Wendy Williams
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Mail code: 2780Campus: Poly
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Dr. Wendy R. Williams is an Associate Professor of English Education whose work has been featured 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. 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 designed her college’s Writing Certificate and has created many new courses for ASU (e.g., 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.
Dr. Williams is co-chair of the ELATE Commission on Arts and Literacies. In this leadership role serving 120+ members, she has organized an NCTE Conference session featuring 19 roundtables on the arts, launched a Zoom lecture series, and started a member newsletter. She also reviews manuscripts for various journals (e.g., Research in the Teaching of English) and presses/series (e.g., Bloomsbury’s BFI—British Film Institute—Film Classics series). During her career, Dr. Williams has taken on a wide variety of roles in service to her profession (e.g., English Journal column editor, NCTE Achievement Awards in Writing chair, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy editorial review board member, Arizona English Teachers Association board member).
At ASU, Professor Williams serves as an elected member of the university’s Grievance Committee. In addition, she is co-chair of the university’s Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee. Several changes she instituted while chair of her college’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 ASU events and programs: Young Authors' Studio Program, Sparky Slam, Humanities Dialogues, and Narrative Studies Symposium.
Dr. Williams also has a background in food studies. She is a graduate of Scottsdale Culinary Institute’s Le Cordon Bleu program who 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.
Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction: English Education. Arizona State University. 2015
