"Writing-Based Strategies and Anti-Racist Pedagogies" at Bard's Institute for Writing and Thinking

This summer, I attended the Institute for Writing and Thinking at Bard University in Annadale-on-Hudson, New York. The institute offers various themed workshops that all center writing-based pedagogy implementable across disciplines. I took the “Writing-Based Teaching and Anti-Racist Pedagogies” workshop. This was the first year IWT offered a workshop directly centered around anti-racism. Institutional work around anti-racism inherently creates discomfort at times, and this workshop was no exception. Though I would recommend this first iteration of the “Anti-Racist Pedagogies” workshop to white-identified educators, for me—the only Black woman and one of only two BIPOC participants—it often replicated a difficult and typical dynamic. It made clear the need for affinity spaces and somatic awareness when engaged in work around anti-racism. As an accidental result of the work, my "lived" knowledge and empathy around the potential experiences (and invisible labor) of students of color in our classrooms was reiterated and deepened; it put me back in those shoes. And despite the challenges, I learned many useful teaching tools connected to the Institute’s philosophy around writing as a tool for thinking. The facilitators were skillful and workshops were immersive; we learned through doing.  I left with many invaluable, student-centered, writing-based practices and strategies that I will put to use in my English classrooms.