Wendy Williams
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Mail code: 2780Campus: Poly
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Dr. Wendy R. Williams, Associate Professor of English Education in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, researches visual and multimodal storytelling; writing identity, attitudes, and practices; and mentoring. She has expertise in food studies as well. Her research has been published in English Journal, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and Journal of Visual Literacy. She has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Arizona Humanities.
Her first book, Listen to the Poet: Writing, Performance, and Community in Youth Spoken Word Poetry (2018, University of Massachusetts), examines a Phoenix area spoken word poetry group through a community-of-practice lens and reveals how workshops and slams challenged, supported, and inspired adolescent writers. Her second book, Mentoring Youth Writers: Six Strategies to Bring out the Author in Every Student (2025, National Council of Teachers of English), takes readers inside the Young Authors’ Studio program to investigate mentoring practices that nurture creativity and writing identity—practices that can be used in schools as well to benefit student writers. Currently she is working on her third book, a detailed examination of different visual/multimodal narrative forms and their potential in English education. She is also editing a special issue of English Journal on food studies in English language arts with ASU doctoral student, Adriana Diaz-Heppler.
Professor Williams teaches in CISA’s M.A. Narrative Studies and B.A. English programs, and she designed CISA's Writing Certificate. She serves on Ph.D. and M.A. committees, has experience with course scaling, and has created several new courses for ASU:
- ENG 394 Writing about Food
- ENG 446/520 Visual Narratives
- ENG 466 Studio Ghibli Films
- ENG 473 Critical Approaches to Children's Literature
- ENG 484/584 Mentoring Youth Writers
- ENG 505 Narrative Research Methods
She has also taught YA literature and English methods courses and supervised student teachers. Previously she taught English for nine years at the high school and middle school levels.
At ASU, Professor Williams is co-chair of the university’s Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee (CAPC), and she served as CAPC’s interim chair in Spring 2025, during which time the proposal for ASU’s medical school was approved. Several changes she instituted while chair of CISA’s Awards Committee are still in effect today (e.g., establishing Project Grants, an Innovation Award, a Faculty Mentoring Award). At her own initiative, she has created many new programs and events to support youth in the community and ASU students, alumni, and colleagues:
- ASU Young Authors' Studio Program (2017-2023)
- ASU Sparky Slam
- ASU Narrative Studies Symposium
- IHC Humanities Dialogues
She is an elected member of ASU’s Grievance Committee as well.
Dr. Williams is co-chair of the ELATE Commission on Arts and Literacies (COAL). In this leadership role serving 120+ COAL members, she has launched a new Zoom series and member newsletter and organized a session at the NCTE Conference featuring 19 roundtables on the arts. She has served as the “Teaching Creative Writing” column editor for English Journal, chair of NCTE's Achievement Awards in Writing Committee, editorial review board member for the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and board member for the Arizona English Teachers Association. She has reviewed manuscripts for Research in the Teaching of English, Bloomsbury’s BFI (British Film Institute) Film Classics series, and more.
Professor Williams is a graduate of Scottsdale Culinary Institute’s Le Cordon Bleu program. She cooked at Gregory’s World Bistro, worked in meetings and conventions for Hilton, and wrote for Arizona Food and Lifestyles magazine. In addition, she is a certified Maricopa County Master Gardener who cares about sustainable horticulture practices. Her hobbies include gardening and playing cello. Previously she studied, taught, and competed in Shotokan karate (ISKF/JKA).
- Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction: English Education. Arizona State University
- M.Ed. Secondary Education: English. Arizona State University
- B.A.E. Secondary Education: English (Summa cum laude, 4.0 GPA). Arizona State University
- A.O.S. Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts (Honors graduate, 4.0 GPA). Scottsdale Culinary Institute
