Inclusive STEM: Transforming Disciplinary Writing Instruction for a Socially Just Future

Encompassing a diversity of STEM education contexts, this edited collection offers instructional strategies and assignments for creating equitable, inclusive classrooms. With a focus on writing instruction, each chapter presents ways to create space for individuals and voices historically marginalized in STEM disciplines. Contributions move beyond typical disciplinary writing and content instruction and instead focus on work that is intentionally, sometimes subtly, disrupting the assumptions of STEM writing, communication, and knowledge-making. Contributors consider how we can create a sense of belonging for students from groups that have historically been kept out of these disciplines, how faculty can consciously create space for student voices to be heard, and how to do so with an eye toward the discursive practices of STEM disciplines. The chapters in Inclusive STEM offer specific cases—classroom- or research-based contexts—that describe their intents and goals, the interventions they enacted, how students responded, and the unexpected elements that presented themselves. These chapters also reveal the ugly bits: sharing lessons learned and errors made. The collection targets educators who teach disciplinary content, as well as writing in STEM.

Heather M. Falconer is Assistant Professor of Professional and Technical Writing and faculty member of the Maine Center for Research in STEM Education at the University of Maine, Orono. Her research has appeared in journals such as Written Communication, The WAC Journal, and the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, as well as in multiple edited collections. Her book, Masking Inequality with Good Intentions, is available through the Practices & Possibilities series at The WAC Clearinghouse.

LaKeisha McClary is Assistant Professor of Chemistry at The George Washington University where she teaches Introductory Quantitative Analysis Laboratory, a writing-in-the-disciplines course for chemistry majors and minors that fulfills a graduation requirement. She received the 2020 WID Award for Best Assignment Design for the design-it-yourself project that is the hallmark of the course. In addition to teaching the laboratory, she also teaches general chemistry, organic chemistry, and a writing course for chemistry majors engaged in semesters-long undergraduate research. She served as the Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum and is a member of the American Chemical Society. Her research exploring chemistry students’ thinking and reasoning has appeared in International Journal of Science Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, and Journal of Chemical Education.