In Grading Justice: Teacher-Activist Approaches to Assessment, new and seasoned teachers are invited to engage with socially-just approaches of assessment, including practices aimed at resisting and undoing grading and assessment altogether, to create more democratic grading practices and policies, foregrounding the transformative potential of communication within their courses. The contributions in this collection encourage readers to consider not only how educators might assess social justice work in and beyond the classroom, but also to imagine what a social justice approach to grading and assessment would mean for intervening into unjust modes of teaching and learning. Educators wishing to explore critical modes of grading and assessment, grounded in social justice, will find this book a timely and relevant pedagogical guide for their teaching and scholarship.
Edited by Kristen C. Blinne
Contributions by Allison D. Brenneise; Mark Congdon, Jr.; Summer R. Cunningham; David Deifell; Leandra Hernandez; David H. Kahl, Jr.; Londie T. Martin; Kristen McIntyre; Juliane Mora; David Palmer; C. Kyle Rudick; and Sarah Upton
Pop Culture Yoga: A Communication Remix was born out of a series of questions about the paradoxical nature of yoga: How do individuals and groups define yoga? What does it mean to “practice yoga,” and what does this practice involve? What are some of the most important principles, guidelines, or philosophical tenets of yoga that shape people’s definitions and practices? Who has the power and authority to define yoga? What are the limits, if any, of shared definitions of yoga? Kristen C. Blinne explores the myriad ways “yoga” is communicatively constructed and defined in and through popular culture in the United States. In doing so, Blinne offers insight into the many identity work processes in play in the construction of yoga categories, illuminating how individuals’ and groups’ words and actions represent practices of claiming—part of a complex communicative process centered around membership categorization—based on a range of authenticity discourses. Employing popular culture writing styles, Blinne ultimately contends that the majority of yoga styles practiced in the United States are remixes that can be classified as pop culture yoga, a distinct way of understanding this complex phenomenon.