
Fields of Interest
Biography
Areas of Specialization
Language and Literacy Studies, Rhetoric and Composition Studies
Activities and Interests
Juan Guerra is currently serving as Chair of the Department of American Ethnic Studies at the UW.
His most recent publication is a new book titled Language, Culture, Identity and Citizenship in College Classrooms and Communities (2016). The book examines what takes place in writing classrooms beyond academic analytical and argumentative writing to include forms that engage students in navigating the civic, political, social and cultural spheres they inhabit. It presents a conceptual framework for imagining how writing instructors can institute campus-wide initiatives, such as Writing Across Communities, that attempt to connect the classroom and the campus to the students' various communities of belonging, especially students who have been historically underserved.
This framework reflects an emerging perspective--writing across difference--that challenges the argument that the best writing instructors can do is develop the skills and knowledge students need to make a successful transition from their home discourses to academic discourses. Instead, the value inherent in the full repertoire of linguistic, cultural and semiotic resources students use in their varied communities of belonging needs to be acknowledged and students need to be encouraged to call on these to the fullest extent possible in the course of learning what they are being taught in the writing classroom. Pedagogically, the book provides educators with the rhetorical, discursive and literacy tools needed to implement this approach.
Research
Selected Research
- Juan Guerra. “Life in the Neither/Nor: Figural Representations of Literacy and Identity in the Late Modern Age.” Time and Space in Literacy Research. Eds. Catherine Compton-Lilly and Erica Halverson. New York: Teachers College Press. 2014.
- Juan Guerra. “Cultivating Transcultural Citizenship in a Discursive Democracy.” Texts of Consequence: Composing Social Activism for the Classroom and the Community (Research and Teaching in Rhetoric and Composition). Eds. Christopher Wilkey and Nicholas Mauriello. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. 2012.
- Juan Guerra and Anis Bawarshi. “Managing Transitions: Re-Orienting Perceptions in a Practicum Course.” Don’t Call it That: The Composition Practicum. Ed. Sidney I. Dobrin. NCTE, 2005. 43-66.
- Juan Guerra. “Putting Literacy in its Place: Nomadic Consciousness and the Practice of Transcultural Repositioning.” The Norton Book of Composition Studies. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2009. 1643-1653.
- Guerra, Juan, and Ann Shivers-McNair. "Toward a New Vocabulary of Motives: Re(con)figuring Entanglement in a Translingual World." In Crossing Divides: Exploring Translingual Writing Pedagogies and Programs. Eds. Bruce Horner and Laura Tetreault. Logan: Utah State University Press. Forthcoming, 2016.
Research Advised
- Alharthi, Ahmad Abdulmajeed A. Breaking Away from Binaries: Teaching Writing with Critical Realist Sensibilities. 2023. University of Washington, PhD dissertation.
- Hernández, Olivia. Yo Soy, I Am: Chicana Punk Pedagogy in a Composition Classroom. 2023. University of Washington, PhD dissertation.
- Rompogren, Justina. Identity Positioning in Mainstream and Multilingual First-Year Composition Courses. 2017. University of Washington, PhD dissertation.
- Chao, Roger. Navigation and Negotiation : Examining the Ecology of Service-Learning Composition Courses. 2017. University of Washington, PhD dissertation.
- Stuart, Christian D. D. Succeeding through Uncertainty: Three L2 Students in a First-Year Composition Class. 2012. University of Washington, PhD dissertation.
- Rounsaville, Angela R. Figuring Transnational Literacies: Rhetorical Negotiations in a Global Paradigm. 2010. University of Washington, PhD dissertation.
- Shapiro, Shawna. From Isolated Remediation to Collaborative Mediation: Confronting Institutional Isolation in University ESL Programs. 2009. University of Washington, PhD dissertation.