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Still Sacred Agenda

STILL SACRED II

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AGENDA

June 23 – 24
9am – 2pm MDT

THURSDAY, June 23

All times in Mountain Daylight Time.

9:00 – 9:30am Welcome
President Roessel; Avery Denny
9:30 – 10:20am Speaker 1
Dr. Lloyd Lee, Professor of Native American Studies, University of New Mexico
Diné Nishłį́: Writing from a Navajo Matrix
10:20 – 10:30am Break
10:30 – 11:20am Speaker 1
Dr. Lloyd Lee (continued)
11:20 – 11:30am Break
11:30am – 12:20pm Speaker 2
Dr. Christie Toth, Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric Studies, University of Utah
Teaching Writing at Open Admissions Colleges: Four Post-Pandemic Conversations
12:30 – 1:00pm Lunch Break
1:00 – 1:50pm Speaker 3
Dr. Resa Crane Bizzaro, Associate Professor of English, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Still Sacred or Running Scared: Teaching Online Research Writing During a Pandemic Using a Cultural Approach
2:00pm Closing remarks; reminder of Friday’s agenda

FRIDAY, June 24

All times in Mountain Daylight Time.

9:00 – 9:30am Welcome
9:30 – 10:20am Speaker 4
Dr. Kimberly Wieser, Associate Professor of English, University of Oklahoma
Teaching Writing to Native Students in Yet Another Worst Semester Ever: How We Thrived and Overcame
10:20 – 10:30am Break
10:30 – 11:20am Speaker 4
Dr. Wieser (continued)
11:20 – 11:30am Break
11:30am – 12:20pm Speaker 5
Dr. Daniel Cole, Associate Professor of Writing Studies and Rhetoric, Hofstra University
Remotely Related: Covid, Conflict, Connectiveness, and Composition
12:30 – 1:00pm Lunch Break
1:00 – 1:50pm Speaker 6
Velma Hale, Instructor, Diné College
Writing During the Pandemic
2:00pm Closing remarks; end of conference

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Still Sacred or Running Scared: Teaching Online Research Writing During a Pandemic Using a Cultural Approach

Description: Resa Crane Bizzaro has been teaching online for a number of years, even prior to the pandemic, so her adjustment to new conditions was—perhaps—not as difficult as it has been for many. In an effort to be more culturally sensitive and to provide new arenas of student research, in 2018, Resa shifted her practice from traditional assignments toward more-inclusive ones. Using food studies as a starting point, she developed activities and writing tasks that required students to examine and share their cultural backgrounds as those backgrounds relate to food. In this interactive presentation, Resa will ask attendees to do short writing activities of the kind that generate topics for students in her research writing classes. Then she will connect those texts to the development of a pedagogical practice oriented toward assignments that allow attendees to see how this work might more fully engage students in examining, researching, and expressing cultural foodways in Research Writing classes. While these projects use students’ cultural backgrounds as a starting point, assignments themselves encompass various genres useful in academic settings—scaffolded toward a more traditional research paper. Resa will also discuss how these assignments might be adapted for use in other disciplines, such as Biology, Nutrition, Agriculture, and Creative Writing.

Writing During the Pandemic

with Velma Hale

Description: This presentation focuses on diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice for academic indigeneity. Velma’s presentation will close this year’s conference and take a “lessons learned” approach.

Remotely Related: Covid, Conflict, Connectiveness, and Composition

with Dr. Daniel Cole

Description: The Covid-19 pandemic starkly underscores the impacts of human interconnection. Remote but real relationships, as illuminated by indigenous perspectives, will thus be the thread of my talk.

When lockdowns came in 2020, Daniel was teaching Tommy Orange’s novel, There There. His talk will partly focus on my students’ attuning, while quarantining, to the novel’s webbed structure of disparate characters linked through a tragic event.

Another element will describe how Daniel’s Composition 1 students, all engineering majors, see connections and conflicts between settler and indigenous values by imagining themselves within the Belo Monte Dam issue.

These elements converge to show the entanglements of human connection, migration, and isolation.

Teaching Writing to Native Students in Yet Another Worst Semester Ever: How We Thrived and Overcame

with Dr. Kimberly Wieser

Description: During this pandemic, all students have struggled, not just our American Indian students. But because of our American Indian students, we knew what to do.

While this talk will examine those ways in which we are already used to adapting to do the best to serve the individual needs of each student, we also are going to explore different changes we can make to help both our students and ourselves make it through this pandemic. We have to ask ourselves, “What is arbitrary, but systemic, that we can change? What are the things that are naturalized about education, but that are actually about assimilating everyone into the system for the sake of—not our students—but the system? And what is it about our teaching—beyond being real human beings in real relation to our students—that must stay the same?”

After hearing about strategies, we will spend time workshopping about students’ needs, asking ourselves, “What models are appropriate for our students? What rhetorics and whose rhetorics do we want to expose our students to? What audiences will they need to speak to? What issues are important to them?” Each participant will leave this session with materials in hand to help us and our students continue to overcome and succeed as we journey through this ever-changing educational landscape.

Teaching Writing at Open Admissions Colleges: Four Post-Pandemic Conversations

with Dr. Christie Toth

Description: In this presentation, Christie Toth will discuss four conversations among writing studies teacher-scholar-activists at open admissions institutions that have accelerated during the pandemic. These conversations center on equity in writing assessment, language diversity and linguistic justice, accessible teaching practices across modalities, and working conditions for faculty. All these conversations need more voices from tribal colleges. Christie will suggest possible venues for sharing the important work happening in tribal college writing classrooms in ways that are meaningful and accessible for faculty members and students.

Diné Nishłį́: Writing from a Navajo Matrix

with Dr. Lloyd Lee

Description: This presentation will focus on Diné identity in a 21st century world and how a Diné matrix, which is a way of thinking, knowing, understanding, and writing, leads to maturation as a human being and a Diné person.

T’ááshabik’ehgo: In the Manner of the Sun, or How I Use the Diné Educational Philosophy to Teach Composition at Diné College.

with Irvin Morris

Thursday May 13 at 1:50pm MDT

The power inherent in the traditional Diné understanding of natural processes provides a ready and culturally-relevant framework for Diné students to understand writing as a process and to use that understanding to manage their writing assignments. The Western conception of the steps in that process—thinking, planning, drafting, revising—correlates fortuitously with the Diné understanding of process as expressed by T’ááshábik’ehgo and embodied in the concepts of Nitsáhákees (Thinking), Nahat’á (Planning), Iina (Living), and Siihasin (Assurance).

Serving and Learning as we Write

with Isabel Baca

Thursday May 13 at 1:00pm

This presentation will introduce service-learning and illustrate how it can be an effective teaching and learning method in the writing classroom. Dr. Baca will show how students can write with, for, and about the community while serving their community. She will address the benefits of service-learning and its required components, such as reflection and reciprocity. Dr. Baca will end the presentation by providing examples of non-profit organizations and showing how students can work with these agencies as they practice what they are learning in the writing classroom.

Making Space for Our Relations: Indigenous Paradigms in the First-Year Writing Classroom

with Andrea Riley-Mukavetz

Thursday May 13 at 11:00am MDT

In this presentation, Andrea will share stories of her experiences as a writer in academia and as a teacher of writing. She will highlight how she uses an Anishinaabek approach to writing and research and how that approach informs her teaching and mentoring with Indigenous and settler students.

Diné Critical Thinking in the Composition Classroom

with Orlando White

Wednesday May 12 at 2:40pm MDT

To think for one’s self in a higher learning environment not only begins inside a classroom but within one’s own cultural community. When it comes to native peoples being who they are, where they are from, is crucial for their identity and way of life. This adds and reinforces a form of thought that is not just traditional but intellectual. In his essay, “Understanding H0zh= to Achieve Critical Consciousness: A Contemporary Din4 Interpretation of the Philosophical Principles of H0zh=”, Vincent Werito asserts that to think critically means understanding who and where one is as a Din4, one’s potential and interpretation of Sa’2h Naagh17 Bik’eh H0zh==n (SNBH), and applying those to the experiences of one’s own life. Even further Werito asks how we, being Din4, could use this in a contemporary way to “name our oppression” when it comes to the injustices, inequalities of native peoples and their societies. The principles in which he implements in order to accomplish what he refers as a “Din4 critical theory” are as follows: a) Conceptualization, thinking for one’s self. b) Actualization, coming to a realization about who one is. c) Action, moving to achieve life goals. d) Reflection, having hope, respect, faith, reverence for life. According to Werito these four steps are essential in achieving clear and critical thinking so that Din4/native peoples themselves can move forward into a decolonized existence.

Universal Design for Learning and Neurodivergence in the Writing Classroom: A Class for All

with Dev K. Bose

Wednesday May 12 at 1:50pm MDT

This presentation will introduce universal design for learning (UDL) and explore ways to implement UDL concepts in the writing classroom. An overview of scholarship and teaching practices associated with disability rhetoric will be provided through the concept of neurodivergence, which is often discussed in concert with the neurodiverse movement. We’ll dedicate some time towards application on working documents, so please feel free to bring a lesson, assignment, or module with which you would like to experiment.

American Indian College Writers: A Montana Perspective

with Barbara Komlos

Wednesday May 12 at 1:00pm MDT

Dr. Barbara Komlos will take participants on a Montana excursion to gain insights into the college writing landscape for American Indian students as shaped by historical, geographic, cultural, and linguistic influences. Anecdotes and portraits will highlight how student experiences and writing identities vary but also share similarities across the seven tribally controlled institutions and the land grant university where Native American enrollment is over 4%. Finally, she will explore implications for teaching, specifically addressing existing challenges and suggestions for infusing Indigenous literacies into college composition curricula.

Writing Back: Disrupting European narratives and reclaiming through rhetoric sovereignty

with Dr. Cornel Pewewardy

Wednesday May 12 at 11:05am MDT

The purpose of this presentation is to encourage students to exercise the concept of rhetoric sovereignty in their writing process. As instructors and editors of scholarly papers and manuscripts, mainstream writing styles like APA, MLA, and Chicago styles are frequently used. Working to Indigenous the academy, the focus of this presentation is to diverge from these standardized, Eurocentric writing styles to honor and keep important writing patterns as signposts of Indigenous epistemologies of time/energy, sovereign legacy, creative writing, natural rhythm, holonomy, and interconnectedness.

Writing Our Stories: Constellating the Field, First-Year Writing, and Tribal Colleges (Parts 1 & 2)

with Dr. Jaquetta Shade-Johnson

Wednesday May 12 at 9:15am (Part 1)

Thursday May 13 at 9:10am (Part 2)

In Part 1, Dr. Jaquetta Shade-Johnson offers an overview of the field of rhetoric, composition, and writing studies. Beginning with a brief history of rhetoric, composition, and writing studies within the larger discipline of English studies, she will highlight problems and ongoing conversations in the field. She will share reflections on her own lived experiences as a tribal college student in first-year writing courses and offer insights on first-year writing courses for Native American and Indigenous students.

In Part 2, Dr. Jaquetta Shade-Johnson will follow her framing of the field of rhetoric, composition, and writing studies and reflections on first-year writing for Native American and Indigenous students by offering pedagogical practices and course materials to support tribal college faculty. She will share assignments, instructional methods, and activities, along with rationales, tailored for Native students in the first-year writing classroom space, both in-person and virtual.

Orlando White

Diné College

Dine Critical Thinking in the Composition Classroom

Wednesday May 12 at 2:40pm MDT

Orlando White is from Tółikan, Arizona. He is Diné of the Naaneesht’ézhi Tábaahí and born for the Naakai Diné’e. White is the author of two books of poetry, Bone Light (Red Hen Press), which Kazim Ali described as a “careful excavation on language and letters and the physical body” and LETTERRS (Nightboat Books) which received the Poetry Center Book Award. His work has appeared in such journals as Ploughshares, the Kenyon Review, Salt Hill Journal, and elsewhere. White teaches at Diné College and lives in Tsaile, Arizona.

Jaquetta Shade-Johnson

University of Missouri-Columbia

Writing Our Stories: Constellating the Field, First-Year Writing, and Tribal Colleges (Parts 1 & 2)

Wednesday May 12 at 9:15am (Part 1)

Thursday May 13 at 9:10am (Part 2)

Dr. Jaquetta Shade-Johnson is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation (ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ) with Chinese and Euroamerican ancestry and an Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia in the Department of English and the School of Visual Studies' Digital Storytelling Program. She teaches courses in rhetoric and composition, Indigenous literature, digital storytelling, and Native American and Indigenous studies. She earned her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing at Michigan State University in 2018, along with a graduate specialization in American Indian and Indigenous Studies. Her research at the intersections of cultural rhetorics, Indigenous studies, digital storytelling, and environmental humanities investigates the constellative knowledge production and rhetorical practices of meaning-making within cultural communities. She is primarily interested in how Indigenous communities make meaning through storied relationships with land and through the rhetorical, everyday, embodied practices of material production--such as foodways--that stem from these relationships. Through her current research, teaching, and service, Professor Shade-Johnson is ultimately interested in Indigenous ways of knowing, doing, and making as rhetorical, decolonizing strategies for disrupting colonial structures that uphold systemic violence. She currently serves as faculty advisor for the University of Missouri’s Indigenous student organization, Four Directions, and as a founding editor in the editorial collective for Spark: a 4C4Equality Journal, a digital, open-access, peer-reviewed journal addressing activism in writing, rhetoric, and literacy studies.

Cornel Pewewardy

Portland State University

Writing Back: Disrupting European narratives and reclaiming through rhetoric sovereignty

Wednesday May 12 at 11:05am MDT

Dr. Cornel Pewewardy (Comanche-Kiowa) is Professor Emeritus, Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University. Professor Pewewardy’s research explores the theoretical and philosophical foundations of postcolonial Indigenous research paradigms that focused on historical and political insight into the lingering impact of colonization, considering the issues faced by Indigenous peoples today and identities to survive in the twenty-first century. From his early work as an educational administrator to more recent work on creating Indigenous charter schools, he focuses on strategies to enhance higher education institution’s connectivity and partnerships with Indigenous nations to advance the education of Indigenous students and explore university-tribal engagement. In addition, he and colleagues have been working closely with teachers and school leaders to construct a progressive model specific to the continuum of consciousness educators experience as they develop their understanding and employment of decolonizing theories and pedagogies. Presenting the Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model for almost three decades at professional conferences across the U.S., Pewewardy has applied his theoretical model to the work of educational practice, primarily using case studies with Indigenous learners, systems and structures in efforts to nurture Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies in educational settings toward decolonization.

Andrea Riley-Mukavetz

Grand Valley State University

Making Space for Our Relations: Indigenous Paradigms in the First-Year Writing Classroom

Thursday May 13 at 11:00am MDT

Andrea Riley Mukavetz is an Assistant Professor of Integrative Studies at Grand Valley State University. Her research areas are in Indigenous Studies, Rhetoric and Writing, community-based research, story as methodology, and land-based practices. Andrea has published in College Composition and Communication, Composition Studies, enculturation: a journal of writing, rhetoric, and culture, and Studies in American Indian Literature. Her book, You Better Go See Geri: An Odawa Elder's Life of Resilience and Recovery is forthcoming from Oregon State University in Fall 2021. She is the co-chair of the American Indian Caucus for NCTE/CCCC, the editor for the Pedagogy Blog from constellations: a cultural rhetorics publishing space, and a co-founder of The Cultural Rhetorics Consortium. Andrea is a citizen of Deshkan Ziibing (Chippewa of Thames First Nation) and of Chaldean and Lebanese ancestries. Growing up in Metro Detroit, Andrea is fond of spending time with the Great Lakes and harvesting wild grape leaves.

Irvin Morris

Diné College

T’ááshabik’ehgo: In the Manner of the Sun, or How I Use the Diné Educational Philosophy to Teach Composition at Diné College

Thursday May 13 at 1:50pm MDT

Irvin Morris is the English name of the aging, crotchety Diné writer and educator who is Tábaahí, Tótsohnii, Tó'áhaní, and Kinyaa'áanii. He has taught at Cornell University, the State University of New York / Buffalo, the University of Arizona, Navajo Technical University, and Diné College, where he currently teaches. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing / Fiction from Cornell, and a BA in Literature / Creative Writing from the University of California. He has 30 years of teaching experience at the college and university level and has taught at NTU and DC since 2001. He is also a published author whose book, FROM THE GLITTERING WORLD, is often used in literature courses throughout the country.

Barbara Komlos

Montana State University

American Indian College Writers: A Montana Perspective

Wednesday May 12 at 1:00pm MDT

Barbara Komlos earned her Doctorate in Higher Education at Montana State University (MSU) in Bozeman, Montana. Her doctoral research focused on the factors that influence the success of Native American academic writers. Consequently, she developed a first-year composition course at MSU for Native students that evolved to welcome all students interested in exploring Indigenous perspectives. Her scholarship on Native American first-year writing has been published in the Tribal College Journal and the Journal of Basic Writing. Dr. Komlos also serves as program evaluator for the Montana University System Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership program, facilitates faculty workshops around inclusive pedagogy and culturally responsive mentoring, and serves as program evaluator for projects in rural and tribal communities in Montana.

Dev K. Bose

University of Arizona

Universal Design for Learning and Neurodivergence in the Writing Classroom: A Class for All

Wednesday May 12 at 1:50pm MDT

Dev K. Bose, Ph.D. (he/him) is an assistant professor of English at the University of Arizona, affiliating as Assistant Director in Writing Program, faculty in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English, Faculty Fellow for the Disability Cultural Center, and Co-Chair for the Disability Studies Initiative. He researches rhetorical privilege and access pertaining to technology and invisible disabilities. His work has appeared in Disability Studies Quarterly, Deaf Studies Encyclopedia, Enculturation, Technoculture, Currents in Teaching and Learning, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, and Chronicle of Higher Education.

Isabel Baca

University of Texas - El Paso

Serving and Learning as we Write

Thursday May 13 at 1:00pm MDT

Dr. Isabel Baca is an Associate Professor of English in the Rhetoric and Writing Studies Program at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her current scholarship explores key challenges that face theorists and practitioners of community writing and service-learning in writing studies. Her research addresses community literacy needs and how academia can help meet these needs. Her publication, Service-Learning and Writing: Paving the Way for Literacy(ies) through Community Engagement (2012), is an edited collection that demonstrates how writing instruction and/or writing practice can complement community engagement and outreach in local, national, and international contexts. Her most recent, major publication, a co-edited collection, Bordered Writers: Latinx Identities and Literacy Practices at Hispanic-Serving Institution (2019) focuses on how the teaching of writing should be more inclusive to foster student success, especially for Latinx students. In addition, you can find more of Baca’s publications in community-based journals, such as Reflections: A Journal of Community Engaged Writing and Rhetoric. Baca received the 2017 University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, and her co-edited collection Bordered Writers received the 2021 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Advancement of Knowledge Book Award.