Adelay Witherite

Adelay's dissertation research focuses on how first-year composition students experience, interpret, and respond to discourses about social differences.  Her guiding questions consider:

• Why are so many people outside of academia suspicious of scholarly work, of social justice work, and of colleges and universities in general? While many scholars argue that such skeptics just don’t understand, I’m curious about discovering skeptics’ own reasons for resisting academic discourses. We in the academy may have something to learn from individuals who might otherwise engage with us in good-faith discussions.
• How can scholars write in ways that invite non-academic readers to participate in our discourses? Many academic texts are inaccessible to those who have opted not to participate in higher education–or those whose life circumstances have kept them from pursuing such learning. Besides being jargony, many academic texts are tucked behind paywalls which further render scholarly ideas inaccessible to the general public.
• How might we help heal U.S. national tensions through rhetorical studies and writing? Considering the intense ideological divides in our country as evidenced in popular discussions about recent elections, the pandemic, and identity-related disputes, I believe paying close attention to the intentional and unintentional motivations and effects of spoken and written language can help us find paths out of sociopolitical stalemates.

Adelay has completed coursework in:

• Critical Discourse Analysis
• Discourse & Rhetoric
• Digital Rhetorics
• Organizing for Learning in Higher Education
• Disability Studies
• Queer Ecologies
• Creative Nonfiction
• Theories of Writing and Embodiment
• Pedagogies of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Queer, Crip, and Disability Pedagogies; and
• Qualitative Research Methods.

Adelay has also taught writing courses for seven semesters in the University of Michigan's English Department Writing Program, including five sections of English 125: Writing & Academic Inquiry and two sections of English 225: Academic Argumentation.