My dissertation, "Back to the Classroom: Afrocentricity and Teacher-Research in First-Year Writing," is a qualitative empirically-based teacher-research study that examines the ways in which African American students and all students perform expository writing tasks using an Ebonics-based Rhetoric and Composition focused first-year writing curriculum (WRA 125). I begin unpacking how Afrocentric pedagogy is understood and situated in this project. While Afrocentric scholarship targets multiple disciplines, including education and sociolinguistics, the primary audience for this project is teachers and researchers in Composition Studies. I further address how the concept of Afrocentricity is understood by 1) clarifying the relationship between Afrocentric pedagogy and the African and African American worldview, since many definitions of Afrocentricity suggest a focus on, or discussion of, African and African American worldviews; and 2) explaining the relationship between Afrocentric pedagogy and Ebonics since many Afrocentric courses focus on Ebonics as both communicative and cultural practices.

In subsequent chapters of the dissertation I situate my own work with teacher-research within the context of four previous classroom and teacher-research studies on African American students. Based on these four studies I have found a limited focus on the uses of Ebonics phonological and syntactical patterns strategically and rhetorically, in addition to the focus being only on African American students. I extend these composition teacher and classroom-research studies by 1) also including a discussion of phonology and African and African American students' uses of Ebonies phonology and syntax purposefully, and 2) including data from non-Black students that point to how they might benefit also from Afrocentric pedagogy.

After laying the groundwork for Afrocentricity and teacher-research, I discuss the findings from my own teacher-research study, with one chapter focusing on African American students' expository writing patterns, and another chapter focusing on all students' work produced in the Afrocentric curriculum. Data results from African American students reflect the ways in which African American students employ AAR and Ebonics phonology and syntax rhetorically across major writing assignments. When looking at all students' work, my findings illustrate that students' essays reveal tensions and conflicts reflected in students' writing, reading, and research practices. Improvement is still needed in argument construction that moves beyond summary, the use of evidence, and citation practices. In the conclusion, I discuss the methodological implications, surprises and limitations of the work done with my WRA 125 course. I also acknowledge methodological challenges that emerge both from the study itself in addition to how my institution's human subjects review board chose to interpret the study design.