Given the rise in business and technical writing (BTW) courses in writing programs and English departments, there is a need to develop not only a pedagogy for BTW but one that considers BTW’s institutional context. Context is a problematic focus for pedagogy, as we have seen in recent scholarship on student writing, theory of genre, and transferability of skills to other academic disciplines. That scholarship views the uncertain and unclear contexts of academic composition courses and their genres as preventing the full student understanding of genre that is needed for students to develop transferable writing skills. The continuation of that scholarship into BTW regards the instruction of BTW, as inside academia rather than within the workplace, as suffering from similar concerns with context. Rather than viewing BTW as downstream from or supplemental to composition instruction, this article argues that we should examine the genres of BTW as unique in their contingency to the writing process and yet just as able to pursue the goals of composition instruction and liberal arts education as first-year composition (FYC) courses. By focusing on the reader of BTW genres as determinant in the contingency of the writing situation, we see BTW as less problematic than FYC in its support of key composition goals such as the creation of original arguments and effective management of supporting materials. The awareness of readership and argumentation allows for a pedagogy supportive of contingent and part-time faculty as well as full-time composition faculty regardless of their respective professional experience.

Writing retreats are an invaluable way of providing research students and early career researchers with opportunities for extended periods of time for their writing (MacLeod et al., 2012; Murray, 2013, 2014, 2015; Murray and Newtown, 2009; Murray et al., 2012; Petrova and Coughlin, 2012). This is important both for students who are under pressure for timely completion of their degrees and academic staff in the early stages of their careers who, once they have obtained an academic appointment, need to establish themselves in their fields as well as meet tenure track requirements that have been set by their employing institutions. This is as true for native speaking writers as it is for non-native speaking writers (Habibie, 2015), all of whom have to be able to write academically in English, the international language of research, and often face challenges in doing this. This paper discusses both the nature and benefits of writing retreats. It then provides an example of a writing retreat that focuses on writing for publication that has been on offer for the past four years at the University of Sydney, Australia. It describes how the retreat has evolved, how it is organized in its present form, and how participants have responded to the retreat. The paper concludes by arguing that writing retreats are a valuable opportunity for writing pedagogy, showing how both pedagogy and opportunities for extended writing can be brought together within the context of these retreats.

The life of an adjunct is never slow. This essay looks into the professional and personal life of a community college teacher working at multiple colleges who wonders, like many others, how she will hold it all together and provide the quality of teaching that her students deserve.