"What if the goal of teaching and learning...was not ultimately to see how closely students could perform White middle-class norms, but rather was to explore, honor, extend, and, at times, problematize their cultural practices and investments?"
Django Paris & Samy Alin
What Guides Us
Consistent with the mission and core values of Buffalo State University, CWP is committed to providing instruction in the critical assessment and composition of texts of all kinds, in a variety of contexts, and for authentic audiences. We are rooted in national best practices in Rhetoric and Composition and Writing Program Administration for the teaching of first-year composition, and we take seriously SUNY and BSU’s mission of promoting diversity, opportunity, and inclusion. As such, we are a program committed to antiracist pedagogies, accessibility, high impact practices, and curricular innovations. We respect the rights of all individuals to ownership of language and texts. We fully support higher education as a vehicle for democratic action and a means of allowing individuals greater voice and participation in the construction of culture. We recognize that participation in democratic society is reliant upon individual agency, and that such agency is limited without the ability to think critically and communicate effectively.
- We recognize and respect diversity of language.
- We recognize and respect diversity of perspective.
- We recognize the right of all institutional members to be treated with respect at all times.
- We believe in providing rigorous academic experiences supported through best classroom practices grounded in current theory and research.
- We support students by providing access to professional tutoring services.
- We believe that the ability to construct texts of all kinds is central to the enhanced personal autonomy and professional success of individuals.
We consistently work to align our program’s value with the following disciplinary statements: “Students Right to Their Own Language,” “This Ain’t Another Statement! This is a DEMAND for Black Linguistic Justice!,” “Writing Assessment: A Position Statement,” “A Position Statement of Principles and Example Effective Practices for Online Writing Instruction (OWI),” “CCCC Guideline on the National Language Policy,” “CCCC Statement on Second Language Writing and Multilingual Writers,” “CCCC Statement on Preparing Teachers of College Writing,” “WPA-GO Statement on Anti-Racist Assessment,” and “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing.”
Given our institutional mission and the students we have the honor of serving, the College Writing Program strives to enact the principles and learning outcomes outlined in Beavers, Brunk-Chavez, Greene, Inoue, Ruiz, Saenkhum, and Ahsanti Young’s Toward Antiracist First Year Composition Goals: Rhetorical Knowledges; Critical Languaging; Laboring as Embodied Processes; and Conventions as Languaging Practices.
We work actively to “support sustainable, antiracist writing assessment ecologies that consider:
- How to decenter dominant (White, middle and upper class, monolingual) languaging norms and provide ample opportunities for students to embody their own languaging varieties;
- How to seek and find value in students’ languaging experiences;
- How to language with rhetorical dexterity given the multitude of languaging situations students will encounter;
- How to address the politics of languaging and its judgment in order to promote healthy student critical consciousness.”
What We Stand For
INCLUSION & ACCESSIBILITY
The College Writing Program is committed to fostering inclusive, accessible learning environments that support the full participation of all students, instructors, and staff. We understand inclusion and accessibility as ongoing, collective practices rather than fixed endpoints or static checklists. Furthermore, we recognize that barriers to access—material, linguistic, cultural, technological, and institutional—are unevenly distributed and often shaped by histories of exclusion.
We design curricula, assessments, and learning spaces that attend to diverse bodyminds (Margaret Price, 2014; Sami Schalk, 2018) languages, and lived experiences. We value multiple ways of knowing, composing, and communicating, and we work to create conditions in which students can engage meaningfully in writing as a social, rhetorical, and embodied practice.
Our commitment to inclusion and accessibility includes:
- Attending to accessibility and principles of Universal Design for Learning in course materials, technologies, and classroom practices
- Designing courses, assignments, and assessment practices that offer flexibility, transparency, and multiple pathways for learning and demonstration of knowledge
- Engaging in reflective, antiracist and anti-ableist assessment practices that seek to reduce harm and promote equity through a culture of care (Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018)
- Providing ongoing professional development that engages instructors and staff with Disability Studies frameworks, anti-ableist assessment, neurodiversity, and accessible design principles
- Recognizing that accessibility and inclusion are inseparable from broader struggles for racial, economic, social, and intersectional justice
- Respecting linguistic diversity and neurodiversity, and affirming students’ rights to their own languages, composing processes, and ways of thinking
- Supporting students in navigating institutional resources, including professional tutoring services and accessibility services, but also advocating for anti-ableist institutional practices that move beyond individual accommodation and toward structural access and equity
We also acknowledge that no program or practice is fully accessible to all people at all times. As such, we view feedback, dialogue, collaboration, and interdependence with students and colleagues as essential to our work. We encourage members of our community to communicate access needs, concerns, and suggestions, and we commit to responding with care, transparency, and a willingness to revise our practices.
*image to left: hands of skin tones on table top*
Disability Studies in Composition: Position Statement on Policy and Best Practices
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY & THOUGHTFUL AI USAGE
Academic integrity is the foundation of our community of scholars and learners in the College Writing Program. It defines the values we personally uphold, and it expresses a shared understanding of why we do so. We recognize that historically excluded and marginalized scholars have often had their insights and contributions dismissed or appropriated. We are committed to addressing these concerns in our classes and helping our students develop their composing processes and products while acknowledging the scholars and ideas on which their insights draw.
This commitment involves:
- composing and sharing or submitting work that represents our own intellectual analysis, effort and understanding
- commitment to honesty and responsibility in the composition of texts of all kinds, including fair representation of our own work,
- demonstrating respect for others' ideas, perspectives, images and creations
- ethically attributing credit to scholars, artists and all AI for their contributions to the work we create;
- Understanding when, how and if genAI is allowed in a class or assignment
- acknowledging all use of gen AI on any assignment
- a commitment to these standards and shared values in this community.
Using AI in CWP
Consistent with best practices in Rhetoric and Composition and recommendations for developing ethical policies regarding AI, the College Writing Program understands that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can be a powerful tool in the history of literacy technologies. In writing, GenAI includes Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and the artificial intelligence built into word processing programs, as well as text assistants such as Grammarly. Developing AI literacy and learning how to use AI functions such as ChatGPT is important for all of us. Writers may use it as a collaborative tool in the rhetorical situation and writing process including:
- Audience analysis and adaptation
- Genre analysis and conventions
- Developing a targeted message
- Invention and pre-writing activities such as brainstorming and idea generation
- Focusing and developing topics and ideas
- Organizing and structuring texts
- Revision and editing suggestions
While we recognize its potential to assist writers and address inequities in education such as digital accessibility and translation assistance, we also understand:
- GenAI is not a replacement or substitute for the act of composing, or of the many benefits of writing as a mode of learning
- GenAI is not a replacement or substitute for analyzing compositions or ideas
- GenAI is only a tool, and that it should never replace an person’s thinking, research, composing, revision or identity in a text
- GenAI applications are designed by humans, and as such, carry biases, often reinforce harmful stereotypes and exclude diverse voices
- GenAI has significant ethical concerns in terms of full and just participation of all people, economic impacts, and environmental responsibilities
Students are encouraged to carefully read their course syllabi for class specific policies for academic integrity and using GenAI, and to ask their professors for more information if they feel confused about meeting CWP standards and values. They are also encouraged to read the “Student Guide to AI Literacy” and Buffalo State’s “Academic Misconduct Policy” to learn more about the standards CWP upholds.
*image to left: robot hand reaching out to human hand*