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. Her research areas include writing instruction, visual and multimodal narrative, and food studies. She has published in leading journals, and her work has been supported with funding from National Endowment for the Humanities, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Arizona Humanities.
Dr. Williams is the author of Listen to the Poet: Writing, Performance, and Community in Youth Spoken Word Poetry (2018, University of Massachusetts), which uses a community-of-practice lens to explore the literacy practices of a diverse network of youth poets in the Phoenix-metropolitan area. Her second book, Mentoring Youth Writers: How to Help Students Thrive in the Writing Classroom and Beyond (under review and under contract with NCTE), shares findings from a program in which university students served as writing mentors to youth in the community. Currently, she is at work on a book on visual storytelling (data collected), and she plans to edit a volume on food studies in English education (proposal submitted).
Professor Williams designed CISA’s Writing Certificate, which has a visual/multimodal narrative component. Currently, she is developing the new course, IDS 394 The Chef’s Garden (launching Fall 2025 at ASU’s Polytechnic campus), which will use virtual reality to challenge students to think about food studies in new ways. She teaches in CISA’s MA Narrative Studies, BA English, and BA Interdisciplinary Studies programs and has created new courses on Studio Ghibli animation, visual narratives, narrative and arts-based research methods, mentoring youth writers, children's literature, and writing about food. She has also taught courses on YA literature and methods of teaching English composition and language. Prior to becoming a professor, she taught high school and middle school English for nine years.
She is Co-Chair of NCTE/ELATE’s Commission on Arts and Literacies (2024-2026). Previously, she served as the Teaching Creative Writing Column Editor for English Journal, Editorial Review Board Member for the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and Chair of NCTE's Achievement Awards in Writing Advisory Committee. She has reviewed manuscripts for journals including Research in the Teaching of English. At ASU, she is Co-Chair of CAPC, the university's Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee (2024-2025). Previously, she founded and directed ASU’s Young Authors' Studio program and organized several ASU Sparky Slam poetry events for youth.
Dr. Williams is a certified Maricopa County Master Gardener and a graduate of Scottsdale Culinary Institute’s Le Cordon Bleu program. She cooked alongside Chef Gregory Casale at Gregory’s World Bistro, wrote for Arizona Food and Lifestyles, and worked in event planning for Hilton. She has a monthly cooking column in the master gardener publication, Roots and Shoots. For fun, she studies cello under the direction of Dr. Xue Chen and is currently working on Haydn’s Concerto in C Major. Years ago, she studied, taught, and competed in Shotokan karate and was invited to join the U.S. team (ISKF/JKA).
- Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction: English Education. Arizona State University. 2015.
- M.Ed. Secondary Education: English. Arizona State University. 2008.
- B.A.E. Secondary Education: English. Arizona State University. 1998. Summa cum laude.
- A.O.S. Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts. Scottsdale Culinary Institute. 2001. Honors.
