Critical Language Awareness Pedagogy

Shawna Shapiro: Building a Community of Practice around Critical Language Awareness Pedagogy

Professor Shapiro will provide a brief overview of Critical Language Awareness (CLA), an approach to writing/literacy that explores intersections of language, identity, power, and privilege. She will then share how she have worked with DLINQ to develop an online resource hub (https://cla.middcreate.net/) for teachers and researchers who are interested in this approach. Finally, she will discuss her long-term vision for the hub, and for CLA as a means of bridging geographic, institutional, and disciplinary contexts in the teaching of writing.



Shawna Shapiro is an associate professor of writing and linguistics at Middlebury College. Her research focuses on the transition to higher education for immigrant and refugee students, and on innovative approaches to working with multilingual/L2 writers. Her work has appeared in many peer-reviewed journals, and she has authored or edited two books: Fostering International Student Success in Higher Education (2014) and Educating Refugee-background Students: Critical Issues and Dynamic Contexts. More information is on her online resource hub can be found here: (https://cla.middcreate.net/)