NJCEA 44th Annual Conference

“Humanizing Learning through Radical Self-acceptance and Love: A Playful Approach” 

RAsheda Young’s research centers on fusing play, linguistic justice and anti-racist pedagogies into her classroom to disrupt traditional composition approaches that unintentionally marginalize our most vulnerable students. Radical self-acceptance and critical self-inquiry, afford both teacher and student the opportunity to develop systems that authenticate and validate seemingly incongruent experiences. “Humanizing Learning through Radical Self-Inquiry and Love: A Playful Approach,” provides research that asks teachers to evaluate their own positionality and teaching philosophy to create a classroom where both student and teacher are transformed by each other.

RAsheda Young is a Teaching instructor for Rutgers University’s Writing Program. She has been an active member of the department’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. In support of Black Lives Matter, in August 2020 she participated in and helped organize an eight part virtual workshop centered on anti-racist pedagogy for the Writing Program at Rutgers University. In addition to teaching for Rutgers University, RAsheda Young teaches writing courses for New York University. Prior to both Rutgers University and New York University, she was also a full-time faculty member for the College Writing program at Fairleigh Dickinson University where she served in various capacities, including Director/Coordinator of the African American Studies minor. During her tenure, she created two new courses: The New Jim Crow and Feminism, Womanism and Beyonce. Also for thirteen years, she tutored at a writing center and was an adjunct instructor for a community college in New Jersey. 

She has presented at the internationally esteemed Conference on College Composition and Communication, NYU Literary Review and Two Year College Association. She has been an invited speaker for the graduate Language and Literacy program at The City College of New York and Fairleigh Dickinson University. She is a PhD candidate, studying Composition and Applied Linguistics at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Currently she is writing a book, We Lit: A Quest into Understanding the Silencing of Black Joy Literacy.