Beyond Deficit: Reconstructing Perceptions of Justice-Involved Writers in the Field of Writing and Rhetoric

Abstract

This project analyzes and deconstructs deficit thinking in the perceptions of justice-involved writers within both carceral and post-carceral contexts. Current scholarship within the field of writing and rhetoric often discursively constructs incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers’ literacies, epistemologies, and rhetorical practices through a deficit lens. By critically analyzing the discourses surrounding justice-involved writers, I identify the ways in which deficit thinking manifests in the field’s scholarship and instead emphasize anti-deficit understandings of carceral knowledge, rhetoric, and experience. The analysis reveals alternative approaches to researching, conceptualizing, and constructing justice-involved writers through antideficit lenses as well as pedagogical possibilities for teaching incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students.