Thanks to my CHSS Fellowship, I made significant progress toward completing my dissertation this summer, from reading to writing to collecting data. After moving to candidacy and drafting my Institutional Review Board (IRB) application in May, I received approval from Mason’s IRB in early June to begin my research. While recruiting participants in June and July, I managed to draft 76 pages of my dissertation. In August, I began the process of collecting my data, and I have conducted and transcribed five interviews so far.
Because my dissertation project aims to uncover the shape and use of Standard English among writing instructors in a university writing program, my summer work began to give me significant insight into understanding Standard English. Although I have read as much as I can about Standard English and its connection to concepts like grammar, correctness, and error as well as its relationship with American English, I have come to see Standard English as an increasingly important problem area in my field. The interviews I have conducted also made me reconsider concepts like standards and fairness when it comes to grading students, and I’m looking forward to examining those concepts further with my study’s participants.
While I hope to finish my dissertation in spring 2021 and graduate with my PhD in Writing and Rhetoric, I also hope to take this project with me as I work beyond my PhD. This project is ultimately grounded in social justice and, more particularly, linguistic justice, which is becoming more and more of a visible focus in writing classrooms. In taking on this project of uncovering Standard English and its connections to writing assessment, I hope to help those within and outside the field of writing studies to better dismantle Standard English and, ultimately, fight for linguistic justice.
February 01, 2021