Writing Critical Deaf Pedagogy

Abstract

Research on deaf writing pedagogies is theoretically and practically underwhelming. This affects deaf students learning to write in higher education and deaf students with additional disabilities, like Autism Spectrum Disorder and Language Deprivation Syndrome. The general problems are: uncritical theory, underdeveloped empiricism, and weak, un-reflexive classroom praxis. This research base is dominated by nondeaf or nondisabled researchers or teachers who generate trivial background information or produce uncritical technician-focused methods, where writing is shown as a value-neutral skill or assessed using standards exogenous to deaf populations' situated needs. In contrast, this chapter critically interprets research and uses autoethnography to describe practical methods about deaf and disabled writers, depicted as capable, creative scholars. The chapter asks and responds to two questions: What does a critical analysis of research on deaf writing pedagogies show about deaf writers and teaching writing to deaf students? And how does autoethnographic praxis-analysis support critical deaf pedagogy?