Rethinking Student Resistance from a Developmental Perspective: A Case Study Based on a 2016 Ballot Initiative Portfolio Project

Resistance narratives in composition studies often focus on how students resist pedagogies that challenge their received values and identities. These narratives ignore the complex developmental trajectory that students face in the writing classroom. The authors apply a developmental framework to this resistance and argue that helping students work through these challenges is essential to developing complex ways of seeing themselves as writers and citizens.