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February 2022

  1. Pedagogical Openings and the Gift(s) of Teaching: Announcing the 2020–2021 Alan C. Purves Award Honorees: The 2021 Alan C. Purves Award Committee
    Abstract

    Preview this article: Pedagogical Openings and the Gift(s) of Teaching: Announcing the 2020–2021 Alan C. Purves Award Honorees: The 2021 Alan C. Purves Award Committee, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/56/3/researchintheteachingofenglish31641-1.gif

    doi:10.58680/rte202231641
  2. “Our Community Is Filled with Experts”: The Critical Intergenerational Literacies of Latinx Immigrants that Facilitate a Communal Pedagogy of Resistance
    Abstract

    Anti-immigrant legal violence and grassroots organizing against it have fundamentally shaped the lives of immigrant children and families in the US. This article inquires into the intergenerational literacy, teaching, and learning practices of Latinx immigrants’ political mobilization, drawing on qualitative data from a larger yearlong practitioner inquiry study that involved observant participant field notes, artifacts, photographs, and in-depth interviews with 11 undocumented and documented Latinx immigrants with whom I, a Latina immigrant, shared an organizing practice. Through analysis grounded on literacy as critical sociocultural practice, intergenerational learning, and Chicana/Latina education in everyday life, I argue that Latinx immigrants mobilize against oppression through critical literacy practices that facilitate what I theorize as a “communal pedagogy of resistance.” This is an intergenerational pedagogy enacted in communal spaces that grows from Latinx immigrants’facultad,meaning the critical consciousness and epistemic privilege that results from living in the liminal space of theborderlands. This pedagogy views our community’s cultural, literacy, and linguistic practices as strengths and tools of resilience and resistance, and expands our definition of family and our sense of interdependence to fellow oppressed communities, teaching us to enact inclusive justice. A key takeaway is that Latinx immigrant students’ educational and literacy practices cannot be separated from those of their wider family/community, nor from their intergenerational sociopolitical struggles and expertise. Another is that intergenerational literacy and learning are bi/multidirectional. Implications include the need for educational institutions to learn from this pedagogy, and for additional literacy research into communal sociopolitical mobilization.

    doi:10.58680/rte202231639
  3. Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English
    Abstract

    Since 2003, RTE has published the annual “Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English,” a list of curated and annotated works reviewed and selected by a large group of dedicated educator-scholars in our field. The goal of the annual bibliography is to offer a synthesis of the research published in the area of English language arts within the past year for RTE readers’ consideration. Abstracted citations and those featured in the “Other Related Research” sections were published, either in print or online, between June 2020 and June 2021. The bibliography is divided into nine sections, with some changes to the categories this year in response to the ever-evolving nature of research in the field. Small teams of scholars with diverse research interests and background experiences in preK–16 educational settings reviewed and selected the manuscripts for each section using library databases and leading scholarly journals. Each team abstracted significant contributions to the body of peer-reviewed studies that addressed the current research questions and concerns in their topic area.

    doi:10.58680/rte202231642
  4. A rationale for integrating writing into secondary content area classrooms: Perspectives from teachers who experience the benefits of integrating writing frequently
    Abstract

    Teachers navigate ongoing accountability pressures that target writing in each content area, yet little is understood about their experiences with or their rationales for integrating writing into content area lessons. While previous research describes writing in U.S. secondary classrooms and explains barriers to writing integration, this study investigates teacher decision making to determine why teachers in various content areas are integrating writing. Using a multicase study design, we explored teacher reflections to discern the reasons why teachers chose to integrate writing frequently. Four teachers, one from each primary content area (mathematics, English language arts, science, social studies), reflected on their writing integration over one quarter. Findings revealed that teachers who integrate writing frequently value the substantial benefits of regular writing for their students. Teachers saw that frequent writing led to students both producing written products more independently and deepening their disciplinary understandings. Teachers also saw benefits to their own pedagogy; specifically, they better understood students’ learning processes and planned more attentively. This research suggests that committing to frequent writing integration can (1) enhance students’ writing and disciplinary knowledge, and (2) enrich teacher knowledge related to supporting students’ writing practices and using writing as a tool for learning in the content areas. Our findings also highlight the complex relationship between teacher beliefs and teacher practice. By looking at the instructional decision making of teachers who integrate writing frequently, we offer guidance on how pre- and in-service teachers might use reflection in and on action to develop a commitment to writing instruction.

    doi:10.17239/jowr-2022.13.03.01
  5. Refocusing education in writing style? Relationships between stylistic lapses and the quality of Dutch secondary school students’ argumentative writing
    Abstract

    In Dutch L1 classrooms, style in non-fictional genres is typically taught by means of normative exercises in which students are tasked to identify stylistic lapses. Not much is known about the effectiveness of such exercises when teaching style. Unknown factors include  what kinds of stylistic shortcomings are found in Dutch students’ writing, and how the occurrence of certain stylistic lapses relates to writing quality. The current study empirically explores these scarcely investigated issues. Teachers rated 125 argumentative texts written by tenth-grade pre-university students by means of comparative judgement. Additionally, these texts were manually analyzed to investigate the occurrence of stylistic lapses, taking into account stylistic lapses that are common in text books (‘standard category’) and other types of style related errors (‘other category’). Multilevel regression analyses revealed that only one of the stylistic lapses from the standard category negatively influenced text quality as evaluated by teachers, namely the use of detached phrases. In the other category, only mistakes in question marks negatively predicted text quality. A final model including those two predictors explained 11.1% of the variance in text quality. The article discusses the implications of these findings for non-fictional style education, suggesting that it might need to be refocused.

    doi:10.17239/jowr-2022.13.03.03
  6. Naming What We Don’t Know: Graduate Instructors and Declarative Knowledge about Language
    Abstract

    Data from a study of graduate instructors in a composition teaching practicum show that the neglect of declarative knowledgeaboutlanguage is something that they were conscious of and wished to remedy. This finding supports arguments calling for reinstating a focus on linguistic knowledge in composition and writing studies programs.

    doi:10.58680/ccc202231873

January 2022

  1. Book Review - Teaching Racial Literacy: Reflective Practices for Critical Writing by Mara Lee Grayson
    doi:10.21623/1.9.1.7
  2. The Ethics of Extrapolation: Science Fiction in the Technical Communication Classroom
    Abstract

    This article argues that science fiction is a powerful tool for teaching ethics in the technical communication classroom. As a literary genre, science fiction is uniquely situated to critique the social and political consequences of technological progress and to guide future behaviors. Using a speculative fiction-themed technical communication seminar as a case study, this essay demonstrates how science fiction theory, narratives, and projects can encourage students to think more holistically about their future roles as scientists and communicators. Such an approach can reinvigorate traditional workplace genres, support responsible decision-making, and promote multiculturalism, environmentalism, and social justice.

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2020.1866678
  3. The Relationship Between Teacher Efficacy, Writing Apprehension, and Writing to Learn Using Structural Equation Modeling
    doi:10.37514/jwa-j.2022.6.1.03
  4. Writing Assignment Prompts Across the Curriculum: Using the DAPOE Framework for Improved Teaching and Aggregable Research
    doi:10.37514/wac-j.2022.33.1.05
  5. �Types of Writing,� Levels of Generality, and �What Transfers?�: Upper-Level Students and the Transfer of First-Year Writing Knowledge
    Abstract

    Transfer-focused pedagogies like Writing about Writing (WAW) or Teaching for Transfer (TFT) have claimed to better facilitate transfer of writing knowledge from first-year composition (FYC) courses. These pedagogies have emerged alongside research indicating that students in upper-level writing intensive courses often do not transfer FYC knowledge. While research has suggested that these transfer-focused pedagogies do improve transfer during subsequent semesters, research has not sought to determine whether students' long-term attitudes toward FYC knowledge is affected by these pedagogies. This article presents the results of an IRB-approved pilot survey study of what students enrolled in upper-level writing intensive courses at a small, private, Catholic, suburban university in the Midwestern United States remembered learning in their FYC courses, and whether they perceived that knowledge as having been useful for their writing. Results seem to indicate that some transfer-focused pedagogies do have significant effects on students' perceptions of the usefulness and transferability of what they recall learning in FYC. Additionally, many students identify conceptual knowledge of genre and discourse communities as useful for their upper-level writing, though often using alternative terms, particularly types, styles, forms, or formats of writing. To a large extent, this is true regardless of whether students enrolled in a transfer-focused course or not, but responses from those who experienced a transfer-focused course give indications of a more sophisticated understanding. These results might indicate that students may be predisposed to remember and connect knowledge at intermediate levels of generality that could lead to new possibilities for teaching for transfer.

    doi:10.37514/atd-j.2022.18.3-4.05
  6. Contributors
    Abstract

    Heather Brook Adams is assistant professor of English at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Greensboro. Her research investigates discourses of gender, reproduction, and shame as well as decolonial/intersectional methodologies. Adams's work has appeared in journals such as Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric Review, and Women's Studies in Communication. Her monograph, Enduring Shame: A Recent History of Unwed Pregnancy and Righteous Reproduction, is forthcoming from University of South Carolina Press. Adams has been granted funds for implementing undergraduate research while teaching at the University of Alaska, Anchorage as well as at UNC Greensboro. Currently she teaches courses on contemporary rhetoric, rhetorics of health and medicine, and advocacy and argumentation.Brian Cooper Ballentine is senior vice president for strategy and senior adviser to the president at Rutgers University. His research focuses on humanistic notions of value within the context of the modern universities, student debt, and the pressures of economic valuation and market forces. He has served as chief of staff to the president at Rutgers, as the director of the university's office for undergraduate research, and as research director at a global consulting firm. He holds a PhD in comparative literature, with a focus on classical reception in the English Renaissance, from Brown University.Laura L. Behling is provost at University of Puget Sound. She edited the Resource Handbook for Academic Deans (2014) and Reading, Writing, and Research: Undergraduate Students as Scholars in Literary Studies (2010). Publications in literary studies include Gross Anatomies: Fictions of the Physical in American Literature (2008); Hospital Transports: A Memoir of the Embarkation of the Sick and Wounded from the Peninsula of Virginia in the Summer of 1862 (2005); and The Masculine Woman in America, 1890–1935 (2001). She taught at Palacky University, Czech Republic, as a Fulbright scholar and served as a Fulbright specialist at the American University of Bulgaria.Hassan Belhiah is associate professor of English and linguistics at Mohammed V University in Rabat. Previously, he held the positions of chair of the Department of English Language and Literature at Mohammed V University, associate professor of English and education studies at Alhosn University in Abu Dhabi, assistant professor at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco, and lecturer/teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His publications have appeared in Classroom Discourse, Journal of Pragmatics, Modern Language Journal, Language Policy, and Applied Linguistics. He has coedited a book entitled English Language Teaching in Moroccan Higher Education (2020).Andrea Bresee is a recent graduate of Utah State University with a degree in English teaching and a composite in writing. While at Utah State University, Andrea served as an undergraduate teaching fellow for three upper-level English classes, as well as an undergraduate researcher for three separate studies. She was named the English Department Undergraduate Researcher of the Year in 2019 and has presented at three undergraduate research symposiums and conferences. Andrea now teaches seventh-grade English at Space Center Intermediate School in League City, Texas.Kendra Calhoun is a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research examines the intersections of language, race, and power in face-to-face and social-media contexts. Her dissertation analyzes diversity discourse in US higher education and its effects on graduate students of color. She served as a research mentor and instructor to undergraduate students in the UCSB-HBCU Scholars in Linguistics Program, and she recently published on Black-centered introductory linguistics curriculum in Language.Anne Charity Hudley's research and publications address the relationship between English language variation and K–16 educational practices and policies. She is the coauthor of three books: The Indispensable Guide to Undergraduate Research: Success in and beyond College (2017), Understanding English Language Variation in U.S. Schools (2011), and We Do Language: English Language Variation in the Secondary English Classroom (2013). She is the author or coauthor of over thirty additional articles and book chapters. She has worked with K–12 educators at both public and independent schools throughout the country. Charity Hudley is a member of the Executive Committee of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA).Dominic DelliCarpini is the Naylor Endowed professor of writing studies and dean of the Center for Community Engagement at York College of Pennsylvania, where he also served thirteen years as writing program administrator and five years as chief academic officer. He founded and administers the annual Naylor Workshop on Undergraduate Research and is coeditor of the Naylor Report on Undergraduate Research in Writing Studies (2020) as well as other articles on this topic. DelliCarpini served as president of the Council of Writing Program Administrators, secretary of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), and as a member of the CCCC's Committee on Undergraduate Research.Mariah Dozé is a 2020 graduate of Emory University, where she received a BA in African American studies and sociology. While at Emory, she served as a research assistant studying racial disparities in capital punishment and a writing tutor, among many other positions. Dozé’s research exploring the intersection between rhetorical studies and social justice was awarded publication in the peer-reviewed scholarly journal Young Scholars in Writing. For this accomplishment, she was recognized as an Emory Undergraduate Research Program featured researcher. She is now a Georgetown Law 1L and intends to specialize in human rights law.Cecily A. Duffie is a PhD student in English literature at Howard University. She graduated cum laude from the University of Florida with a BA in African American studies with a concentration in journalism. Her master's thesis was on cycles of postmodernism in the work of contemporary Black women writers, particularly Terry McMillan and Toni Morrison. She has been selected as an UC/HBCU Initiative scholar, NeMLA panelist, and Howard University Research Week panelist and presenter. She has also been published by the Miami Herald. She writes Tudor-era historical fiction and southern Black gothic fiction.Jeremy Edwards is a PhD candidate in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research examines higher-education practices and policies that impact college access and student development. His dissertation explores the relationships between Black students and the UC system in thinking about levels of support and advocacy for Black students on recruitment, retention, and postgraduation career plans. He was a co-instructor for the UCSB Engaging Humanities Initiative, was a 2019 graduate fellow of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and served as a coordinator and mentor of the UCSB-HBCU Scholars in Linguistics Program.Jenn Fishman, associate professor of English and codirector of the Ott Memorial Writing Center at Marquette University, is a widely published, award-winning scholar and teacher whose current work addresses community writing and listening, longitudinal writing research, and undergraduate research in writing studies. She has edited special issues of CCC Online, Peitho, and Community Literacy Journal, as well as The Naylor Report on Undergraduate Research in Writing Studies (2020), and contributed national professional leadership through various roles, including inaugural cochair of the CCCC Committee on Undergraduate Research and president of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition.Lauren Fitzgerald is professor of English and director of the Wilf Campus Writing Center at Yeshiva University where she recently chaired the Yeshiva College English Department. With Melissa Ianetta, she edited Writing Center Journal (2008–13) and its first undergraduate research issue (2012) and wrote The Oxford Guide for Writing Tutors: Practice and Research (2015). She has also published on writing center undergraduate research in Writing Center Journal (2014) and the edited collection How to Get Started in Arts and Humanities Research with Undergraduates (2014).Hannah Franz is the Program Associate for Graduate Advisement at the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. Her scholarship focuses on equity and inclusion in high-impact practices, such as undergraduate research and writing-intensive courses. She is coauthor of The Indispensable Guide to Undergraduate Research: Success in and beyond College (2017) and has published in Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research.Collie Fulford is professor of English at North Carolina Central University. Her recent work on writing program development, writing across the curriculum, and the scholarship of teaching and learning has appeared in Pedagogy, Composition Studies, Across the Disciplines, and Journal of Effective Teaching in Higher Education.John S. Garrison is professor of English at Grinnell College, where he teaches courses on early modern literature and culture. He is coeditor of three essay collections: Sexuality and Memory in Early Modern England: Literature and the Erotics of Recollection (2015), Ovid and Masculinity in English Renaissance Literature (2020), and Making Milton (forthcoming). His books include Shakespeare at Peace (2018), Shakespeare and the Afterlife (2019), and Performing Gods in Classical Antiquity and the Age of Shakespeare (2020).Ian Golding is an assistant professor of English at the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash. He is the editor of Queen City Review, an international journal of undergraduate research. His research addresses student agency, archival practices, and visual media.Kay Halasek is professor of English and director of the Michael V. Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University. Halasek's research spans a range of topics within rhetoric and writing studies: feminist historiography, teaching writing at scale, collaborative learning, writing program administration, portfolio assessment, and basic writing. She is the author of A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies (1999), which received the CCCC Outstanding Book award. As director of the Drake Institute, she leads enterprise initiatives in instructional support for faculty and graduate students and research on and policy development related to teaching and learning.Abigail Harrison graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) in 2020. Her area of focus is English with minors in rhetoric and public advocacy and communication studies. While at UNCG, she participated in hands-on undergraduate research highlighting rhetoric in both historical and contemporary media. Her scholarship on rhetorical theory within university media centers can be found in the Communication Center Journal.Rachel Herzl-Betz (she/her) is the Writing Center Director and assistant professor of English at Nevada State College. She earned her PhD at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and began her writing center career at Carleton College. Her research focuses on intersections between disability, writing center studies, and educational access. Most recently, she has pursued projects centered on equity in Writing Center recruitment and the impact of “access negotiation moments” for disabled writing instructors. In 2017, her first novel, Hold (2016), received the Tofte/Wright Children's Literature Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.Katherine Hovland is an undergraduate student at Marquette University, double-majoring in writing-intensive English and data science. She was a member of a research team in the Ott Memorial Writing Center that studied the accessibility of writing on Marquette's campus.Kristine Johnson is associate professor of English at Calvin University, where she directs the university rhetoric program and teaches courses in linguistics, composition pedagogy, and first-year writing. Her work has been published in College Composition and Communication, Composition Studies, Rhetoric Review, WPA: Writing Program Administration, and Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education. An associate editor of Pedagogy since 2019, her research interests include writing program administration, teacher preparation, and undergraduate research.Rachael Scarborough King is associate professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). She is the author of Writing to the World: Letters and the Origins of Modern Print Genres (2018) and editor of After Print: Eighteenth-Century Manuscript Cultures (2020). She is also principal investigator for the Ballitore Project, a project combining archival research and digital analysis at UCSB Library's Special Research Collections.Joyce Kinkead is Distinguished Professor of English at Utah State University. In 2012, she was named a Fellow of the Council on Undergraduate Research. As associate vice president for research, overseeing undergraduate research, she instituted University Undergraduate Research Fellows, the Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research, and Research on Capitol Hill. Dr. Kinkead is a scholar of writing studies and undergraduate research; her titles on undergraduate research include the following: Researching Writing: An Introduction to Research Methods Undergraduate Research Offices and Programs (2016), Advancing Undergraduate Research: Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising (2010), Undergraduate Research in English Studies (2010), and Valuing and Supporting Undergraduate Research (2003).Danielle Knox is a Black creative writer who graduated from Howard University with a bachelor's degree in English. A prospective graduate student, her research interests include gender and sexuality across the African diaspora while noting the ways Black queer communities define and express themselves outside of a white Western context. She also desires to help challenge systemic inequalities, promote funding for public libraries, and support all forms of Black literature and art.Addison Koneval (she/her) is a doctoral candidate at The Ohio State University. Her work in rhetoric, literacy, and composition primarily focuses on culturally sustaining pedagogies. Most recently, she has been working with grammar education in first-year writing settings.Susan Lang (she/her) is director of the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing and professor of English at The Ohio State University. Lang has extensive experience in teaching online and hybrid courses in technical communication at both undergraduate and graduate levels. She and colleagues at Texas Tech also developed Raider Writer, program-management software for large writing programs. Her research examines aspects of writing program administration, writing analytics, and technical communication. Her work has been published in College English, College Composition and Communication, Writing Program Administration, and Technical Communication, among others. She is the recipient of the 2016 Kenneth Bruffee Award for Best Article in Writing Program Administration and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Writing Analytics.Bishop Lawton is a PhD student in history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include Pan-African Intellectual History, the history of precolonial African civilizations, and twentiethth-century Black movements. In further pursuit of his interests, in June 2020, Bishop became a writer for blackpast.org, the largest online encyclopedia of African American history.Ali Leonhard is an undergraduate at Marquette University, double-majoring in forensic science and philosophy. She was a part of the Ott Memorial Writing Center's research team that looked at the accessibility of writing on Marquette's campus.Hayden McConnell is an Elon University alumna. She graduated with a major in professional writing and rhetoric as part of the English Honor Society. Her research addresses the lack of video content that addresses the topic of rhetoric in an engaging manner while also using successful rhetorical strategies. Her work has many intentions, but the overarching goal is to begin providing more visually stimulating content that discusses rhetoric and its many branches for both new and current members of the field.John Henry Merritt is a senior English major and Mellon Mays fellow at Howard University. His research interests include African American fiction, postmodernism, literary theory, and the digital humanities. Currently, he is interested in using Twitter data to develop reader-response based analyses of blockbuster movies. His senior thesis examines the function of the underground as a setting throughout African American fiction. In his free time he likes to write code and study languages. After graduation, he hopes to pursue a PhD in English literature and get a puppy.deandre miles-hercules (they/them), MA, is a doctoral student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They are originally from Prince George's County, Maryland, and obtained a BA in linguistics with minors in anthropology and African American studies from Emory University. Their research focuses on language as a nexus for the performance of race, gender, and sexuality in the domains of sociality and power, specifically as it pertains to Black, femme, queer, and trans communities. deandre currently holds a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.Jessie L. Moore is director of the Center for Engaged Learning and professor of professional writing and rhetoric in the Department of English at Elon University. She is the coeditor of three books, including Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research (2018). Her recent research examines transfer of writing knowledge and practices, multi-institutional research and collaborative inquiry, the writing lives of university students, and high-impact pedagogies. She served as Secretary of the CCCC, founded the CCCC Undergraduate Researcher Poster Session, and currently cochairs the CCCC's Committee on Undergraduate Research.Jamaal Muwwakkil (he/him), MA, is a PhD candidate in the department of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Jamaal is originally from Compton, California, and transferred from Los Angeles City College to University of California, Los Angeles, where he earned a BA in linguistics. Jamaal's research focuses on political discourse, African American language and culture, and linguistic practices in educational and university contexts.Angela Myers is a professional writing and rhetoric alumna of Elon University. She was an honors fellow and a Lumen scholar, a two-year, competitive grant award earned by only fifteen Elon students each year. Her research addresses the rhetorical strategies of sexual violence prevention courses for undergraduate students.Sunaina Randhawa is a Marquette University alumna. She graduated in 2020 with a BA in English literature and minors in writing-intensive English, anthropology, and digital media. Along with a team of researchers from Marquette's Ott Memorial Writing Center, she worked in conjunction with the Office of Disability Services at Marquette. With their help, she and her team determined both the ways in which they could make writing more and the ways in which the writing center could help that Michael associate professor of English at the University of North as codirector of first-year composition and senior faculty fellow with Center for and He The Writing of (2018) and coedited Perspectives on and Writing He is currently and with undergraduate students that are on curriculum and is a of 2020 graduate of Grinnell College, with a major in English. He is a Undergraduate a research project on of by contemporary of the of the of the he has presented at and participated in a research at the University of in He to pursue a PhD in has a PhD in literary and studies from Mellon University, where she teaches courses on literature, and gender studies. Her current research explores can writing in the humanities. Her work on literature examines the ways in which and discourse the of gender as a modern of has a PhD in rhetoric and composition from Texas University. She Emory University as director of the Writing She has also been associate professor at College, associate professor and chair of English and language at University, and associate professor and chair of communication studies at King University. Her research in the intersections between literature and rhetoric as well as in teaching and She is a book on the in the She also coedited the Journal of the on Perspectives on Learning for is an undergraduate student in and in English and at Nevada State College. As an undergraduate writing and his work and code is professor of English and dean of the College of Arts at University. He taught undergraduate writing and graduate in the Rhetoric and Composition His scholarship focuses on writing program and the teaching of writing.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-9385641
  7. Using Multimedia for Instructor Presence in Purposeful Pedagogy-Driven Online Technical Writing Courses
    Abstract

    Teaching and composing with multimedia humanizes online technical writing and communication classes. However, students do not always see the connection between multimedia instructional materials, multimedia assignments, and the course learning outcomes. Purposeful pedagogy-driven course design uses multimedia instructional materials to connect assignments, course materials, and assessments with course outcomes. Technical writing instructors can integrate synchronous and asynchronous multimedia elements to address not only the what and why of online technical writing instruction but also the how of multimedia instructional materials. Example multimedia instructional materials and student projects discussed in the article can increase student retention and promote engaged learning.

    doi:10.1177/0047281620978360
  8. Review: Four Approaches to Teaching Poetry
    Abstract

    Preview this article: Review: Four Approaches to Teaching Poetry, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/84/3/collegeenglish31680-1.gif

    doi:10.58680/ce202231680
  9. Performing Rhetorical Attunement
    Abstract

    Building upon the theoretical framework of Tony Scott's (2018) “curriculascapes,” this webtext dramatizes the multivocality and rhetorical attunement that is required of those who do most composition teaching while also accenting how performances can breach and transform institutional, political, and economic imperatives.

  10. Great Power, Great Responsibility: Accessible Pedagogy for Teaching Comics
    Abstract

    Attention to visual literacy and graphic literature has greatly increased in the field of rhetoric and composition. However, the comics industry has fallen behind in terms of attention to access for readers. This webtext discusses how writing faculty can make their visual course content—comics, in particular—more inclusive while fostering discussion of disability studies and access in the classroom.

  11. A Review of Key Theoretical Frameworks: Teaching Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century edited by Angela M. Haas and Michelle F. Eble

2022

  1. On the Future of Writing about Teaching
  2. Boundaries, Self-Care, and Empathy: Building an Empathic Teaching Survival Kit
  3. On Teacher Neutrality: Politics, Praxis, and Performativity , edited by
  4. Transfer Across Media: Using Digital Video in the Teaching of Writing , by Crystal Van Kooten
  5. Teaching During a Pandemic: A Study of Instructors’ Preparedness for Online Composition Delivery
  6. Mapping Long-Term Writing Experiences: Operationalizing the Writing Development Model for the Study of Persons, Processes, Contexts, and Time
    Abstract

    Drawing upon nine years of qualitative data, including a collection of writing samples and yearly interviews, this study seeks to articulate a model of long-term writing development that can be adapted for a wide range of research and teaching purposes. The model is adapted from Bronfenbrenner and Morris’s Bioecological model of human development and draws upon key works by writing transfer scholars, longitudinal researchers, and the work in lifespan development. The model identifies the critical interplay of ecologies of writing specifically through the intersection of Person characteristics (e.g., Identities, Dispositions, and Resources) with Key Events over Time, nested in particular writing Contexts. We specifically focus on the way that various Person characteristics (including sociocultural, sociolinguistic, and socioeconomic), drastically shape writing development over Time, particularly as they are mediated by the Salience of the specific Writing Event and a writer’s metacognitive awareness. Through case studies, we trace two writers’ long-term development across nine years, spanning their undergraduate degrees, internship and workplace contexts, and for one writer, experiences in medical school contexts. With a model that can be applied to a variety of research and teaching contexts to better understand learners’ writing development, we argue that Person characteristics—mediated by Salience and Metacognition and working together with Key Events, Contexts, and Time—substantially shape long-term outcomes for writing and learning. Through this robust model, we offer methodological and pedagogical implications.

  7. Synchronicity over Modality: Understanding Hybrid and Online Writing Students’ Experiences with Peer Review
    Abstract

    This study includes interviews with 70 undergraduate students enrolled in online or hybrid first-year composition (FYC) classes at one of four universities in the United States and analyzes students’ perceptions of digital peer review. Arguing that the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Framework is a logical heuristic for examining writing studies research, this study finds that synchronicity might be more significant than modality with respect to the ways that peer review is able to achieve social, teaching, and cognitive presence. Overall, this study suggests that synchronicity is a common thread woven throughout each of the CoI presences as a potential way of alleviating negative evaluations of and achieving a learning community through peer review. Data further suggest that hybrid and online students conceptualize relationships as creating a sense of community that is work-based rather than friendship-based, that students might not be aware of or able to foresee ways that peer review applies to other writing contexts or classes, and that instructors could better prepare students for peer review in classrooms and beyond.

  8. From Tacit Myth to Explicit Lurking: Using Discourse-Based Interviews to Empirically Confront the Mythologized *Standard English Eel
    Abstract

    Scholars in writing studies have positioned numerous critiques of the tacit myth of Standard English (*SE) and its use as an unquestioned communicative norm. While these critiques reflect the overlap of the field’s translingualism and anti-racist writing assessment movements, they also reveal an empirical need surrounding the writing instructors who must actually grapple with the *SE myth in their teaching and grading practices. Following Asao Inoue’s identification of the *SE myth as a slick eel that remains an assessment problem, I conducted a qualitative study using concept clarification interviews and discourse-based interviews (DBIs) at a large, diverse, four-year university in the U.S. to empirically confront the *SE myth and make the potentially tacit presence of *SE in instructors’ rubrics and grading practices explicit. Based on the results of these interviews, I advocate for a shift from seeing and critiquing *SE to performing Synergistic English Work (SEW) in the context of grading rubrics and assessment policies, making the absent presence of *SE visible, open to disruption, and more actively combatted.

  9. Review of Ellen C. Carillo and Alice S. Horning’s Teaching Critical Reading and Writing in the Era of Fake News
  10. Responding for Transfer
    Abstract

    In this article, I present the results of a national study of response to student writing and argue for an approach to response I call Responding for Transfer (RFT). My corpus includes peer and teacher responses to 1,054 rough and final drafts of student writing from across the curriculum as well as 128 student self-reflection essays from ePortfolios at seventy institutions of higher education across the U.S. I present evidence from this corpus to support my argument for an RFT approach that emphasizes student self-assessment, focuses teacher response on student metacognition rather than the products of drafts, and takes response into consideration in the design of vertical transfer curriculum.

  11. Disciplinary Faculty Needs and Qualified Tutors in an EFL University Writing Center
    Abstract

    This study investigates postgraduate (PGs) and faculty needs concerning academic writing (AW) tutors’ qualifications in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Tutors are the core element of a writing center (WC) (Hays, 2010). These professionals listen to (Burns, 2014), advise, and exchange information (Reid, 1993, in Hays, 2010) collaboratively so students can resolve their writing issues (Hays, 2010). However, in EFL contexts, scant research exists about WCs, writing programs (Molina & López, 2019), and qualifications to recruit tutors (Özer, 2020). Thus, to plan a WC, 24 participants in chemistry were interviewed and surveyed. Findings reveal that EFL PGs expect specialized tutors in target fields, with high English proficiency, experience in teaching, and in writing scientific articles. However, recruitment is challenging as candidate tutors also need support in AW and to help their tutees as writers. Thus, the tutors can be scientists, teachers, or PG students with English, but must be trained in specialized and general English writing and tutoring approaches. The study contributes to knowledge concerning needs in WCs and tutors’ qualifications, and it offers possible suggestions to accommodate the PGs’ preferences in an EFL context. However, the small sample size and homogeneity of the participants make the results nongeneralizable.

    doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1012

December 2021

  1. Rediscovery of Developmental Research Articles in Electrical Engineering and Description of Their Macrostructure
    Abstract

    <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</b> More than 30 years ago, Harmon distinguished developmental research articles (RAs), which propose a solution to a problem, from experimental RAs, but the developmental format has received little attention. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> Genre analysis of RAs has been largely restricted to articles following the standard experimental/Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion (IMRD) format, thereby excluding many developmental engineering articles. Recently, a textbook proposed Introduction, Process, Testing, Conclusion (IPTC) as a prototypical format for electrical engineering RAs, but this format has not yet been demonstrated from a corpus. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. What is the macrostructure of electrical engineering RAs? 2. What are the characteristic features of each division of electrical engineering RAs? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methodology:</b> Section headings, wordcount, and notable features were analyzed for 75 RAs from 15 electrical engineering journals and compared with both IPTC and Harmon's developmental structure. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results:</b> Only one article, a case study, followed IMRD. Sixty-seven developmental RAs followed the IPTC format. These are distinguished by the second division (P), where the new solution is described, written in extended style, comprising several sections with headings specific to the research. A paragraph at the end of the Introduction describing the organization of the paper, the location of the theoretical framework and testing methods, and a ubiquitous Conclusion also differ from IMRD. Seven developmental RAs exhibited a hybrid format with the well-known IMRD section headings superimposed on an IPTC structure. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Conclusions:</b> Most electrical engineering articles are developmental and follow IPTC format. This can inform future genre analysis research and has pedagogical implications for teaching engineering writing.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.2021.3110618
  2. Characterizing Disciplinarity and Conventions in Engineering Resume Profiles
    Abstract

    <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</b> Resume preparation is a common activity within technical writing classes, but the advent and increased use of resume profile and job-hunting sites, such as Indeed.com, require instructors and researchers to re-think common practices in the teaching of resume writing, particularly for writing instructors with limited disciplinary experience. Prior research for conventional resumes has quantified the disciplinarity of resumes as a function of resume quality using metrics of disciplinary discourse density, which may be useful in analyzing online resumes profiles. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. How do online engineering resume profiles demonstrate disciplinarity? 2. What formatting and stylistic conventions are observed within engineering resume profiles? 3. How do rhetorical disciplinarity and conventions vary with resume profile quality? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> Although past efforts have examined the resume as a critical genre for entering a professional setting, few researchers have sought to interpret the relationships between discursive and stylistic expectations and quality in online resume profiles, while also accounting for aspects of disciplinarity. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methodology:</b> This study compares engineering (all disciplines) resume profiles from Indeed.com with a corpus of conventional engineering resumes through qualitative genre analysis and quantitative methods for calculating disciplinary discourse density. We also characterize stylistic and rhetorical conventions for resume profiles, and statistically compare these facets as a function of resume quality. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results and conclusion:</b> Results determined that discursive strategies were significantly different between strong, moderate, and weak engineering resume profiles. Qualitative analysis captured differences in style and form that were also statistically linked with quality. Based on our results, we call for further investigation into resume profiles and reconsideration of current pedagogical approaches.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.2021.3110397
  3. Technical Editing: An Introduction to Editing in the Workplace: Donald H. Cunningham, Edward A. Malone, and Joyce M. Rothschild [Book Review]
    Abstract

    Subtitling this 578-page book as an "introduction" may be a misnomer; the book is broad in scope and deep in coverage of its subject. It fills a need for current texts on the topic of technical editing and is grounded in modern technical communication workflows, practices, and approaches. This book is an invaluable teaching aid for classrooms and a welcome reference resource for practicing professionals. Throughout the book, the authors address issues of modern technical communication workflows. They acknowledge that the dedicated editor role has become increasingly rare and that many technical writers are responsible for editing their own or their peers’ documents. They also address workplace considerations, including people, budgets, and schedules, in both planning and executing editing projects. The book includes a thorough 30-page glossary of grammar terms, 33 pages of notes and references, and a thorough index.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.2021.3121527
  4. An Ecolinguistic Discourse Approach to Teaching Environmental Sustainability: Analyzing Chief Executive Officer Letters to Shareholders
    Abstract

    This article argues for using discourse analysis in business and management curricula to increase language awareness. To that end, an ecolinguistic discourse analysis approach (Stibbe, 2015a) for teaching sustainability is proposed. The article first explores sustainability discourse in two chief executive officer letters to shareholders followed by a classroom implementation enabling students to practise discourse analytical skills. Students examined vocabulary, hedging, modals, abstract and concrete representation, and social actors. Linguistic features were interpreted to reveal communicators’ underlying ideologies. This systematic analytical approach allows students to reflect on communication processes and how these processes can be used strategically when communicating in organizational contexts.

    doi:10.1177/23294906211025498
  5. Teaching Workplace Genre Ecologies and Pedagogical Goals Through Résumés and Cover Letters
    Abstract

    This study examines how and why 20 instructors (17 tenure-line and 3 nontenure-line) in introductory service courses enact their pedagogical values and address current concerns (e.g., personal branding, LinkedIn, and applicant tracking systems) when teaching résumés and cover letters. Research methods included a demographics survey, qualitative interviews, and critical discourse analysis of assignment sheets and deidentified student examples. Results provide an opportunity to renegotiate gaps between Business and Professional Communication’s research and pedagogical methods, shifting from overemphasizing formatting and checklists and toward understanding job applications as workplace genre ecologies to encourage deeper learning.

    doi:10.1177/23294906211031810
  6. Review by "Literacy and pedagogy in an age of misinformation and disinformation," Edited by Tara Lockhart, Brenda Glascott, Chris Warnick, Juli Parrish, and Justin Lewis; Lockhart, T., Glascott, B., Warnick, C., Parrish, J., & Lewis, J. (Eds.) (2021). Parlor Press
    Abstract

    Literacy and Pedagogy in an Age of Misinformation And Disinformation (2021) joins ongoing engagement with the topics of post-truth rhetorics (Carillo, 2018; McComiskey 2017; McIntyre 2018), evolving technologies in composition (Laquintano and Vee, 2017; Craig, 2017), and literacies pedagogies for our current moment (Colton and Holmes, 2018; Vee, 2017). Stemming from renewed interest in fake news after the 2016 election, the effects of the Trump presidency and its impacts in literacy education are represented throughout. This collection of 18 essays edited by Literacy in Composition (LiCS) journal editors Tara Lockhart, Brenda Glascott, Chris Warnick, Juli Parrish, and Justin Lewis continues the work of their 2017 special issue, "Literacy, Democracy, and Fake News." By bringing together "a range of perspectives---from literacy professionals in higher education, K-12, journalism, information technology, and other fields" (p. 2), the collection models a central condition for teaching within this context: to combat misinformation and disinformation, it is necessary to take a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach that expands outside of academic settings and brings together a wide range of expertise. Supporting this goal, the collection features six interviews moderated by Tara Lockhart. Each interview engages with a professional and/or educational staff, including social media strategists/curators/editors and curriculum/program coordinators, to explore how misinformation and disinformation is affecting all of us. Thus, Literacy and Pedagogy in an Age Of Misinformation and Disinformation "creates a polyphonous interrogation" (p. 6) to open up spaces and "opportunities for different kinds of literacy workers to hear and learn from each other---a networked approach that echoes the patterns of information ecologies themselves" (p. 6). Readers are invited to engage with the collection through "four essential threats that emerge most urgently from the collection's contributions" (p. 8). These include: 1) keywords and definitions; 2) contextualized praxis and pedagogy; 3) rhetorical analysis; and 4) "citizenship and civic literacies" (p. 13) based on people's different positionalities relating to misinformation and disinformation---as students, professors, journalists, social media specialists, etc. However, as readers will find, other organic pathways emerge based on format (curricular/course design, interviews, etc.) and context (higher education, K-12, online environments, etc.). Ultimately, it is within this complex web that we find a sustained engagement with practical and tangible strategies, pedagogies, and processes to think critically about how we combat misinformation and disinformation inside and outside of the classroom.

    doi:10.1145/3487213.3487217
  7. Social presence in online writing instruction: Distinguishing between presence, comfort, attitudes, and learning
    Abstract

    As a component of the Community of Inquiry Framework, social presence is typically defined as students “feeling real” enough to interact with and learn from peers online. This article complicates social presence for an online writing instruction (OWI) context, differentiating between social presence, social comfort, attitudes about online learning, and social learning. The study was initially designed to examine graduate students’ perceptions of social presence as an element of online teaching and learning in two sections of an Online Composition Pedagogy course offered in Spring 2020 and Summer 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the project, since students were now learning about hybrid and online pedagogy against the backdrop of their own experiences as emergency remote students and teachers. Analysis of 21 students’ reflections written during the courses indicates that distinguishing between social presence per se and social comfort, attitudes, and learning helps to account for the individual and social contexts of course participants. Ultimately, this article argues that simply inviting students to “feel real” or positioning yourself as a “real” instructor is not sufficient for establishing the types of social interactions that composition studies values.

    doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2021.102669
  8. A web-based feedback platform for peer and teacher feedback on writing: An Activity Theory perspective
    doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2021.102666
  9. Feature: The Time to Write: Teaching Second-Semester Composition through Reflection on Informal Evaluations
    Abstract

    This study documents the author’s experience reflecting on eight semesters of informal student evaluations of teaching in the process of updating his teaching methods for second-semester composition. He finds that reflective teaching practices provide a powerful methodology for engaging with the opinions of two-year college students, which can lead to a more productive focus on writing college essays in the composition classroom.

    doi:10.58680/tetyc202131661

November 2021

  1. Student Engagement with Teacher Written Corrective Feedback in a French as a Foreign Language Classroom
    Abstract

    This paper reports on an exploratory multiple-case study conducted to examine 6 French as a foreign language (FFL) learners at a university in Costa Rica and their affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagements with teacher written corrective feedback (WCF). We collected data through students’ writings (drafts and revisions), semistructured interviews, and stimulated recall interviews. We used the students’ writings to examine students’ behavioral engagement, and we used the semistructured and stimulated recall interviews to determine how students engaged cognitively and affectively with WCF. Findings revealed that although most participants initially reported mixed feelings and, at times, negative emotions upon the receipt of WCF, they overcame such feelings and became more positively engaged with the teacher’s WCF. All participants were able to detect the teacher’s WCF intention. However, only half of them reported using certain cognitive or metacognitive strategies when processing feedback. Even if their behavioral engagement was relatively high overall, the students’ affective and cognitive engagement varied.

  2. Towards A Better Understanding Of The Complex Nature Of Written Corrective Feedback And Its Effects: A Duoethnographical Exploration Of Perceptions, Choices, And Outcomes.
    Abstract

    Despite a large body of research into the benefits of corrective feedback (i.e., teachers’ reactions to students’ incorrect use of the target language), little is known about how new and experienced second-language (L2) teachers supply feedback to writing and what factors guide their decisions. This paper is a collaborative effort of 1 teacher-educator and 4 graduate students to examine the process of providing written corrective feedback (WCF) to university-level L2 learners. Findings point to complexities involved in WCF provision and the importance of examining CF holistically, as preservice teachers’ corrective choices and learners’ responses to them are often interlinked. Acknowledgments: We are grateful to the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and helpful suggestions. Any remaining errors are ours alone.

October 2021

  1. Responding to the Investigative Pivots of Rhetoric Research
    Abstract

    In this essay, we offer the “investigative pivot” as a framework for teaching rhetoric researchers how to orient and withstand being re-/dis-/oriented by the research process. Investigative pivoting indexes how a researcher responds to material conditions under which they collect and analyze data. To illustrate investigative pivots, we present and analyze pivot narratives from four graduate student researchers. Drawing on the analytic power of E. Cram’s rhetoric of orientation, these pivot narratives detail how we negotiate infrastructural, ideological, and institutional influences on our research process. When adopted, the investigative pivot prompts researchers to anticipate, recognize, and respond to the material-discursive hurdles of life and learning that follow us into our research sites. Such a framework, we argue, facilitates simultaneous methodological and pedagogical opportunities for students, teachers, and researchers of rhetoric.

    doi:10.1080/02773945.2021.1972130
  2. Professional Development in Online Teaching and Learning in Technical Communication: A Ten-Year Retrospective: edited by B. L. Hewett & T. Bourelle, New York, NY, Routledge, 2019. 232 pp., $128(hardcover), $39.19 (paperback), $39.16 ebook. ISBN 9780367001995. Publisher webpage: https://www.routledge.com/Professional-Development-in-Online-Teaching-and-Learning-in-Technical-Communication/Hewett-Bourelle/p/book/9780367001995
    Abstract

    Hewett and Bourelle (2019) have collected a series of essays aimed to help program administrators (PAs) develop and fine-tune online training and professional development programs in technical and ...

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2021.1915060
  3. Developing students’ writing in History: Effects of a teacher-designed domain-specific writing instruction
    Abstract

    Writing in history places high demands on students and is a skill that requires explicit instruction. Therefore, teachers need to be able to teach this in an effective way. In this study, the writing-instruction was designed by a teacher, instead of researchers, as part of a professional development program in the Netherlands. The lessons combined writing and historical reasoning instruction, based on principles of effective writing instruction, including strategy-instruction, modeling, prewriting, and peer-interaction. The effects of these lessons were investigated in a small-scale pilot study, which consisted of a pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design, in which eighty-nine 11th grade students participated (39 in the treatment condition and 50 in the comparison condition). Dependent measures included text quality, writing process measures, students' knowledge of writing and their self-efficacy. Students in the treatment condition wrote longer and higher quality texts, spent more time writing, paused more while writing and their knowledge of writing was higher at post-test than for students in the comparison condition. No effects were found for self-efficacy. Furthermore, significant correlations were found between text quality and writing process measures, but not for knowledge of writing and self-efficacy. Overall, the effectiveness of this teacher-designed intervention seemed satisfactory, as it resulted in greater knowledge of writing and better-quality writing in his history classes.

    doi:10.17239/jowr-2021.13.02.01
  4. Teaching models of disciplinary argumentation in middle school social studies: A framework for supporting writing development
    Abstract

    Modeling, by demonstrating and explaining the cognitive processes involved in writing, has been shown to support writing development. Less often have specific disciplinary aspects of teaching with models been investigated. We draw on research in English Language Arts and apply it in social studies inquiry contexts to propose a framework for teaching models of thinking and writing that offers teachers and researchers new perspectives on the discipline-specific work of modeling. This framework accounts for three modes of instruction – use of models (a tool or a text), demonstrating and explaining, and co-constructing model texts with students – and describes eleven instructional practices that support instruction across these modes. We analyze data from three years of social studies instruction to show how two teachers enact these practices across the three modes to highlight the disciplinary thinking and processes that support writing social studies arguments with sources, highlighting the ways students can actively participate in teaching writing with models. In addition, we consider the role of the curriculum in this work. We show how writing instruction can address disciplinary ways of thinking in social studies and illustrate the potential of the framework for guiding researchers’ and practitioners’ work on writing instruction across disciplinary contexts.

    doi:10.17239/jowr-2021.13.02.04
  5. Assessing EFL students’ writing development as they are exposed to the integrated use of drama-based pedagogy and SFL-based teaching
    doi:10.1016/j.asw.2021.100569
  6. Teaching Queer Theory beyond the Western Classroom
    Abstract

    Abstract This article develops a theory of postcolonial queer pedagogy through reflections on teaching nineteenth-century literature at the National University of Singapore. Students draw on their experiences living in a culture torn between liberal and illiberal tendencies and recognize that such contradictions exist in both the Western and non-Western world.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-9131913
  7. When the Writing Classroom Is a Lab for Democracy
    Abstract

    In this book, published in the CCCC Studies in Writing and Rhetoric series, Mara Holt provides a historical overview of collaborative pedagogy in US writing classrooms. In fact, Holt argues that collaborative writing pedagogy reflects and is shaped by its historical context. The book defines collaborative learning broadly, as “a pedagogy that organizes students to work together in groups” (1). Although she focuses on collaborative writing, Holt casts a wide net to capture writing classroom practices that she sees as applications of John Dewey's philosophy of American pragmatism. Holt argues that the American pragmatism espoused by Dewey is enacted in many collaborative writing practices, allowing those pedagogies to transform classrooms into training grounds for participatory democracy.Holt, who is professor and director of composition at Ohio University, intentionally operates both as a historian and as a writing studies scholar. The book has roots in Holt's (1988) history-based dissertation, “Collaborative Learning from 1911–1986,” submitted over thirty years ago, and in what the composition theorist James Berlin (1987) calls the significance of history in writing studies. Holt identifies a social-constructivist perspective in Dewey's philosophy of pragmatism that aligns with her argument that collaborative learning practices are shaped by their temporal context. Pragmatism, Holt says, offers general principles to ground education: 1) a focus on praxis; 2) knowledge creation as social, and collaboration as potentially “authoritative” (6); 3) the importance of critical thinking; and 4) the classroom as a place to model democracy and prepare students to participate in it. While Holt admits that Dewey probably never used the term collaborative (12), she implies that his principles are enacted in the most democratic collaborative learning practices.After a chapter of introduction, the chapters of Collaborative Learning as Democratic Practice each provide case studies of collaborative learning in US writing classrooms at a transformational moment in US political or pedagogical history. In the introduction, Holt asserts her underlying thesis that a historical overview of collaborative writing pedagogy is needed to help new generations of writing teachers understand that they are part of a tradition of using collaborative writing in the classroom for democratic pedagogical purposes. Holt also argues that a historical perspective is necessary for educators to fully understand and assess collaborative writing practices. Chapters 2 and 3 outline collaborative learning in writing classrooms during the Progressive Era and the Cold War; chapter 4 considers the impacts of the Civil Rights and anti–Vietnam War movements. Chapters 5 through 7 consider moments of pedagogical shift—feminist theory, the creation of writing centers, and computer-mediated collaboration. The book concludes with a chapter in which Holt reflects on the future of collaborative learning as it intersects with three current movements: globalization, posthumanism, and Black Lives Matter.In some ways, Collaborative Learning as Democratic Practice is a contemporary complement to Anne Ruggles Gere's (1987) Writing Groups: History, Theory, and Implications. Writing at a time when social-constructivism was coming into its own, Gere outlines a theory to explain how writing groups, the collaborative writing pedagogy that she focuses on, are evidence of writing as a socially constructed activity. Holt's book, on the other hand, takes as accepted theory that writing is socially constructed and links that social interaction to Dewey's pragmatism. As a result, Gere and Holt share the notion that collaborative writing is affected by historical context. Like Gere, Holt includes historical background for the pedagogies she discusses, but Gere begins her history in the colonial era, starting at an earlier moment in US history than Holt, who extends the time line of collaborative writing into the twenty-first century.In addition to being a thesis-based history book, Holt's Collaborative Learning as Democratic Practice is part memoir. Holt weaves over forty years of personal experience as a writing studies scholar into her narrative. In the preface, Holt notes that her “first formal interaction with collaborative learning was at Kenneth Bruffee's Brooklyn College Institute in Peer Tutor Training and Collaborative Learning in 1980” (ix). Through her affiliation with the Brooklyn Institute she met Peter Elbow, Stanley Fish, Carol Stanger, John Trimbur, Harvey Kail, and Peter Hawkes. She read texts by Lev Vygotsky, Clifford Geertz, Richard Rorty, Thomas Kuhn, John Dewey, and Paulo Freire. Her experiences at the Bruffee institute led Holt to pursue a PhD at the University of Texas at Austin, where she met James Berlin, who was a visiting professor from the University of Cincinnati. Holt's dissertation director was Lester Faigley. Holt also acknowledges Victor Villanueva as a major influence. The array of scholars that Holt was taught by, wrote with, and thought with shows the depth of her connection to the foundation of the field. Her connection and experience in the field lends credibility both to her authority to survey the history of collaborative learning within the field and to select case studies not just with an eye to proving her point, but because they were some of the most important developments of collaborative learning in the field at that moment.Sometimes, however, these personal details can distract from her argument; they add names and dates to case studies already crowded with such information. Some personal details may also distance Holt from readers when she recalls memories in a way that requires insider knowledge. For example, she references the iteration of the “CUNY Graduate School on 42nd Street,” which she attended as the “pre-Giuliani pornographic version,” which assumes knowledge of both the pre- and post-Giuliani versions of the building (5). The text also includes other unnecessary details. For example, Holt notes that 1930s progressivism affected how first-year writing programs were administered; that's interesting history about first-year writing, but it says little about collaborative learning.Overall, Holt effectively argues that collaborative learning in writing classrooms was shaped by its historical context. For example, during the labor movements and nascent socialism of the 1930s, pedagogies emerged that were based on collective, student-centered practices. Likewise, during the rise of Nazism and Fascism in World War II, when international collectivist movements were viewed as oppressive, the use of collaborative pedagogies declined. In addition, Holt demonstrates that collaborative writing practices decades apart can mimic each other, proving her point that a historical knowledge of collaborative writing might prevent reinvention. For example, under the “Oregon Plan” of the 1950s, students critiqued each other's writing before revising it to be turned in to the teacher. These examples of peer critique foreshadowed Bruffee's peer revision of the 1970s, but Holt presents no causal link between the two pedagogies. In fact, Holt stresses that, while collaborative learning practices of one era may seem similar to those of another, their purposes will vary because their proponents are responding to different historical contexts and may be rejecting rather than amplifying democratic values. In the case above, Holt says that the Oregon Plan arose in a 1950s context in which students interacted with each other's texts suspiciously, whereas in Bruffee's context, students were encouraged to depend on classmates for educational gain.In chapter 6, Holt argues that writing centers, mostly through peer tutoring programs, have been key to the development of collaborative writing pedagogy. She also outlines current historical situations to which writing centers have responded in recent decades, including increasing numbers of underprepared and international students, and the shift from alpha text to multimodal composition. In focusing on the internationalization of writing centers, Holt also notes that American English is no longer the assumed standard in US writing centers and that institutions around the world have created writing centers of their own.In chapter 6 Holt traces the advent of computer-mediated collaboration in writing pedagogy by outlining how writing centers responded to the introduction of computers. In chapter 7 she extends her analysis of computer-mediated collaboration into the twenty-first century by acknowledging that much collaborative learning in writing classrooms is now mediated by technology. The tech-mediated case studies Holt considers in chapter 7 are the Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment at the University of Texas in the 1980s and the more recent use of wikis in writing instruction. While Holt asserts that such tech-mediated pedagogies are “solidly connected to Deweyan/Bruffeean theory and practice” (109), her analysis overlooks the ideology of the infrastructure that supports tech-mediated collaboration—the technology itself. As a result, it may be that an updated version of a Deweyan/Bruffeean framework is needed to analyze collaborative learning in an increasingly tech-mediated classroom. As Holt persuasively shows, collaborative pedagogies in writing classrooms often embody democratic ideals, so a framework based on egalitarian principles is appropriate for their analysis, but perhaps that framework needs to have the capacity to analyze the infrastructure mediating the collaboration as well as the collaboration itself. Such a theoretical framework might be technofeminism, a framework concerned with issues of equity and access, but which also accounts for the ideology of the technology (Bates, Macarthy, and Warren-Riley 2018).Some readers may balk at the notion of examining collaborative writing pedagogies through any sort of theoretical framework at all. Indeed, educators from many ideological persuasions have used collaborative writing to help students improve their writing and thinking. Rather, what Holt implies is that collaborative writing almost by definition embodies elements of Dewey's democratic goals for education and that to practice collaborative writing is to enact Deweyism. Holt makes a strong case that collaborative writing pedagogies reflect the full context of their historical moment, and that many of them reflect Dewey's ideas of social reform; however, her survey also demonstrates that in an age of technology-mediated classrooms, a framework that incorporates the perspectives of colleagues who study technology through a lens of equity may be a way to productively analyze collaborative writing pedagogies in the future.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-9131964
  8. Contributors
    Abstract

    Gautam Basu Thakur is associate professor of English and director of the critical theory minor at Boise State University, where he teaches theoretical psychoanalysis, postcoloniality and globalization studies, and literature of the British Empire. His books include Postcolonial Theory and Avatar (2015), Lacan and the Nonhuman (coedited, 2018), Postcolonial Lack (2020), and Reading Lacan's Seminar VIII (coedited, 2020).Saradindu Bhattacharya teaches at the Department of English, University of Hyderabad, India. His recent publications have been in the domains of trauma studies, young adult literature, and the pedagogy of English. He has been teaching cultural studies, Renaissance literature, and new literatures in English at the postgraduate level. Additionally, he has also taught elective courses on nation, media, and popular culture and on children's literature. He particularly enjoys teaching English poetry and reading dystopian fiction.Jolie Braun is curator of modern literature and manuscripts at The Ohio State University Libraries, where she oversees the modern literature and history collections and provides special collections-based instruction. Her research interests include women publishers and booksellers, zines, and self-publishing. Her recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, American Periodicals, and Textual Cultures: Texts, Contents, and Interpretation.Craig Carey is associate professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi. His research and teaching focus on nineteenth-century American literature, book history, media theory, and game studies. His scholarship has appeared in journals such as American Literature, American Literary History, and Arizona Quarterly, among others. He is currently working on a manuscript that explores the relationship between authors, archives, and invention in the age of realism.Moira A. Connelly is associate professor of English at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, TN. She has published in Teaching English in the Two-Year College. Her research interests include equity in collaborative writing, writing transfer, writing about writing, responding to the writing of multilingual students, community college teaching, and applying ideas from the academy to activist spaces.Jathan Day is a PhD candidate in the Joint Program in English and Education at the University of Michigan. His research explores how writing instructors’ organizational and design decisions in the Canvas LMS affect the ways their students write and learn.Cassandra Falke is professor of English literature at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, where she teaches an introduction to literature, literary theory, romanticism, and contemporary fiction. She is the author of The Phenomenology of Love and Reading (2016) and Literature by the Working Class: English Autobiography, 1820–1848 (2013) as well as articles and book chapters on literary theory, phenomenology, romanticism, working-class writing, and liberal arts education. She has edited or coedited five collections and special issues.Paul Feigenbaum is associate professor in the Department of English at Florida International University and coeditor of the Community Literacy Journal. His research, teaching, and engagement interests include community literacy, public rhetoric, and the intersections between rhetoric and psychology. His scholarship has appeared in journals including College English, Reflections, and Composition Forum. His first book, Collaborative Imagination: Earning Activism through Literacy Education, was published in 2015.Dustin Friedman is associate professor in the Department of Literature at American University in Washington, DC. His fields of research and teaching are Victorian literature and culture, aestheticism and decadence, queer theory, the history and theory of aesthetics, and global nineteenth-century writing. He is the author of Before Queer Theory: Victorian Aestheticism and the Self (2019). His writings have appeared in Studies in Walter Pater and Aestheticism (2019), the Journal of Modern Literature (2015), ELH (2013), Literature Compass (2010), and Studies in Romanticism (2009).Helena Gurfinkel is professor of English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where she teaches primarily critical theory and Victorian literature and culture. She is the author of Outlaw Fathers in Victorian and Modern British Literature: Queering Patriarchy (2014; paperback 2017) and is currently writing a book on the Soviet television and film adaptations of the works of Oscar Wilde. She has published extensively in pedagogy, literary and film studies, gender studies, and critical theory. She is editor of PLL: Papers on Language and Literature.Sarah Hughes is a PhD candidate in the Joint Program in English and Education at the University of Michigan, where she also teaches in the English Department Writing Program. Her research explores how women use multimodal discourse—grammatically, narratively, and visually—to navigate online gaming ecologies.Andrew Moos is a PhD student in the Joint Program in English and Education at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on how writing instructors can and are using antiracist assessment and feedback practices in writing classrooms to empower students.Julie Sievers is founding director of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship at Southwestern University, where she also teaches. At the time of this research, she was teaching literature and writing courses at St. Edward's University, where she also directed the Center for Teaching Excellence. Previously, she taught English and composition on the tenure-track at Denison University and in graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. She has published on literature, pedagogy, and faculty development in the William and Mary Quarterly, Early American Literature, the New England Quarterly, To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, and the Journal of Faculty Development. She is currently studying annotation pedagogy in the context of first-year seminar courses.Danielle Sutton is a PhD candidate in English studies at Illinois State University. She works at the intersections of life writing, children's literature, and memory studies and is especially interested in comics and verse memoirs of childhood. She lives in Normal, IL.Kathryn Van Zanen is a PhD student in the Joint Program in English and Education at the University of Michigan. Her research centers on ethical negotiation in writing and writing instruction, particularly among raised-evangelicals writing back to their home communities on social media.Crystal Zanders is a poet, educator, activist, and public speaker from Tennessee. As a Rackham Merit Fellow in the Joint PhD Program in English and Education at the University of Michigan, her research focuses on Black teachers’ use of African American English in pre-integration classrooms in the South.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-9137158
  9. Hopes for Reading in the Era of Globalization
    Abstract

    AbstractThis article identifies in contemporary literary theory a new optimism about the power of literary texts. The medium of this power is not language, ideology, or form but readers open to being changed. Drawing on phenomenology, the article discusses methods for making literary theory students open to and aware of such change, suggesting that hope is the grounding condition for any effective teaching act as well as an effective ground for reading in an era of globalization.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-9131896
  10. What Does a Good Teacher Do Now?
    Abstract

    Abstract Five graduate students reflect on their experiences in multiple roles to address the question, What does a good teacher do now?—during a pandemic, in a moment of reckoning with white supremacy, in the face of uncounted griefs and challenges. We contend that good teachers craft communities of care for students, colleagues, and themselves. We advance trauma, accessibility, surveillance, and labor as particular sites for that project.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-9132058
  11. From the Margins to the Center
    Abstract

    AbstractSelf-publishing is a topic not typically discussed in the literature classroom, yet it can provide an opportunity to highlight voices and works from the margins, think critically about the publishing methods, and promote the study of the book as a cultural artifact. This article provides a case study on using special collections materials to teach undergraduates about self-published American literature. It includes suggestions about how to find and select materials, details about facilitating a discussion and a hands-on activity on the topic, and recommendations for adapting these ideas for other teaching contexts.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-9131930