Journal of Writing Assessment

This article draws on critical disability frameworks to advance conversations on equitable placement design for writing programs in the postsecondary setting. The advantages of disability-as-insight are articulated, followed by a review of existing research on disability and directed-self-placement. Finally, a heuristic informed by critical disability studies is offered to administrators to apply to placement practices in their programs. The heuristic identifies four areas for interrogation: normativity, difference fixation, ableist influence, and crip futurities. The aim of the article is to mark the presence of critical disability studies in the existing scholarship on placement and to promote analytic tools that demonstrate the methodological utility of critical disability studies in promoting social justice and ethical placement practice.