Sound and Access: Attuned to Disability in the Writing Classroom
5. Soundwriting, Synthesized
As our classroom case studies have shown, captioning is not always easy or simple. It involves creativity, agency, empathy, reflection, and a deep understanding of context, purpose, and audience.
- Captioning is complex.
- Captioners make choices.
- Captioning is creative and subjective.
- Captioning is contextual, and thus promotes the teaching of cultural analysis.
- But captioning is not copying.
In this chapter, we have attempted to channel these arguments through theories of disability rhetoric and sound studies. To be invested in creating accessible environments, we must put access at the center of our pedagogies. In doing so, we can explore more deeply how accessibility can serve a diverse student body. Because disability is social, captioning can remove barriers to education and access. Instead of assuming that accessibility is a form of retrofitting courses and accommodating students who do not fit, we can approach disability as enabling insight and students with disabilities as valuable contributors to our understanding of how meanings are made across the human spectrum.