Research on written communication shows that rhetorical knowledge is a key domain of disciplinary writing expertise (Gere et. al. 2019). Much of the recent work in this area has focused on the social dimensions of learning this knowledge. This article builds on these conversations with a presentation of two “advanced academic writers” (Tardy, 2009) and interpreting how they conceptualize rhetorical knowledge through an understanding of academic communication as transaction and symbolic exchange (Britton & Pradl, 1982). I make a case for the value of a transactional framework for interpreting writers’ performance of genre situations. I also show that this framework can provide a “metagenre” (Carter, 2007), a way of doing writing in the discipline, and a “threshold concept” (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015), a way of thinking about writing tasks that shapes writers’ experiences of and learning with them. The two case studies provide an argument for the efficacy of rhetorical knowledge in fostering disciplinary genres when it is framed as understanding situations of communication.

In 2010, Fairfield University, a Jesuit Carnegie Masters Level 1 University located in the Northeast, established its first doctoral -level program: the Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP). In a developing program such as the DNP, some of the most pressing concerns of current rhetoric and writing in the disciplines align and interact with the education of clinical nurse leaders — questions of transfer, ethical practice, reflection, assignment desi gn, and community engagement. Clearly, nursing scholar/practitioners and writing scholar/practitioners have much to offer and to learn from each other. In this article, we trace the initial action -research undertaken by the School of Nursing, the Writing C enter, and the Center for Academic Excellence to document, reflect upon, and support the reading and writing experiences of DNP graduate students as they negotiate the new curriculum.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) create new common ground for high school – college collaborations through emphasis on expository writing in English language arts (ELA) and writing in content areas across the curriculum. This article, written collaboratively by a composition-rhetoric scholar and a secondary education leadership scholar who together directed Bridgewater State University’s WAC program, further explores the CCSS in relation to WAC, discusses why WAC programs in higher education should seek to create venues for conversation among secondary teachers and college faculty, and shares several programs facilitated by the WAC program at Bridgewater State University that seek to open and sustain such conversations.

"Critical Visual Literacy: Multimodal Communication Across the Curriculum" makes the case for expanding the pedagogical space and communication possibilities in undergraduate communication-intensive and linked (learning community) courses by allowing students to create multimodal texts that deal with civic and cultural and/or discipline-specific themes. We argue that, rather than diluting the opportunities for rhetorical education—now comprised of critical literacy, visual literacy, and critical technological literacy in today's increasingly fast-moving visual and electronic cultural environment—multimodal composing more meaningfully reflects the environment in which students receive and generate text today. Using a theory base that draws from the literatures of composition and CAC, visual literacy, new media theory and ecology, and the theory and pedagogy of critical technological literacy, we make a case for this expansion of communication opportunities in undergraduate communication-intensive classes.