and how we treat disability in spaces, in each other, and ourselves.

Alt text has been included on all images.

Guiding Texts

Actualizing Meaningful Accessibility for all Students in the Language Arts Classroom:

Resources and Tools for Educators

"Instructors may not think of disability until presented with an accommodations letter that makes visible both disability and the inaccessible practices of that class structure." (Hitt 35).

• We rely on 504 and IEP's as a retrofit for disabled learners in the classroom.

• Standardized writing practices are ineffective measures for all students.

• Accommodations can provided needed support, but turn disability into an individual or individualized problem that fails to address teaching practices that either do not work or are not designed with disability in mind.

• Students benefit from having writing experiences that ask them to make decisions about what to create, why, and engage in complex strategies to communicate their perspective.

• Retrofit accommodations are standardized based on each disorder and leave little room for real flexibility from teachers and educators in changing content and practices for all learners.

• Accessibility benefits everyone.

• Centering the work of making composition accessible to as many people as possible and having all students do that work engages them in ethical work of what information is important and where to include that.

Concept Mapping

"When you are taught the disabled body is bad, when you use language that reinforces this viewpoint – even when perhaps especially you use this language unconsciously without considering what it might mean to speak of someone's lived reality as a metaphor for the difficulty of your own life, or when you use this language to reinforce the idea, however well intentioned, that the disabled person can and should rise above their physical limitations – you participate in a world that seeks to further entrench disabled exclusion." (Leduc 221).

We need to provide ways of composition that no longer ask our students to meet a standard that was never designed for them. Accessibility practices center the work for everyone, and empower disabled students and teachers alike to take autonomy over their narratives. Disability is not inherently bad, and we often spend all the time focused on what a disabled person cannot do and fixing them, instead of making space and celebrating them for what they can do, and furthermore providing challenge and complexity to those abilities.

Embodied concept mapping is a great way to tap into the strengths of neurodivergent and disabled learners.

Concept maps are often shown as cohesive and clear spiderwebs that perfectly track thinking and organize it. This is often how concept mapping is taught, but rarely encapsulates how visualized thinking works for neurodiverse people. Concept mapping when moved away from perfect webs, really allow an explosion of creativity.

The concept map I made for this project is an example of my own thinking, both visual and written, and did not develop in a linear way.

Embodied concept mapping is messy, but it can empower neurodivergent and disabled students (like myself) to visually own their story and thinking.

Ideas to guide concept mapping:

• Are there any already existing visual forms (like topography) that you can add as an element?

• What is the first thing this makes you think of? Write that down.

• Brainstorm 5 images based on your topic.

• What does your topic engage your senses? What might that look like? Is there any particular color you associate with the topic?

The goal is for it to be as fluid as possible, and fluidity looks different for every person, regardless of disability.

Example Concept Maps

Other Ideas for Accessible Composition in the Classroom

• Have students spend 5-10 minutes in class writing alt text for an image. Then, discuss as a class the alt text you wrote, and decide as a group what is successful and relevant information to include about that image. (Added fun bonus: use a meme or eccentric piece of fashion to push creativity.

• Compare various audio transcripts, and discuss how (if at all) silence is noted in the the transcription. Discuss the implications of silence and the different kinds as a group.

• Print out the ADA dimensions for a bathroom, and have students measure the school bathrooms and write down the notes. Compare these notes as a group, and discuss the implications of not having a bathroom that is or is not usable based on body differences.

Each one of these accessibility tools have genre conventions, best practices, and creative potential when added as a part of core units of study. Furthermore, these empower students to take control of their learning, especially Deaf, Blind, and Hard of Hearing (HoH) students who rely on these tools. Best practices are set by the disabled people who use them the most, and as Hitt points out in Rhetorics of Overcoming, this is another model of both coming over and giving power back to disabled students in composition and rhetorical studies.

Disability Studies, Justice, and Accessibility

Below are further resources for disability studies, justice, and accessibility to help guide you in making spaces where as many people as possible get to show up and be their whole selves.

Conclusion

The goal is to allow all students to have embodied, as in fully present, experiences that value and privilege different ways of composing and communicating. Accessibility is the opposite of boring, and engaging in these activities helps create a future where all students can learn.