Finding a Pedagogy of Empathy in a Common Read Project
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| Title: | Finding a Pedagogy of Empathy in a Common Read Project |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Miriam Jaffe, Madhav Kafle, Erin K. Kelly, Ben Tam |
| Source: | Teaching in Higher Education. 2025 30(2):396-411. |
| Availability: | Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 16 |
| Publication Date: | 2025 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Education Level: | Higher Education Postsecondary Education |
| Descriptors: | Empathy, College Freshmen, Reading Programs, School Transition, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Social Justice, Inquiry, Critical Reading, Writing (Composition), Teaching Methods, Curriculum Implementation, Communities of Practice, Student Projects |
| DOI: | 10.1080/13562517.2024.2324727 |
| ISSN: | 1356-2517 1470-1294 |
| Abstract: | Inspired by common read projects, wherein first-year students read a shared text as a means of acclimating to the university community, our writing program adopted a project introducing students to bell hooks' 'Teaching With Love' through an empathy-based pedagogy. The researchers, with faculty participants, used a heuristic method of indwelling to reflect on core issues of equity, inclusivity, diversity, and justice as the basis for developing overarching practices of inquiry, critical reading, and analytical writing. We found that a pedagogy of empathy is (1) anti-objectivist, (2) anti-domination, and (3) rigorous about listening. These findings were generated through our synthesis and analysis of interviews with faculty collaborators, revealing early strategies for accomplishing these features. Our study raises questions about how institutions might support empathy-based pedagogy as a post-pandemic and anti-racist practice to benefit teachers and students. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2025 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1458708 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwG5GraSZcJOwUYMLeoQnC_NAAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDEdeUf0SghCbQr-ykQIBEICBm9c8tNSczmaxtf0ilnV7bAK80rarBXS54QAEqTS8P-jDITBP6CZ-HvJRmsH1vdY1himJOd6D6M8c-p3p2ChNnGxt9BWeP_4i54hiTFwhgwvaa43FOppBnNoP77FP_LHIifCvDDloMdUc298P_hNlwdwmh73FWrwod8TT4h8tJ01oCYMBDINL8J6GpgrbcKSenboe5p6MsrpVtI6a Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0182438528;thd01feb.25;2025Jan28.02:47;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0182438528-1">Finding a pedagogy of empathy in a Common Read Project </title> <p>Inspired by common read projects, wherein first-year students read a shared text as a means of acclimating to the university community, our writing program adopted a project introducing students to bell hooks' 'Teaching With Love' through an empathy-based pedagogy. The researchers, with faculty participants, used a heuristic method of indwelling to reflect on core issues of equity, inclusivity, diversity, and justice as the basis for developing overarching practices of inquiry, critical reading, and analytical writing. We found that a pedagogy of empathy is (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>) anti-objectivist, (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref2">2</reflink>) anti-domination, and (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref3">3</reflink>) rigorous about listening. These findings were generated through our synthesis and analysis of interviews with faculty collaborators, revealing early strategies for accomplishing these features. Our study raises questions about how institutions might support empathy-based pedagogy as a post-pandemic and anti-racist practice to benefit teachers and students.</p> <p>Keywords: Empathy; common read; writing pedagogy; bell hooks</p> <p>Positioned as pedagogues in a narrative horizon of social and historical hurt, we are called upon to develop an ethical pedagogical model through which our students may empathetically perceive, understand, experience and respond to the representations of violence that they witness everyday.</p> <p>–Esther Lezra ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref4">25</reflink>]), 'A Pedagogy of Empathy for a World of Atrocity'</p> <p>After returning to the in-person classroom in the wake of the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic and the sober reckoning with systemic injustice precipitated by the BLM movement, instructors in our writing program found that our first year students were experiencing profound mental health, material, and social challenges. The goal of our first-year curriculum has always been to acclimate students to the rigors of college academics, but at this moment, we recognized a need for new approaches to achieve that end. Thus, in 2022, our university writing program developed a Common Read Project, wherein all first-year students read a shared text as a means of acclimating to the university community, to anchor our curriculum in core issues of equity, inclusivity, diversity, and justice as the basis for developing overarching practices of inquiry, critical reading, and analytical writing. By introducing this shared experience across the curriculum, we sought to build community and foster feelings of genuine connection among students and instructors alike. Common activities and plenty of interaction opportunities promote a culture of shared investment, increase community member involvement, and ensure those members feel valued and supported (Laufgraben [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref5">21</reflink>]; Nadelson [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref6">31</reflink>]). And large-scale data on institutions employing common read projects suggests such efforts are positively and significantly associated with awareness of and appreciation for DEI principles (Soria [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref7">36</reflink>]). But how could we manifest our intentions in the classroom? bell hooks' ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref8">11</reflink>]) essay 'Teaching with Love' deeply informed our approach: 'Where there is domination there is no place for love' (<reflink idref="bib128" id="ref9">128</reflink>). hooks understood emotionless objectivism to be a form of domination that causes teachers and learners to disassociate and disconnect from each other. She called for pedagogical nurture at the intersection of emotional and academic discourse, where 'care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust' create the foundation for 'optimal learning' (<reflink idref="bib131" id="ref10">131</reflink>). We took these foundational attributes as a definition for empathy – a rigorous form of listening that is anti-objectivist and anti-domination – and we set out to develop a pedagogy of empathy to frame our common read project.</p> <p>Our search for scholarship on pedagogies of empathy designed for the college writing classroom led us to Eric Leake ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref11">23</reflink>]), who explored the potential of empathy pedagogy in meaning-making and fostering prosocial habits, like care. Leake's work offered a central understanding of how writing instruction could deliberately foster 'rhetorical awareness of empathy and the practice of critical empathy' in ways that would keep us uniquely accountable to our justice-driven goals. As we found in Leake's research, empathy has particular limitations related to biased notions of pity and asymmetrical agency that serve to maintain inequalities rather than reconsider systems. Therefore, a pedagogy of empathy, even as a well-intentioned relational technique, must critique itself to guard against the exploitation of human difference for personal gain; this is a 'responsibility' that will help to earn 'respect and trust' (hooks [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref12">11</reflink>]).</p> <p>Nevertheless, empathy proves to be a useful concept for describing a certain kind of classroom dynamic that is void of discourses of domination and shame. While hooks' 'love' embraces many of the same values as empathy, her term is encumbered by a range of less prestigious affects – narcissism or microaggression – that have historically characterized the discourse of love (see Barthes &amp; Berlant). Whereas love could be typed as romantic love, godly love, familial love, friendship or helper-based, empathy elided these divisions. Insisting on empathy as an ethos in the classroom is not to oppose hooks' pedagogy of love; rather, it simply encourages us to turn more of our attention to the sensed environment of the classroom than to a single individual. A teaching practice that takes the learning environment seriously means that teachers would need to attune themselves to multiple, sometimes conflicting, voices and gestures that are co-present in the classroom. Creating an ethos of listening and attunement de-hierarchizes the classroom and allows every student to be a potential participant in democratizing the classroom. Here, we share the experience and critical conversation that led to our cultivation of an environment and pedagogy of empathy, which became the key takeaway from our Common Read Project.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-2">Common Read Project background</hd> <p>There are a wide range of approaches for administering Common Read projects across US institutions. Laufgraben ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref13">21</reflink>]) describes how Common Read projects can be confined to orientation programs for first year students or extended as long as an academic year. Additionally, the locus of the discussions and activities that comprise the Common Read experience can be curricular, such that the reading functions as a course text and reinforces course themes and learning outcomes, or co-curricular, i.e. not linked to any particular academic program (Ferguson [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref14">5</reflink>]). Most frequently, Common Read projects tend to be administered outside of any particular academic department and confined to co-curricular events such as orientations, lectures, and community discussions, but the integration of Common Read projects into first year courses, particularly first-year seminars, has been employed at various institutions (Moser [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref15">29</reflink>]; Benz et al. [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref16">1</reflink>]). A large-scale analysis of Common Read projects found that among institutions that integrated a Common Read experience in a first-year seminar, common goals were most frequently building community and introducing the liberal arts, and, somewhat less frequently, developing writing skills and intercultural competence (Keup et al. [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref17">17</reflink>]). The learning outcomes associated with such goals often include analytical skills, such as critical thinking and writing, and 'soft' skills, such as cultural competence and appreciation of diversity (Soria [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref18">36</reflink>]; Thorne [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref19">38</reflink>]; Nadelson [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref20">31</reflink>]).</p> <p>Because almost all incoming students take a composition class, the writing program's Common Read Project at our mid-Atlantic state university evolved as a means for a required class to provide a common opportunity for fostering community by facilitating discussion of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion principles. The writing program serves as the transition into higher education learning spaces for a diverse range of students, including international, first-generation, out-of-state, commuters, transfer, and campus-dwellers. In this case, we were also hoping to offer continuity among courses in the writing program. To begin, the program founded a subcommittee on community-building, which was especially important given the need for social-emotional priorities in the context of the pandemic and multiple human rights abuses in the US and around the world, exacerbated by increased global mobility, migration, and access to media. The subcommittee coordinators conceived of and pitched the Common Read Project to course directors, faculty members, and tutors in order to generate buy-in and to ground the project in a grassroots, democratic ethos. To that end, each group of stakeholders (i.e. volunteer writing program students, faculty, and administrators) voted on the Common Read text and proposed course activities, writing prompts, and events for exchange, such as community gatherings in the form of brown bag lunches and walking tours that highlighted the history of our campus space. Faculty members had the choice to participate, and those who did together researched and developed pedagogical interventions. Significantly, we aimed not for unity or top-down implementation but for multiplicity and horizontal, democratic participation in alignment with the pedagogical aims we sought to inculcate.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-3">Literature review</hd> <p>A pedagogy of empathy is the opposite of a pedagogy of shame. Shame is an imprint of educational institutional power that devalues emotion in the classroom, but a pedagogy of empathy recognizes emotion as central to attempts at equality (Werry and O'Gorman [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref21">40</reflink>]). In Zembylas' ([<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref22">43</reflink>]) view, empathy pedagogy can purposefully 'decolonise' affect and emotion through domination, which, in relation to Freirean critical pedagogy, potentially fixes the oppressed as the object by objectifying them. In other words, a classroom understanding of systemic inequality might provide the opportunity for 'affective solidarity,' but the equalizing force of empathy comes from emotional attunement, not from affective or imagined emotional equivalence (Zembylas [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref23">43</reflink>], 416). Though scholars believe that pedagogies of empathy somehow actualize social transformation, they have not necessarily offered a compelling narrative of how (Pedwell [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref24">33</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-4">The study of literature and pedagogies of empathy</hd> <p>One proposed method for achieving this transformation is through the study of literature. The quest to prove a positive correlation between reading and the production of empathy is longstanding in Literature departments. Junker and Jacquemin ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref25">15</reflink>]) conducted a mixed-methods study of 42 s-year college students enrolled in two English Literature courses with common readings and identical course structure. They assessed student writing to explore how levels of cognitive and affective empathy related to (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref26">1</reflink>) textual attributes of novels assigned in class, (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref27">2</reflink>) genre of writing assignment, (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref28">3</reflink>) individual student writing ability, and (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref29">4</reflink>) whether empathy levels can change over the course of semester. Results indicated a positive correlation between higher empathy scores and better writing ability, possibly because skills of empathy are related to interpretation in literary analysis, but empathy scores fell with a rise in textual difficulty and generally as the semester wore on. When students were given creative writing style tasks, they revealed higher forms of empathy. Junker and Jacquemin ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref30">15</reflink>]) recommended that empathy be considered conceptually in course design and text selection, but because students' empathy did not change over time, they pointed out that reading literature to generate empathy would need more substantial cultivation in course activities and materials to be effective in meeting goals for social change. Similarly, Jurecic ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref31">16</reflink>]) argued against the false pretense that students will 'become attuned to others simply by reading.' She suggested we focus less on how literature might produce a behavior and instead consider empathy for its complexity 'at the heart of social relationships' (<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref32">12</reflink>). Her closing point was that educators could focus on the self- and community-sustaining values of arts and literature as an institutional culture, thereby establishing 'conditions where students can both be introduced to the complexity of empathy and experience it as a daily practice' (<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref33">24</reflink>). Only within the safe space of these conditions can readers be available to respond to others and to tolerate the ambiguities of learning.</p> <p>Significant research on pedagogies of empathy in high school (secondary school) has explored ways for educators to foster these safe space conditions. Warren ([<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref34">39</reflink>]), for example, employed empathy as a professional disposition that obliges the interpretation of student capital in dialectical exchanges between teacher and student. This perspective-taking application of empathy is a criterion for culturally responsive teaching because it builds understanding of students' community contexts, allows students self-expression, values their prior knowledge, and extends flexibility to accommodate student differences (Warren [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref35">39</reflink>]). Damianidou and Phtiaka ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref36">3</reflink>]) offered in-depth strategies for achieving perspective-taking, including (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref37">1</reflink>) 'Text-to-self,' wherein readers connect a text to their own lived experiences, (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref38">2</reflink>) 'Text-to-world,' which positions readers to read through lenses of social, historical, and international cultural perspectives, and (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref39">3</reflink>) 'Text-to-text,' bringing together more than one text and evaluating contextual comparisons. These strategies, although gleaned outside of higher education classrooms, seem applicable to advanced education contexts because they emphasize the 'state of jointly growing' between teachers and students, where anti-objectivist methods of scaffolded questioning 'may play a critical role in fostering a fairer and more socially just world that speaks back to neoliberal discourses of competition and individualism' (<reflink idref="bib244" id="ref40">244</reflink>). In other words, a pedagogy of empathy may begin in the classroom setting as a model of inclusive discourse that should prepare students to reproduce empathetic approaches in civic engagement beyond the classroom.</p> <p>Along these lines, another resource from secondary education that could apply to higher education contexts and extend beyond traditional educational spaces, is <emph>Educating for Empathy</emph> (Mirra [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref41">28</reflink>]), which offered a framework for literacy instruction as a form of civic engagement (toward but not limited to mutual humanization). Mirra's method creates safe space conditions by deconstructing obedient, deficit-oriented models in favor of highly participative, democratic, and collaborative approaches to teaching. In this book, Mirra ([<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref42">28</reflink>]) stands out for her argument against 'action-less empathy,' an appeal to move beyond individual empathy and lean into concrete strategies and authentic connections with projects beyond ourselves. Mirra emphasized that cultivating 'critical civic empathy' is an endeavor for instructors to undertake alongside their students, and 'should be considered a primary goal of education because it offers an organizing principle for our field grounded in hope, love, and a commitment to a more equitable society' (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref43">3</reflink>). As she outlined in Chapter 5, one practical step toward this transformation is to actively reflect on the messages instructors send through their materials, practices, and classroom dynamics, which as elaborated below, is consistent with a more holistic approach that emphasizes listening.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-5">Pedagogies of empathy in higher education</hd> <p>Studies on pedagogies of empathy in higher education settings were more scarce. However, we found concrete strategies for evoking empathy in higher education literacy contexts and found influential examples in Lawrence et al.'s ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref44">22</reflink>]) 'critical empathetic writing pedagogy' and Johnson's ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref45">14</reflink>]) literature of witness approach. Lawrence et al. ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref46">22</reflink>]) proposed that teachers perform the same writing tasks as students, thus encouraging students to see that teachers have their own writing struggles; furthermore, teachers may be able to explain their writing choices better if they are engaged in the same writing task. Lawrence et al. ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref47">22</reflink>]) also advocated for: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref48">1</reflink>) instructors to consider their own preparedness for class when posing expectations for student preparedness; (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref49">2</reflink>) accept late work; (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref50">3</reflink>) develop flexible policies to accommodate mental health; (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref51">4</reflink>) help establish student support groups; and most importantly, (<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref52">5</reflink>) establish a listening rhetoric. 'Listening' also guided Johnson's ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref53">14</reflink>]) literature of witness approach, which prepared the participants in the common read project to encounter negative emotions during reader resistance, like shock, fascination, patronizing dismissal, sadness, indignation, emotional overload, helplessness, fear, and defensiveness. These 'empathy-obstructing responses,' Johnson ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref54">14</reflink>]) posited, are countered in text selections containing 'rhetorical narrative strategies that model and teach collaborative listening,' those texts that 'destabilize readers' certainties and open space for re-evaluation of readers' cultural and identity assumptions' and use narratives that 'articulate our potential fears and judgments' to form 'intersubjective bridges' (<reflink idref="bib359" id="ref55">359</reflink>). To elicit 'listening,' Johnson ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref56">14</reflink>]) recommended frequent writing prompts that ask for creative self-reflection on the unfamiliar, to allow for dwelling and slowing down during perspective taking. Leake's ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref57">23</reflink>]) 'Writing Pedagogies of Empathy' foregrounded both Lawrence et al. ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref58">22</reflink>]) and Johnson's ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref59">14</reflink>]) ideas about text selection, assignments that promote perspective-taking and creativity, and interpretative relational work with both texts and humans that cultivates the habit of listening.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-6">Sustaining new scenes of pedagogical empathy with bell hooks</hd> <p>In keeping with the text selection criteria outlined by Johnson ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref60">14</reflink>]), the Common Read Project adopted bell hooks' chapter, 'Heart to Heart: Teaching with Love.' We selected hooks' text with democratic debate and voting throughout the department with input from current students, faculty, and administration. Early in the selection process, we found that hooks introduced the challenge of 'destabilizing' certainties we hold as students and instructors about the kinds of texts to bring into the writing classroom. In this essay, hooks explicitly analyzes student-teacher relationships, and proposes that <emph>love</emph> be one way we approach them. Given the kinds of conversations this text might facilitate, many (students and instructors alike) were at first hesitant to vote in favor of hooks' essay. Upon further discussion, however, about how it might feature in an otherwise 'stable' curriculum, many changed their minds, demonstrating, to our interpretation, a 're-evaluation' of their assumptions, positionalities in the classroom, and potential for growth in learning and teaching. It is precisely this openness to others' perspectives that our pedagogy of empathy aimed to cultivate and thus the text selection process was an apt opportunity to enact these goals.</p> <p>With listening as a paramount feature of a pedagogy of empathy, our project was heavily invested in Ratcliffe's ([<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref61">34</reflink>]) seminal essay, 'Rhetorical Listening: A Trope for Interpretive Invention and a 'Code of Cross-Cultural Conduct.' Ratcliffe mourned the loss of listening in rhetorical studies and sought the renewal of listening as a trope for interpretative invention in the context of composition studies and cross-cultural dialogue. We were intrigued by Ratcliffe's questions:</p> <p>Why is it so hard to listen to one another? Why is it so hard to resist a guilt/blame logic when we do listen? Why is it so hard to identify with one another when we feel excluded? Why is it so hard to focus simultaneously on commonalities and differences among ourselves? And how do the power differentials of our particular standpoints influence our ability to listen? (197-8)</p> <p>These questions informed the design of our classroom practices and reading practices around themes of guilt, blame, exclusion – all simultaneous effects of differences and power differentials. We sought to take on these challenges as we developed our study, beginning with Ratcliffe's self-reflective practice, which echoes Mirra's call for fostering critical civic empathy within instructors. Both asserted that we first have to ask, 'What lessons am I (un)consciously sending to my students, my readers, my neighbors, my [children], myself?' (Ratcliffe [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref62">34</reflink>], 198). Working to understand the 'discourse embodied in each of us' through listening becomes a means of moving away from 'relativistic empathy' and toward 'ethical responsibility' (Ratcliffe [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref63">34</reflink>], 206, 203). Listening, Ratcliffe argued, has more potential to uncover '(un)conscious presences, absences, unknowns,' laying bare our socializations, which creates a productive space to transform attitudes and actions (Ratcliffe [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref64">34</reflink>], 206–207). Listening practices thus reinforce the pursuit of action-backed, rather than 'action-less empathy,' which we center as the foundation for deep learning. Ratcliffe's emphasis on the 'rhetorical' – situations in which listeners open themselves to difference – is foundational to Kincheloe's concept of 'radical listening' ([<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref65">18</reflink>]), the current parlance for listening with educational purpose (Winchell, Kress, and Tobin [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref66">41</reflink>]). These terms, however, might represent a distinction without a difference, as 'listening' itself should presume an active predisposition.</p> <p>Given the myriad proposals on an empathy-based pedagogy, it would be impossible to delimit this conceptual term with a fixed bibliographic shape. However, inspired by the influential work of hooks, Leake, and Ratcliff outlined above, we take empathy as encompassing the following attributes within an institutional context: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref67">1</reflink>) that empathy, far from being static or passive, requires actions from instructors and students to create a safe space for rhetorical and radical listening; (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref68">2</reflink>) because the definition of empathy cannot be foreclosed, nor can anyone claim a full understanding of empathy, those who practice an empathy-based pedagogy must continually revise their methodological assumptions with a radical openness for new, unexpected challenges; and finally, (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref69">3</reflink>) because these challenges often spring from students' lived experience outside the classroom, the aspiration of an empathy-based pedagogy is inextricably tied to the desire for social transformation, even though it is also important to note that their relationship (causal or coterminous) cannot be predetermined. As we suggested above, although scholars have suggested that an empathy-based pedagogy could lead to social transformation, it is not clear <emph>how</emph> that can be achieved. The objective of this essay (and of our faculty-led Common Read Project) is to put some of our theories to test, making an intentional effort to survey the various enactments and scenes of empathy from instructors' points of view, as well as their reflections on empathy's strategies, challenges, and its relationship to the larger social ambitions. Our intention is not to provide a guideline for how empathy can 'work' in the classroom–such presumption already contradicts our abiding belief that empathy must remain radically open in its definition. Rather, by summarizing our year-long work and sharing the results with our peers, we hope to follow Mirra's first injunction: that is, to open a truly 'action-based' dialogue in this pedagogical field, and to create a more capacious environment for our fellow instructors to brainstorm, build and sustain new scenes of pedagogical empathy.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-7">Methodology</hd> <p>To evaluate the implementation of our pedagogy of empathy within this Common Read project, we employed a practice of heuristic research, defined as a method of reporting and receiving information while remaining open to changes in direction, in order to remain consistent with our commitment in the classroom to the principles of rhetorical listening. Heuristic Research, a method involving self-inquiry and interpersonal dialogue as a means to crystalize ideas, can be fruitful – even paramount – for teachers who wish to examine questions and problems in their practices (Fogelgarn [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref70">6</reflink>]). Heuristic Research illuminates our intrinsic ways of knowing through deeply immersive and passion-driven listening to selves and others, thus aligning the form and content of our empathy pedagogy research. This methodological examination of lived experiences churns the heart, body, and mind, slowly transforming the 'ability and skill to understand the problem more fully, and ultimately to deepen and extend the understanding through the eyes and voices of others' (Moustakas [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref71">30</reflink>], 17). As investigators, we committed to authentic reporting and wide-open receiving without presuming cause–effect relationships. A composite of anecdotes, memories, revelations, and careful yet organic notetaking on key themes reveals the relationships between experiences, thus creating networks of truths that connect researchers and participants. This form of qualitative research foregrounds unstructured or semi-structured interviews with disciplined respect and sensitivity, so that when confusion or struggle occurs, these states are recognized as opportunities for indwelling and incubation, which ultimately produce creative synthesis. A study similar to ours, O'Hara ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref72">32</reflink>]), used Moustakas' ([<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref73">30</reflink>]) method to produce a comfortable environment for conversation. As in O'Hara's study, the majority of the data we collected took place through informal interviews and indwelling, in which we promoted anti-objectivist, anti-dominating spaces for listening and exchange in pairs or small groups.</p> <p>As per this method, we did not come together with a clear research agenda; rather, we sought peer faculty collaborators who taught in the writing program across a range of categories, such as graduate students, part-time, and full-time faculty. This study took place in Fall 2022 in the writing program of a large public university in the United States. After ethics approval, we established a website on our online learning management system, which included 55 of about 90 writing instructors in our department. We posted bell hooks' text along with teaching materials that we co-generated with our participants throughout the semester. We also posted a 'Common Read Common Journal' where participants could add group discussion notes, transcribed interviews, and personal reflections.</p> <p>Our faculty collaborators created their own pseudonyms and exercised free choice regarding whether/how to provide demographic information, and ultimately, we referred to all collaborators/participants as such, without names. Participation was kept as confidential as possible by using in-person, unstructured, open protocol interviews rather than electronic forms of communication. We were careful to count ourselves as collaborators rather than just data collectors, so we self-disclosed appropriately to the topic, avoiding a detachment from the study. Finally, we were conscious of power differentials and attempted to meet differences or conflict with curiosity (Sultan [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref74">37</reflink>]).</p> <p>Moustakas' ([<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref75">30</reflink>], 48) suggested interview questions guided our work with collaborators:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> What does this person know about empathy in teaching and learning?</item> <p></p> <item> What qualities or dimensions of the experience stand out for the person? What examples are vivid and alive?</item> <p></p> <item> What events, situations, and people are connected with the experience?</item> <p></p> <item> What feelings and thoughts are generated by the experience?</item> <p></p> <item> What bodily states or shifts in bodily presence occur in the experience?</item> <p></p> <item> Has the person shared all of the significant ingredients or constituents of the experience?</item> </ulist> <p>After transcribing interviews and collecting our notes, we took time away from the data to reflect, discuss, and develop a creative synthesis, which is a narrative depiction of our findings. We then coded our data into the following themes: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref76">1</reflink>) Teaching with empathy as inspired by hooks' pedagogy of love; (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref77">2</reflink>) Guarding against exploitation within pedagogies of empathy; (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref78">3</reflink>) Listening; (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref79">4</reflink>) Strategies for evoking empathy in higher education classrooms; (<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref80">5</reflink>) Building Community; and (<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref81">6</reflink>) Strategies for change, rigor, and creativity. Synthesis and analysis of the data took place in deep meditative discussion, and focused these themes into our key findings: a pedagogy of empathy is (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref82">1</reflink>) anti-objectivist, (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref83">2</reflink>) less dominating than love, and (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref84">3</reflink>) rigorous about listening. This work revealed early strategies for accomplishing these features.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-8">Results and discussion</hd> <p>The following section reports the primary themes as they emerged from our interviews and reflections over the course of the semester of the common read project. These themes included the anti-objectivist nature of empathy, the differentiation of empathy and love, strategies for empathy, and the rigor of listening.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-9">Empathy as anti-objectivist</hd> <p>One of hooks' central arguments is that our teacherly presence in the classroom has far too often relied on an 'objectivist' approach, which assumes that knowledge reception can be a purely empirical event devoid of affective interference (<reflink idref="bib129" id="ref85">129</reflink>). While this approach may work in the hard sciences, she argued, in the humanities/social sciences it has often created an 'adversarial' culture in which students are unable to express themselves or challenge the existing norms out of fear that they may be 'wrong' (<reflink idref="bib130" id="ref86">130</reflink>). Hence, our research method of 'concentrated gazing,' 'a staying with,' required a different kind of rigor as we listened to our faculty collaborators describe their classroom practices. This 'sustained process of systematically contacting the more central meanings of an experience' behooves a human rigor that is anti-objectionist (Moustakas [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref87">30</reflink>], 25). Although none of our faculty collaborators suggested that their pedagogical styles can be characterized by fear or domination, most agreed that a student's subjective state – whether they are, for example, excited, apathetic, anxious, or depressed, which can often be expressed in just a nonverbal, gestural cue – can often affect the overall mood of the learning environment and their readiness to engage with the materials and their teacher. Regardless of our study participants' attitudes toward their students, that is, the students themselves bring preconceptions of the teacher-student dynamic and the role of education, which may assume an adversarial relationship or a desire for objectivity.</p> <p>It is likely that our study participants, as teachers of twenty-person first-year composition courses, never viewed their pedagogical style as 'objectivist' because the standard learning modality of such seminars is discussion-based, aimed towards interaction rather than dissemination. Indeed, hooks' proposal for a capacious classroom environment that is grounded in 'care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust' (<reflink idref="bib134" id="ref88">134</reflink>) was taken to heart by many of our interviewees. One participant suggested that a mind that is 'motivated by compassion' is more eager to reach out to know, while another suggested that it is always already the teacher's 'professional responsibility to encourage every student to develop their talents and voice.' In other words, these instructors see their responsibility as cultivating an environment of empathy to create the conditions whereby students feel supported and thus able to exercise their burgeoning abilities.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-10">Empathy as less dominant love</hd> <p>Although our study participants unequivocally supported hooks' goal for an embodied pedagogy as a corrective of an objectivist culture, not all of us agreed that 'love' is the best term to describe the relationship between teachers and students. One study participant said that 'love and empathy are not all that different because you cannot have one without the other,' yet another participant said that she 'wouldn't use the language of 'love' – it is, as hooks says, a 'scary word.' For me, it's more about the classroom ethos than an orientation toward a particular student.' The skepticism of using love as a pedagogical term seems rooted in the emotional baggage that the term 'love' often carries. For hooks, love is defined as an antidote to our dehumanizing 'dominator culture.' But as one of our interviewees asked, 'Is there a definition of love without domination, including domination that's sometimes hidden and presented as overbearing tenderness?' If expressivist love may be masking an underlying aggression, the opposite may also be true. We may ask, that is, if a teacher who appears 'objectivist' may in fact be encoding a less expressivist version of love that equally enables students' motivation to learn. One of our collaborators said one of her best college professors was in fact a 'stoic' professor who made her and her classmates feel assured of their abilities. The risk of using 'love' as a pedagogical term is not that it's 'scary,' then, but that it involves a wide range of affective dispositions whose manifestation as 'love' may not be easily determined.</p> <p>Crucially, to talk of a pedagogy characterized by love is to talk of cultivating individual interpersonal relationships, as opposed to merely an abstract environment. An environment is atmospheric, elusive, and mood-based, while a person (teacher or student) is defined by their individual traits and subjectivity. This teaching practice doesn't mean to de-individualize the students or presume a monolithic entity; rather, by creating an ethos in which no single voice dominates the conversation, it de-hierarchizes the classroom and allows every student to be a potential participant to democratize the classroom. And so, even when a student feels like their voice is 'irrelevant' to the conversation, an ethos of teaching rooted in empathy takes that voice seriously as a potential educational material instead of dismissing it as pedagogically naive, or mere noise or distraction.</p> <p>For one of our participants, this de-hierarchization specifically took on the form of decolonization. Speaking from his previous experiences teaching an elite boarding school in China, he recalled how the school deployed a '<emph>deficit-based'</emph> learning model, demeriting students for speaking any language other than English. This teaching experience, for our colleague, was also viscerally related to his own identity as a Filipino American, for whom access to the mainstream American cultural identity often required a certain form of 'self-disembodiment,' insofar as teaching the hegemonic language in the US – <emph>and</emph> being required to speak it fluently as a teacher – requires a certain voiding of his non-white, and culturally othered, embodiment. This experience made our colleague reflect: 'How much of the way I see the world has been created by colonization? How do we accidentally inherit this form of pedagogical colonization? How do we decolonize our mind?' If a colonial pedagogical praxis permits only one form of Englishness and fashions its prestige by excluding all others, for our colleague decolonization precisely starts from recognizing students' different linguistic journeys: how they came to interact with English from various, heterogeneous cultural contexts. A decolonial praxis thus requires instructors to listen more carefully to the multifaceted dimensions of English as a global language.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-11">Empathy strategies</hd> <p>Our colleagues offered a variety of strategies for evoking empathy in higher education classrooms. Most of these strategies were grounded in existing theory-to-practice scholarship, such as 'ungrading' (Kohn and Blum [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref89">20</reflink>]; Koehler and Meech [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref90">19</reflink>]; Gorichanaz [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref91">8</reflink>]), embodied teaching (Hayashi and Tobin [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref92">10</reflink>]; Hall and Looney [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref93">9</reflink>]), place-based learning (Johnson [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref94">13</reflink>]; Goodenough et al. [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref95">7</reflink>]), group work (Eodice, Geller, and Lerner [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref96">4</reflink>]), language justice (Robinson, Hall, and Navarro [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref97">35</reflink>]), and critical consciousness (Jemal [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref98">12</reflink>]). The common force behind these strategies was the teacher's impulse to conjure more reflexivity among students and to nourish each student as an individual in the class context. One colleague suggested that students could survey their internal responses to receiving feedback on writing assignments as a means to influence their process of revision, with teachers disclosing their own feelings of having received feedback in the past. Reflexivity and relational discussion of metacognitive processes humanize learning. Feelings and emotions as tools for revision fosters trust in the instructor's own human experience as sage wisdom instead of authoritarian dominance. Moreover, empathy can be used as a tool/strategy to address potential exploitation often in the form of deficit pedagogies. To question such practices,we begin with an open orientation from empathy-based pedagogical ground. That way we might be closer 'being sensitive to student needs' as per one of our participants said. We might have to begin by questioning taken for granted terms such as course objectives. Similarly, we might have to reflect on our assessment practices, especially if we are consciously or unconsciously prioritizing a particular variety of language at the cost of letting students make creative choices. Another participant states that if we are open to be reflective about our own assumptions and practices, then we could be able to create a 'strengths-based' curriculum where students can 'think about their own linguistic journey and strengths of their language.' Therefore, we should be open to learn from our own students what matters the most to them and why. Doing so could also be one of the ways to tackle linguistic injustice and, thus, participating in what Ratcliffe above calls listening with action-backed empathy. Some of our colleagues, however, were wary of how this reflexivity could alter respect for course content.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-12">The rigor of listening</hd> <p>It is no surprise that across the interviews, several intersections on the topic of 'tough love' related to the concept of rigor: the level of 'cognitive challenge' plus 'the investment of psychological and physical energy' required to succeed (Culver et al. [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref99">2</reflink>]). hooks, after all, was keen to defend against assumptions that teaching with 'love/care' would sacrifice rigor, thus leading to higher grades or favoritism; she cited a former student, who said, 'the more you loved us, the harder we had to work' (hooks [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref100">11</reflink>], 133, 137). Still, our discussion revealed some latent wariness about how rigor might be affected by a pedagogy of empathy. Our well-intentioned 'tough love' characterized reverence for high expectations without making room for an inclusive version of rigor. For example, one of our study participants asked, 'Is there a tradeoff between making the class engaging for the best or most struggling students?' while another asked, 'how do we think about holding ourselves to a standard of a learning community in the classroom?' Both questions attend to the assumption of a standard – a standard which individuals either fall below or excel beyond – in a learning community that prioritizes difficulty and objectivist hierarchies. The first question's 'tradeoff' implies a focus on teaching toward content acquisition made accessible to all, which could result in a lack of depth, assuming the 'cognitive challenge' would be too much for certain students. The second question reflects on the institutional responsibility to ensure a standard performance of a task or comprehension of an idea, with individual classrooms as a subset of a larger learning community, which must adhere to equitable standards. Indeed, a pedagogy of empathy must contend with equity along these lines, especially in consideration of diverse student populations, where binary thinking about best/struggling students eschews inclusivity, the responsibility of the instructor to value each student as fully important and to understand the range of biopsychosocial and political factors that affect each classroom and discipline. Therefore, in a pedagogy of empathy, best practices of rigor might be 'co-determined by standards of performance particular to a task, the quality of support offered by the teacher, and the intellectual activity engaged in by learners' (Windschitl and Calabrese 2016, p. 1099). A pedagogy of empathy rechannels 'tough love' through these three multiple pathways, where supported intellectual engagement can help the community evolve its learning goals with more voices presen<bold>t</bold> in the conversation.</p> <p>A pedagogy of empathy in a writing program complicates rigor and 'tough love' because central goals of the discipline are creativity and 'embodied pleasure of thinking and writing' (Participant). Moreover, creativity and discovery were at odds with what one participant called the 'overwhelmingness' of the curriculum, which jibes with Junker and Jacquemin's ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref101">15</reflink>]) idea that textual difficulty decreases student empathy while creative assignments increase it. As writing teachers we often tend to resort to standards of the dominant variety in hope of maintaining quality of writing. Overemphasis in standard language forms might overwhelm our students. But standardization 'doesn't have to be creativity-killing'. Along the same lines, one of our colleagues points out that academic writing is 'not an objective truth' and thus we could treat 'rules' (quotation in participant's response) as choices of style. Now the question might be how we can distinguish between creativity and linguistic error as our other colleague indicates here: 'how do you measure creativity or surprise in an argument?' Without figuring out what the students' intentions were we can hardly tell the difference. Many of our students, especially from multilingual and multicultural backgrounds, often appropriate linguistic resources and use them creatively (Lee and Canagarajah [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref102">24</reflink>]; Lu [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref103">27</reflink>]). Therefore, it is quite essential to listen to our students and then co-construct meanings. In fact, the colleague suggests that if we can create safe spaces where our students can consciously challenge 'the 'norms' of good writing,' they might be able to negotiate the standards more effectively. Indeed, such creative practices can 'involve reconfiguring contexts through critical and creative language use, rather than conforming to dominant meanings, conventions, contexts and social relationships that can be disempowering or silencing' (Lee and Canagarajah [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref104">24</reflink>], p. 4). In this light, listening with care can go a long way in reimagining our pedagogies.</p> <p>When we listen, we act in a fundamentally different way: we support the involved parties, and also try to be mindful of the larger context, which might include both historical knowledge and future challenges/opportunities. We question ourselves about what words and texts might mean or how they might have been produced. Thus, such questioning might allow us to entertain alternative interpretations and enhance our pedagogical practice. As Ratcliffe defined it, rhetorical listening has a stance of openness to any person, text, or culture. She also says that it can be applied in many different contexts for many purposes. In this sense, listening rhetorically in a writing classroom might mean that we not only have an open orientation to what our students say and write but also what they bring with them. Whether we are interacting with them in person or reading their work outside the class, rhetorical listening entails being attentive to different possibilities behind a text. To do so, as one collaborator suggested, it is quite important to 'envision how we listen to someone speak in person and apply those habits to both reading practices and engagement with students.' In terms of how one could listen rhetorically, the same member said that:</p> <p>When we listen, we do so politely and sympathetically. We are confronted with the person/author of the words and speak diplomatically or supportively rather than critically or dismissively. We are also alert to circumstance, mood, and style, as well as to past histories and future opportunities. We might pay more attention to the words or the sound-markers of speech and possibly the actual words expressed which deepens understanding.</p> <p>This participant may be suggesting that it is essential to suspend the hierarchy and listen on the same footing with politeness and sympathy. Rather than relying on our sole interpretation, suspending biases might enable us to make practice of rhetorical listening more productive. The participant quoted above is also asking us to be mindful of not only what is visible in the text (e.g. words, mood, and style) but also what could be coming covertly, including past histories and future opportunities. Thus, rhetorical listening could involve being 'in dialogue or conversation, rather than a solitary endeavor' at every curricular and pedagogical activity in a writing classroom. Taken in that light, if we employ a self-reflective practice with an open orientation to what we do in our teaching-learning spaces, there is a better chance for our students of being heard, and thus having more agency. Therefore, rhetorical listening with empathy could be helpful in rewriting/reimagining our own practices by uncovering 'unconscious presences, absences, and unknowns' (Ratcliffe [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref105">34</reflink>], 206–207).</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-13">Conclusion</hd> <p>In this paper, we have demonstrated why building community, especially after the pandemic and with social justice in mind, is fundamental to a pedagogy of empathy. We also showed that our colleagues suggested developing mutual partnerships with students (as well as other stakeholders) in implementing such pedagogies. Additionally, we discussed how teaching with empathy involves forging connections as well as being mindful of various hidden issues, including mental health, power, and linguistic injustice. Admittedly, as some of our colleagues pondered, the question might be how one assesses the effectiveness of our own (new) pedagogies. One possibility is that we could use the community and mutual relationship(s) to our advantage: like-minded colleagues could provide constructive feedback, as our colleagues did in this paper.</p> <p>Finally, intentional community building in the classroom level hinges on macro-level embodiment of empathy pedagogy: the institutional culture and departmental system must welcome grassroots efforts for the margin to push the center as decolonial praxis. A rigid core that provides often unstable protection and meager material conditions of instructors and students is, anyway, an unstable foundation for classroom-level interventions founded on interpersonal relationships. After all, as the social scientist Michael Lipsky theorized in <emph>Street Level Bureaucracy</emph> ([<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref106">26</reflink>]), professionals in helping roles (like teachers, police, social workers) who enact overhead policy wield the power of policy interpretation and implementation on the ground. Therefore, a high-walled administration that does not support mutual partnership will stultify instructors' and students' capacity for empathy as enactors of policy, or here, pedagogy. An aggrandized remove will promote frustration and fatigue while constraining devotion to human connection. Though a pedagogy of empathy seeks to repair this connection, the precarity of the academic profession makes our goals idealistic. Still, in what Lezra ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref107">25</reflink>]) rightly calls this 'world of atrocity,' it may be an ethical duty to find a 'pedagogical model through which our students may empathetically perceive, understand, experience and respond to' each other in the writing classroom and beyond.</p> <p>Our conclusions about this common read project and the applications of our pedagogy of empathy, however, are limited by several extenuating circumstances. Firstly, ours was not a truly universal common read project – instructors were able to voluntarily opt in at their discretion – and so our ability to draw quantitative or qualitative conclusions from course evaluations or student outcomes is limited. Moreover, the implementation of our project occurred simultaneously with another program piloting an update to our existing curriculum, further obfuscating our ability to draw conclusions about student outcomes. These limitations, more generally, reflect one of the challenges of the subjects of listening and empathy themselves; namely, that they are dispositions, observable only through their secondary effects. In other words, empathy is not as observable or palpable as the production of rhetoric, which is endemic to academic cultures. Yet empathy as a key pedagogical action, while not new, requires more sustained and collective implementation as a creative project if we are to address deepening divisions in learning contexts.</p> <hd id="AN0182438528-14">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <ref id="AN0182438528-15"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Benz, B., D. Comer, E. Juergensmeyer, and M. Lowry. 2013. Wpas, writing programs and the common Reading experience. 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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Finding a Pedagogy of Empathy in a Common Read Project – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Miriam+Jaffe%22">Miriam Jaffe</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Madhav+Kafle%22">Madhav Kafle</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Erin+K%2E+Kelly%22">Erin K. Kelly</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Ben+Tam%22">Ben Tam</searchLink> – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Teaching+in+Higher+Education%22"><i>Teaching in Higher Education</i></searchLink>. 2025 30(2):396-411. – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 16 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2025 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research – Name: Audience Label: Education Level Group: Audnce Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Postsecondary+Education%22">Postsecondary Education</searchLink> – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Empathy%22">Empathy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22College+Freshmen%22">College Freshmen</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Reading+Programs%22">Reading Programs</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22School+Transition%22">School Transition</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Diversity+Equity+and+Inclusion%22">Diversity Equity and Inclusion</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Justice%22">Social Justice</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Inquiry%22">Inquiry</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Critical+Reading%22">Critical Reading</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Writing+%28Composition%29%22">Writing (Composition)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teaching+Methods%22">Teaching Methods</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Curriculum+Implementation%22">Curriculum Implementation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Communities+of+Practice%22">Communities of Practice</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Projects%22">Student Projects</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1080/13562517.2024.2324727 – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 1356-2517<br />1470-1294 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: Inspired by common read projects, wherein first-year students read a shared text as a means of acclimating to the university community, our writing program adopted a project introducing students to bell hooks' 'Teaching With Love' through an empathy-based pedagogy. The researchers, with faculty participants, used a heuristic method of indwelling to reflect on core issues of equity, inclusivity, diversity, and justice as the basis for developing overarching practices of inquiry, critical reading, and analytical writing. We found that a pedagogy of empathy is (1) anti-objectivist, (2) anti-domination, and (3) rigorous about listening. These findings were generated through our synthesis and analysis of interviews with faculty collaborators, revealing early strategies for accomplishing these features. Our study raises questions about how institutions might support empathy-based pedagogy as a post-pandemic and anti-racist practice to benefit teachers and students. – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2025 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1458708 |
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| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1080/13562517.2024.2324727 Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 16 StartPage: 396 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Empathy Type: general – SubjectFull: College Freshmen Type: general – SubjectFull: Reading Programs Type: general – SubjectFull: School Transition Type: general – SubjectFull: Diversity Equity and Inclusion Type: general – SubjectFull: Social Justice Type: general – SubjectFull: Inquiry Type: general – SubjectFull: Critical Reading Type: general – SubjectFull: Writing (Composition) Type: general – SubjectFull: Teaching Methods Type: general – SubjectFull: Curriculum Implementation Type: general – SubjectFull: Communities of Practice Type: general – SubjectFull: Student Projects Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Finding a Pedagogy of Empathy in a Common Read Project Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Miriam Jaffe – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Madhav Kafle – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Erin K. Kelly – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Ben Tam IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2025 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 1356-2517 – Type: issn-electronic Value: 1470-1294 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 30 – Type: issue Value: 2 Titles: – TitleFull: Teaching in Higher Education Type: main |
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