My work within Rhetoric and Writing Studies has focused on multilingual writers, critical pedagogy, and educational access and equity. In particular, my work has examined the ways that people maneuver within unjust social and educational contexts to gain authority and voice. In the last few years I have concentrated on the reworking of English within the field of Rhetoric and Composition: the contradictions between dominant monolingual language ideologies and lived languages, particularly those on the borderlands. My research has been primarily student-based, and I have focused on topics such as peer review interactions between monolingual and multilingual students, students’ codemeshing, and the impact of assigning labels to non-traditional students.
I believe that the most important work in Rhetoric and Composition lies in the trenches: in our classrooms, teachers' lounges, community centers, and professional conferences. My scholarship, therefore, is a combination of "traditional" work (published articles and chapters) and textbooks grounded in current theory and my own scholarship. These textbooks, co-authored with Evelyn Posey, have been used in writing classrooms throughout the country.
Currently I am a professor of Rhetoric and Writing Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. I received my PhD from the University of Arizona.