Manuel Gonzalez Velasco

Writing, teaching, and belonging

Manuel Gonzalez Velasco is a PhD student in English at Wayne State University. He is a Mexican American/Chicano scholar, bilingual writer, and first-generation student. Born in Ensenada, Baja California, and raised in San Diego, his experiences across languages, regions, and educational institutions inform his interest in how writers learn to perform competence and belonging. His research examines generative AI, authorship, rhetorical judgment, writing pedagogy, multilingual writing, and academic identity.

Gonzalez Velasco knew early that he wanted to teach English. While completing his MFA in Creative Writing at San Diego State University, he increasingly joined the Rhetoric and Writing Studies community through work as an RWS Writing Mentor and Teaching Assistant. He found in rhetoric and writing studies a field broad enough to examine how language works across classrooms, technologies, cultures, and public life. His teaching uses scaffolded assignments, feedback on partial drafts, peer review, revision, and reflection to help students recognize their development and become more confident writers.

His public scholarship includes an essay published by the Digital Rhetoric Collaborative and video work through The Rhetoric Diaries YouTube channel. His creative practice includes poetry, fiction, and children’s literature.