Rebeca Fernandez Writing Center Director | Associate Professor of Writing and Educational Studies

My academic and professional interests center on the language development and academic socialization of linguistic minorities across the lifespan.

Early in my career, I taught transitional bilingual education and helped develop bilingual performance-based assessments for large urban school districts. While pursuing my graduate studies, I assisted with research on commercially available reading programs and worked with vocabulary intervention data for bilingual school-aged children. 

I also have an abiding interest in nontraditional adult students, especially migrants and minoritized populations. I taught in the field of adult literacy for many years and continue to be invested in the professionalization of its teachers and administrators through practice-oriented research, professional development workshops, and scholarly publications.

My expertise in language and literacy manifests in all aspects of my work at Davidson, where I am a core member of the Center for Teaching and Learning, Writing Program, and Educational Studies department. Since 2012, I have been conducting longitudinal research on the rhetorical and linguistic development of advanced multilingual writers with colleague Shireen Campbell in order to refine support for multilingual college students at Davidson and beyond.

Teaching

WRI 101 The Linguist’s Dilemma
WRI 101 Language and Identity
EDU 361 Bilingualism and Literacy
EDU 360 Second Language Acquisition
EDU 365 Language Policy and Planning