I completely agree with Chardin and Novak that teachers and others should strive for universal design, but I am a little frustrated by their chapter “Universal Design as an Instrument of Change.”

Some years ago in my teaching (before I came to City Tech), I didn’t allow students to use devices in the classroom, and I printed my syllabi in Times New Roman, with all its serifs, because I wanted to model MLA style. I was also much more of a stickler about late work–I didn’t accept it–and issued harsh penalties for small cases of plagiarism. I also assigned a lot more reading quizzes. Since then, I think I’ve come a long way in terms of making my teaching more accessible, both at City Tech and in my other classrooms. I allow students to use laptops or tablets, and, if they need them to look up an article they haven’t printed out despite my strong encouragement to do so, phones. I just start class with a general reminder that headphones should be removed from ears and phones stashed out of site and set to “do not disturb” functionality. I print my syllabi in sans-serif Arial, and make sure students know that syllabi and and other documents I distribute in print also exist in digital form on our course website, where size and font can be manipulated. After lots of thinking and experience with plagiarism, I’m now more likely (depending on the specifics of the case) to require revision, report the case to the dean’s office (which keeps a record only to be referred to if the student is found to plagiarize again later in their college career), and subtract a few points from the student’s grade on the revised assignment. I’m more likely to start class with impromptu free-writing in response to discussion questions than to give identification-based reading quizzes. And I recommend to students as a class and individually that they consult with their campus advisors, counseling services, librarians, and writing tutors.

My politics are left; when I’m not teaching, I do a lot of volunteer work to elect local candidates who will work to make our public schools more equitable and better funded. I agree with Chardin and Novak that the schools we attend, often determined by the neighborhood we live in, and funded by it too, are markers on the axis of privilege, as are our zip codes, our appearances, gender position, languages spoken, and on and on. I worry about charter schools like Success Academy that prioritize the classroom management Chardin and Novak point out isn’t all-important (12), and policies like the Common Core that encourage teachers to teach students to navigate a gauntlet of standardized tests that inherently discourage UDL and thereby disempower students. I agree with Chardin and Novak (and the 1121 model syllabus!) that teaching students goal-setting, scheduling, and planning is so important; I am continuously telling students to refer to their calendars, to set reminders on their phone, to adjust their alarm clocks, and giving them time to do so. When students ask to submit work late, I ask them when, given their other commitments, they will be able to turn it in, in order to equip them with a new set of deadlines and accountability.

But as someone also teaching an Intro to Writing about Lit course (at another campus) this semester, when Chardin and Novak write, “We must create learning environments that give all students opportunities to personalize their education, share their voices, and create their own paths to success while embracing their own identities” (11), I strongly agree on the one hand, but on the other hand, I wonder how this can be accomplished in a course focused on reading–how can students individualize their learning when we are all reading the same primary texts together, in order for me to guide discussion? This seems more doable in a composition course when students can do individual research and then give one another feedback on how to write about their findings. And while I appreciate Amy Wedge’s suggestion to point students toward community-service opportunities (19), I am struck by the difficulties of doing this in a CUNY setting as opposed to a neighborhood K-12 setting. At CUNY, after all, our students commute from across the five boroughs and beyond, often work long hours, and are enrolled full-time. Their time is spread thin such that it would be quite a challenge to integrate a community-service component in required English classes. And adjuncts aren’t paid close enough to a living wage to make the additional administrative work involved in such a project feasible! I would like more concrete UDL lesson plans suitable for the college composition classroom rather than lofty ideas about sending students to tend the elderly. Lastly, while it is likely SAGE Publications to blame for this and not Chardin and Novak, but their chapter comes as a PDF in serif font, hard to manipulate beyond zooming in and out. I don’t usually have trouble reading with serifs, but I did find their occasional italics challenging to read. It seems the form and content of this chapter are not fully aligned.