Composition, Empathy, and Trauma-Informed Practices
About My Project
As a grad student and instructor of first-year composition, I've felt unprepared for certain circumstances while teaching, including disclosures of sexual violence, abuse, trauma, etc. I began to wonder how I could reform my own pedagogy to be more empathetic and trauma-informed. This led me to creating various resources and infographics for different subtopics of trauma based on research from various fields.
"I don't want to be fixed, if being fixed means being bleached of memory, untaught by what I have learned through this miracle of surviving. My survivorhood is not an individual problem. I want the communion of all of us who have survived, and the knowledge. I do not want to be fixed, I want to change the world. I want to be alive, awake, grieving, and full of joy. And I am."
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha,
from Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice (p. 289)
Learning More
Through the literature, I have compiled recommendations and information in three realms: what is trauma and trauma-informed pedagogy, (dis)ability, and survivorhood.
In this section, I will overview what trauma is and its effects on someone. Moreover, I'll compile scholars' recommendations for trauma-informed practices and pedagogies.
In this section, I will overview the social model of disability and how that overlaps with trauma and trauma-informed care. I'll provide general recommendations for teaching.
In this section, I will overview statistics of sexual violence for college students as well as how to best assist student-survivors.