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March 2021

  1. Poets and translators share the classroom
    Abstract

    This paper shows the development of an innovative teaching project conducted with students of two different degrees: Hispanic studies and modern languages and translation, at the University of Alcalá. This interdisciplinary experience sought to connect students taking their initial steps into poetry writing with translators approaching poetic translation for the first time. With this in mind, the creation of a bilingual collection of poems was proposed. Firstly, students in Hispanic studies would create some poems that could be translated, or rather recreated by the translation students. The main objectives of this interdisciplinary project were to promote creative writing, encourage group work, and increase students’ motivation – as well as to reinforce both the use of English as a foreign language and the practice of literary translation by crafting and subsequently translating original texts created by the students themselves. Moreover, the project is also beneficial for the enrichment and refinement of the education process in general and of poetry translation teaching practices in particular.

    doi:10.1558/wap.37038
  2. Writer identity and disciplinarity in the third space
    Abstract

    This qualitative study examines academic support practices and students’ experiences and perspectives in a graduate nursing education program that has, for many years, emphasized research and writing by requiring aspiring nurse practitioners to pursue publication in peer-reviewed clinical research journals. In collaboration with faculty, practitioner researchers from the university’s postsecondary learning center developed and facilitated group workshops and provided students with individual consultations on research processes and manuscript development. The researchers wrote field notes and researcher memos, administered workshop evaluations, and interviewed seven participants to better understand students’ writer identities and whether writing for the discipline of nursing with the support of peers, faculty, and learning instructors led to any changes in both their individual and collective sense of disciplinary identity. More broadly, this study interrogated the role of a postsecondary learning center employing an academic literacies pedagogical approach (Lea and Street, 1998; Lillis and Scott, 2007) in working with faculty to support students’ writing for a specific discipline. Findings suggest that graduate nursing students felt anxiety and uncertainty about claiming disciplinary expertise and competence as writers. This affective experience made it difficult for students to align their understandings of nursing as a discipline, rooted in their field experiences as professionals, with a more academic conceptualization that they believed to be represented by the research and writing practices required for the assignment. By engaging with the learning center as a third space (Gutiérrez, 2008), the students explored these challenges and experimented with writing practices, directions for their research, and the conceptualization of their profession as they modified their understanding of what was possible for scholarly writing and research in nursing as a discipline and what they could contribute individually as emerging scholars. This study has implications for teaching academic writing practices in nursing contexts, as well as other academic disciplines and for forming generative collaborations between postsecondary learning centers and subject experts.

    doi:10.1558/wap.39774
  3. Hybrid Model for Multidisciplinary Collaborations for Technical Communication Education in Engineering
    Abstract

    Introduction: Engineering programs must take creative approaches to ensure that their students receive needed communication instruction in curricula constantly experiencing pressures of accreditation, state, and industry requirements: expectations for students' knowledge and skills increase although curricula are compressed. Situating the case: Technical communication and engineering education scholarship describe multiple models for integrating writing instruction into engineering curricula: 1. writing across the curriculum, 2. partnership models, 3. embedded models, and 4. support models. About the case: Technical and professional writing and engineering faculty collaborated to develop a hybrid model, which borrows from multiple existing models for integrating technical writing education throughout the engineering curriculum, both in and outside of courses, including collaborative workshops, specialized writing center support, and other interventions. Methods/approach: Survey research was conducted with students on the effectiveness of multiple writing interventions. Results/discussion: The hybrid model enables students to experience a variety of writing interventions; students perceived them as beneficial. Students found most effective writing interventions occurred in the context of their engineering coursework. Faculty and administrators found the approach beneficial because of its collaborative nature and because it balanced instructional time with external support methods. Conclusions: Local solutions to universal problems must take many variables into consideration: people and programmatic cultures, disciplinary and institutional contexts, and curricular, regulatory, and funding constraints. The authors' hybrid model for integrating technical writing into the engineering curriculum represents a flexible, sustainable approach adaptable to meet specific needs in specific environments at different institutions.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.2020.3047313
  4. Engineers Taking a Stance on Technical Communication: Peer Review of Oral Presentations via the Trans-Atlantic and Pacific Project
    Abstract

    Introduction: To present technical content clearly and effectively for global users of English, engineering students need to learn how. About the case: Technical communication classes in Spain and the US engaged in an international telecollaborative project between cross-cultural virtual teams in which students in Spain developed oral presentations that were then peer-reviewed by counterparts in the US. Situating the case: Research on international professional communication and, more specifically, virtual exchange is rapidly growing to explore how instructors can help students gain key competencies such as audience awareness, intercultural sensitivity, and an understanding of English as a lingua franca. Approach/methods: As part of the Trans-Atlantic & Pacific Project network, this project focused on spoken communication. Data were analyzed from feedback forms used by US students to evaluate oral presentations, and on prelearning and postlearning reports completed by students in Spain, as well as from class discussions accompanying the project. Results/discussion: Through reflections on pragmatic strategies that facilitate exchange and collaboration in English as a lingua franca, the engineering students became more fully aware of the importance of rhetorical and linguistic factors that affect meaning-making for engineers internationally. Conclusion: Results suggest that students who participate in transnational virtual exchange projects integrate their desire to acquire knowledge with an awareness of the importance of sharing knowledge through mindful and inclusive communication practices. Technical and engineering communication instructors from different countries can heighten their students' audience awareness, and cultural and language sensitivities through such projects.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.2021.3057246

February 2021

  1. Playful Practices: Reimagining Literacy Teacher Education through Game-Based Curriculum Design
    Abstract

    The prevalence of high-stakes testing, scripted curricula, and accountability measures in schools discourages experimentation with curriculum. This article encourages curriculum design experimentation in teacher education by proposing playful practices, game-like activities for designing curriculum that draws on students’ out-of-school literacies. We explore the benefits and challenges of game-based curriculum design with preservice teachers (PSTs; N = 19) in two public university secondary English education courses and trace one PST’s take-up of the curriculum design moves through incorporation of these playful practices into her classroom. Data collection occurred across one academic year and included field and observation notes, written reflections, interview data, and artifacts. Findings show the potential for game-based curriculum design in literacy teacher education to (1) create an imaginative space between teacher and student, (2) encourage collaborative production, (3) connect PST university coursework to classroom practice, (4) support students’ creative language production, and (5) create playful social contexts for participatory learning. Challenges highlight the importance of attending to power dynamics in game play and design. Implications include how game-based pedagogical invitations in teacher education can help PSTs imagine new ways to organize classroom structures and literacy learning experiences that value an interplay of youth cultures and classroom curriculum.

    doi:10.58680/rte202131185
  2. Composing Literary Arguments in an 11th Grade International Baccalaureate Classroom: How Classroom Instructional Conversations Shape Modes of Participation
    Abstract

    In U.S. secondary schools there is an overriding emphasis on formulaic approaches to argumentative writing instruction in English language arts that tends to trivialize disciplinary norms of argument and evidence because of institutional pressure to bolster students’ test performances.  This paper seeks to provide an ethnographically-informed framework for understanding for whom, how, when, and to what extent it is possible for students to participate, through writing, in the study of literature as the central disciplinary content of English language arts. The corpus of data used in this study of an 11th grade International Baccalaureate (IB) classroom (26 students) consisted of classroom instruction (video-recordings and field notes) that occurred across an initial instructional unit (September 8th to November 3rd). Of particular importance is a summative writing assignment, teacher interviews and collaborative data analysis (with video clips), student interviews about instruction and their writing, samples of student writing, and related documents. We also analyzed two essays written by the two case study students in response to a writing assignment that the teacher, described as an IB “literary commentary with an unspecified topic” that she reframed as a literary argument. Discourse analysis of a series of events within instructional conversations revealed that rather than prescribed forms, the teacher offered “possible” writerly moves for her students’ arguing to learn. Consequently, her students enacted their writerly moves in a variety of patterns suggestive of disciplinary ways of knowing in English language arts rather than in a pre-set formula that they had learned in previous grades. In order to trace how the students enacted modes of participation (procedural display and deep participation) in disciplinary activity (literary argumentation) as writing practices and shifting writer identities  we also conducted a multi-phased and multi-layered ana

    doi:10.21623/1.8.2.5
  3. Introduction: Envisioning Engaged Infrastructures for Community Writing
    Abstract

    We proudly present this special issue of Community Literacy Journal on "Building Engaged Infrastructure." Our vision for this collection begins with the inaugural Conference on Community Writing (CCW), which took place at the University of Colorado Boulder in October 2015 1 and attracted 350 scholars, students, activists, and community members representing forty-two states, three countries, 152 colleges and universities, and forty-eight community organizations.This large group was drawn to a vision of higher education that connects with local, national, and international communities by using writing for education, public dialogue, and social change.The overwhelming response to the conference underscored a desire by those working in community writing (a growing subfield within rhetoric and composition that includes genres such as service learning, community-based research, community literacy, community publishing, advocacy and activist writing, and more) to have opportunities to network, share best practices, and receive mentoring.This event brought together academics and community members to explore the relationships between communication, writing, and social action.According to CCW founding chair Veronica House, a conference goal was "to build a national network of people, ideas, resources, and support structures-an engaged infrastructure-to make the work we do in and about our communities more sustainable, impactful, rewarding, and rewarded." 2 In the pages that follow, we turn our attention to the scholarship and practice of community writing that emerged from, or was reflected in, presentations and conversations at CCW.We realize, and want to highlight in this special issue, the obstacles, challenges, and paradoxes of working in community writing.For one, as the astute reader will no doubt notice, definitions of community range widely.The same is true for what counts as writing.An exploration of engagement and infrastructure is no less complex.However, we believe that the inclusion of multiple viewpoints, and the deferral of a precise definition of terms, effectively identifies the fluid boundaries of this thing we call "community writing." Those who attended CCW, or previous events like the 2008 "Imagining Community Literacy" meeting in Philadelphia and the 2011 "Writing Democracy" conference in Commerce, Texas 3 , or who are energized by work that engages the ethics and populations outside of the traditionally defined borders of the university share enthusiasm for engaged work and an optimistic belief that the study and practice of writing can lead to a more just world.We also share concerns about the risks embedded in this work.In April 2016, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) published an official "Position To this end, they hosted a conference of about 150 librarians, public historians, community leaders, and teachers and scholars from our field and beyond at Texas A&M-Commerce in March 2011 and have held pre-conference workshops at the CCCCs every year since.In July 2012, Michelle Hall Kells hosted about 25 leading scholars in community literacy in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the Summit of the National Consortium of Writing Across Communities.Clearly, the desire to establish a collaborative unit of some kind is high.3.

    doi:10.25148/clj.11.1.009244
  4. Against Infrastructure: Curating Community Literacy in a Jail Writing Program
    Abstract

    This essay argues that while fostering individual and collaborative literacy can indeed promote self-awareness, confidence, and political awareness, the threat of emotional and material retribution is ever-present in jail, making the development of infrastructure challenging. Such reality compels engaged teacher-researchers to develop tactical methods for promoting literacy with limited social and material support from institutions that are primarily invested in compliant behavior. Rather than relying upon traditional models for building engaged university-community infrastructure in such contexts, I suggest a participatory curatorial model and explore the notion of curating a program within an ever-shifting set of artists, regulations, allegiances, and expectations.

    doi:10.25148/clj.11.1.009250
  5. A Replication Agenda for Composition Studies
    Abstract

    This article argues composition researchers should make replicating previous research a greater priority because replication is a valuable tool that facilitates invention, collaboration, transparency, and revision, and its overwhelming absence in composition studies narrows the generalizability of writing research. I posit a replication agenda to encourage scholars to replicate and reproduce results by building disciplinary and institutional spaces for the practice to thrive.

    doi:10.58680/ccc202131162

January 2021

  1. Social Justice and Corporate Mission Statements: Analyzing Values in Business Writing
    Abstract

    This article describes and reflects on a collaborative, in-class activity that asks students in a business writing course to analyze the intersection of language, values, and social justice through a rhetorical analysis of corporate mission statements. The activity looks at how mission statements, as a genre, work to construct an ethos of civic engagement targeting a specific audience. Students reflect on values embedded in mission statements and compare these values with corporate action. Students then work in groups to create their own mission statements that direct their research and teamwork for their other, collaborative course projects. I offer this activity focused on mission statements as a concrete way to discuss social justice, values, and civic engagement in a business writing course; specifically, students explore how language impacts social justice and structural (in)equality.

    doi:10.31719/pjaw.v5i1.72
  2. Front Matter
    Abstract

    T he Community Literacy Journal is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes both scholarly work that contributes to theories, methodologies, and research agendas and work by literacy workers, practitioners, and community literacy program staff. We are especially committed to presenting work done in collaboration between academics and community members, organizers, activists, teachers, and artists.

    doi:10.25148/clj.13.1.009065
  3. The Drake Community Press
    Abstract

    The Drake Community Press is a collaborative publishing project involving students and faculty from a variety of disciplines along with a non-profit community partner with a compelling story to share. Over two years and eight production phases, campus and community participants create the content, format, design, promotion, and distribution plan for a high-quality publication that aims, through sales and advocacy, to advance the partner’s mission. In so doing, the Press creates an intentional framework of encounter— education as dialogue—in which participants negotiate across cultural and disciplinary boundaries as equal stakeholders with a shared purpose.

    doi:10.25148/clj.13.2.009072
  4. Interventional Systems Ethnography and Intersecting Injustices: A New Approach for Fostering Reciprocal Community Engagement
    Abstract

    Effectively addressing wicked problems requires collaborative, embedded action. But, in many cases, scholarly commitments, social justice, privilege, and precarity collide in ways that make it difficult for community-engaged scholars to ethically navigate competing duties. This article presents our efforts to support reciprocal community engagement in addressing cancer- obesity comorbidity and risk coincidence in underserved communities. Partnering with community healthcare professionals, we conducted an adapted Systems Ethnography/Qualitative Modeling (SEQM) study. SEQM offers an alternative ethical framework for community-engaged research, one that supports reciprocity through enabling participant-centered community self-definition, goal setting, and solution identification.

    doi:10.25148/clj.14.1.009055
  5. Front Matter
    Abstract

    Community Literacy Journal is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes both scholarly work that contributes to theories, methodologies, and research agendas and work by literacy workers, practitioners, and community literacy program staff.We are especially committed to presenting work done in collaboration between academics and community members, organizers, activists, teachers, and artists.We understand "community literacy" as including multiple domains for literacy work extending beyond mainstream educational and work institutions.It can be found in programs devoted to adult education, early childhood education, reading initiatives, or work with marginalized populations.It can also be found in more informal, ad hoc projects, including creative writing, graffiti art, protest songwriting, and social media campaigns.For us, literacy is defined as the realm where attention is paid not just to content or to knowledge but to the symbolic means by which it is represented and used.Thus, literacy makes reference not just to letters and to text but to other multimodal, technological, and embodied representations, as well.Community literacy is interdisciplinary and intersectional in nature, drawing from rhetoric and composition, communication, literacy studies, English studies, gender studies, race and ethnic studies, environmental studies, critical theory, linguistics, cultural studies, education, and more.

    doi:10.25148/clj.14.1.009051
  6. Nutrition, Health, and Wellness at La Escuelita: A Community-Driven Effort Toward Food and Environmental Justice
    Abstract

    This article introduces La Escuelita, an after-school health literacy program for youth and families that currently meets in a community center one mile from a port of entry into El Paso, Texas. Through weekly activities that include mediums like art, community-based mapping, and collaborative cooking, participants at La Escuelita interrogate notions of health, wellness, and nutrition and engage in discussions about food and environmental justice. Through their discussion of this community-based project, the authors argue that food and environmental justice efforts should center community- knowledge, asset-based frameworks, and reciprocal learning.

    doi:10.25148/clj.14.1.009054
  7. Digital Humanities in Professional and Technical Communication: Results of a Pedagogical Pilot Study
    Abstract

    ABSTRACT This article examines pedagogical results from an IRB-approved study that used the Omeka platform in two sections of technical writing classes. The research question explored how a digital humanities (DH) project can be an opportunity for students to learn concepts and take ownership of publicly facing content. The method used is qualitative, and findings indicated that students embraced an open-source and collaborative project. Results also demonstrated how technical and professional communication (TPC) instructors might find DH tools well suited to TPC competencies.

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2020.1789744
  8. The Benefits of Improvisational Games in the TC Classroom
    Abstract

    ABSTRACT This Methodologies and Approaches piece examines the question: How do TC students perceive the value of improvisational training? Students from three workshops were surveyed about their reactions to the improv games in which they participated. Major findings are that students at this STEM university overwhelming considered improv training to be valuable. They associate improv training helpful in quick-thinking, collaboration, creativity, and confidence. They further consider improv skills transferable to effective performance in various settings.

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2020.1754466
  9. Creating intelligent content with lightweight DITA
    Abstract

    In Creating Intelligent Content with Lightweight DITA, Evia introduces readers to an open source information standard that can be used to write structured content; coordinate collaborative workflow...

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2019.1689089
  10. Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change: A Critical Companion by Ann George
    Abstract

    Reviewed by: Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change: A Critical Companion by Ann George Kyle Jensen Ann George. Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change: A Critical Companion. Columbia: South Carolina University Press, 2018. xvi + 279 pp. ISBN 9781611179316 It is difficult to appreciate the full achievement of Ann George’s Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change: A Critical Companion unless one has firsthand experience with Kenneth Burke’s extant papers. All archival research is challenging, of course. But Burke’s papers are especially difficult to manage because of the volume and fecundity of his drafting materials. These materials encourage a persistent feeling of insecurity, that hard-won moments of clarity will be run off by new and unexpected variables. I am not surprised that it took George twenty years to track “P&C’s development, theoretical arguments, critical methodologies, and civic pedagogy” (24). Her erudite analysis indicates the time was well spent. George navigates the complicated arguments of Permanence and Change with characteristic precision and grace. In Part I, she addresses the core concepts of Burke’s argument such as piety, perspective by incongruity, metabiology, and the art of living. In Part II, she presents an extended archival account of the book’s production and reception history that complicates prevailing assumptions about Burke’s work as a critic. The two parts are connected by George’s claim that Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change is the originating work of the New Rhetoric. [End Page 116] To make payment on this claim, George emphasizes the value of reading Burke in context. In each chapter, she presents Burke as a writer responding to the problems posed by his historical moment and needing to revise his perspectives as the scene evolved. Because Burke’s interpretation of key events and their resolutions underwent constant revision, critics hoping to understand his arguments must engage with not only his published works but also his extant drafting materials. In between the drafts, we discover a groundbreaking civic pedagogy that will compel new and expert Burke scholars alike. George identifies metabiology as the “ethical grounding for [Burke’s] proposed cultural reorientation.” In doing so, she claims that his insights remain relevant for the contemporary moment (56). George makes this case convincingly, arguing that Burke’s account of human motives “creates the scene and the means that allow Americans to fulfill their deepest human needs, and as they participate in collaborative civic conversations, they instantiate and reaffirm, for themselves and each other, their commitment to democratic values” (224). Forum constraints prevent me from listing the full array of praiseworthy features in George’s book. So, I will focus on what seem to me her most profound contributions. First, George presents perspective by incongruity as a multi-layered concept. There is a reasonable temptation to limit the scope of perspective by incongruity by noting its capacity to denaturalize well established cultural “truths.” But within Burke’s civic pedagogy, perspective by incongruity has “different levels . . . for different situations”: “a freewheeling, outrageous cultural critique by an ‘analyst’/artist/rhetor or an individual who is already alienated from the dominant culture versus the more conciliatory rhetorical means by which piously reluctant audiences can be led to new ways of seeing” (50). Second, when discussing metabiology as purification of war, George presents five different scenes that elucidate the nuances of Burke’s thinking and thus add considerable depth to our understanding of his civic pedagogy. According to George, the purification of war demands that we address simultaneously the interconnections between our biological, cultural, pragmatic, economic, and militaristic assumptions. George’s claim is particularly suggestive because it implies that later works such as A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric of Motives evolve from Permanence & Change. Having spent nearly a decade working on the archival histories of A Rhetoric of Motives and The War of Words, I concur with this assertion. Much of what appears in A Rhetoric of Motives is an extension and/or revision of Burke’s earlier arguments. Finally, George claims that Burke’s civic pedagogy is both m extension and revision of epideictic rhetoric. It extends by examining how particular orientations “train people to accept certain ways of knowing and judging...

    doi:10.1353/rht.2021.0034
  11. Remaking Relationships
    Abstract

    How should we teach a class on family in the twenty-first century, when the meaning and makeup of “family” are under attack from all political angles? This article relates an attempt to rethink the family course as interdisciplinary, thematically arranged, heavily dependent on student engagement, and collaborative. From course conception to pitfalls and retrospection, this article provides an overview of a course implemented by the authors and their students as part of the honors program at the University of Portland. At the center of the course was a common curiosity for the material that emerged in hallway conversations at the intersection of different disciplines, at the intersection of ecocriticism and feminist theory, and at the intersection of popular media and personal life. The authors argue that collaborative teaching and intersectionality led to more productive classroom discussions and destabilized assumptions for all the course participants, instructors included.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-8692788
  12. A Collaborative Multimedia Project Model for Online Graduate Students Supported by On-Campus Undergraduate Students
    Abstract

    This descriptive narrative depicts an academic program that deploys a collaborative project model for delivering concurrent multimedia courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Applying this model, online master’s students who are studying the management of technical communication activities remotely manage teams of on-campus undergraduate students who are studying multimedia production skills. The author piloted the collaborative project model during a recent academic term. Student response to the format was overwhelmingly positive from both graduates and undergraduates, and the resulting projects were of exceptional quality and well received by their respective clients.

    doi:10.1177/0047281620977121
  13. Guest Editor’s Introduction: Facilitating Interaction, Collaboration, Community, and Problem-Solving Capabilities in Blended and Fully Online Technical Communication Programs: An Introduction to the Special Issue
    doi:10.1177/0047281620977158
  14. Drafting Pandemic Policy: Writing and Sudden Institutional Change
    Abstract

    This article reports findings from an institutional ethnography of university stakeholders’ writing in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, illustrating the affordances of this methodology for professional and technical communication. Drawing on interview transcripts with faculty and administrators from across the university, the authors contextualize the role of writing in the iterative, collaborative, distributed writing processes by which the university transitioned from a traditional A–F grading scheme to a pass or fail option in just a few business days. They analyze these stakeholders’ experiences, discussing some effects of this accelerated timeline on policy development, writing processes, and uses of writing technologies within this new context of remote teaching and learning.

    doi:10.1177/1050651920959194
  15. Stream-lining Collaboration: Participatory Composition and Twitch
    Abstract

    This video project considers participatory composition and media platforms like YouTube and Twitch, primarily focusing on how the latter’s infrastructure promotes online community participation and collaborative narratives. Viewers develop an understanding of the technology and together expand upon their media literacies engagements through textual, verbal, aural, and multimodal communication.

  16. Student-Teacher Conferencing in Zoom: Asymmetrical Collaboration in a Digital Space/(Non)Place
    Abstract

    This webtext presents video recordings of writing conferences with two students in a lower-division online research writing course, analyzed in light of online writing instruction and writing center scholarship on synchronous conferencing—specifically considering the extent to which students in the conference practice or acquire digital literacy skills, benefit from the immediacy of the interaction, and experience an asymmetrical power dynamic.

2021

  1. Turf Wars, Culture Clashes, and a Room of One’s Own: A Survey of Centers Located in Libraries
    Abstract

    Across college and university campuses, librarians and writing center workers are increasingly finding the trajectories of their academic units intersecting, both physically and institutionally. While both library and writing center scholarship have investigated this trend, research has primarily focused on specific collaborative efforts or theoretical bases for forming partnerships; the issue of centers being physically housed in libraries and the implications of sharing space have been largely unexplored. The researchers present the results of a survey of more than 100 center directors whose centers are located in libraries, moving beyond the common focus on collaborative undertakings by asking participants about theoretical, pedagogical, and practical concerns that stem from centers physically relocating to libraries. Specifically, the researchers focus on participants’ perceptions of the benefits and challenges of centers being physically located in libraries and reflect on the greater implications of this trend for the writing center field, particularly how physical space and institutional location can impact the pedagogies of the writing center.

  2. Bilingual Practices in a Transnational Writing Center: A Foundational Perspective from Russia
    Abstract

    The prefix trans-surfaces frequently in the recent scholarship from the related fields of composition studies, applied linguistics, and writing center theory. With its emphasis on moving across/beyond, trans-evokes spatiality, liminality, collaboration, negotiation, flux, and destabilization. These concepts have become familiar in the scholarship on US writing centers that supports a transition from monolingual to multilingual paradigm and translingual approaches. Multiple meanings of traversing embedded in trans-acquire a new significance in the experience of founding and functioning in a transatlantic writing center in which all forms of communication occur in more than one language and cut across different cultures. This article draws attention to this less explored territory. I consider the transcultural disposition of a transatlantic writing center to facilitate translingual approaches that expose and transform power dynamics in ways that emphasize collaboration and negotiation. To this end, I analyze bilingual literacy practices in a Moscow writing center in its foundational stage.

    doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1893
  3. Challenging our Lineages: Lessons on Language and Writing from a Writing Center Collaboration between Germany and Australia
    Abstract

    This article describes how an unexpected observation by researchers studying writing support for nonnative speakers of English at German and Australian universities became the central insight of the work and resulted in the development of new literacy support measures. Only when the German researchers encountered Australian models of student literacy support did they realize that the German model of a writing center relied heavily on a US heritage while Australian models of student literacy support could be traced back to language and literacy support models from the United Kingdom. The central difference lay in the role that language was considered to have: while language skills were subsumed under writing in one model, writing skills were subsumed under the umbrella of academic language in another. Applying cultural anthropological approaches to the recognition of these two different perspectives allowed the German writing center

    doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1894
  4. Writing Centers and Programs: Their Role in Democratization Policies in Higher Education in Argentina
    Abstract

    Within a framework of democratization policies, universities in Argentina are confronted with the challenge of offering educational support to all students, traditional and nontraditional, to help them enculturate in chosen disciplines and graduate from college. In this collaboratively authored article, we describe some of the conditions and processes that led higher education institutions to acknowledge the strategic role that teaching reading, writing, and oral communication play, to foster not only the students' learning process, but also inclusion and quality for the democratization of higher education. We also describe initiatives carried out by five Argentinean universities to address the development of academic literacies in Spanish-medium curricula, including the establishment of writing programs and/or writing centers on our campuses. We refer to tutoring practices, culturally specific genres and pedagogies, teaching and research initiatives, power dynamics within the different organizational and institutional contexts, and the paramount role of collaboration in shaping future initiatives. Finally, we identify similarities and differences between the five institutional experiences.

    doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1895
  5. Design and Implementation of the First Peer-Staffed Writing Center in Thailand
    Abstract

    This paper describes the design and establishment of the first peer-staffed writing center in Thailand, including its inspiration, its planning, the tutor-training process, and its implementation up to and through the COVID-19 pandemic. As writing centers are relatively unknown in Southeast Asia, the writing center in focus was a fortunate confluence of factors: a motivated faculty dean, a visiting English Language Fellow, and a writing center specialist. These combined to provide the framework for collaboration with university faculty. The process involved exploring writing center methodology, training peer tutors, and progressing a community of practice. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed some of the writing center’s activities, it continues to be a model for other universities in the region and beyond.

  6. Creating a Collaborative Culture of Access through the Accessibility Working Group
    Abstract

    The Accessibility Working Group (AWG) aims to create a collaborative culture of access within our group, our composition program, and our larger professional and pedagogical communities. To create a culture of access, participants need to be collaborative members of a community to continuously negotiate access needs that change over time. The AWG has benefited our composition program as it is a decentralized, auxiliary group dedicated to conversations about accessible pedagogy that have inspired more effective pedagogical practices. This program profile provides the theories, goals, practices, and challenges of the AWG as a model to foster a collaborative culture of access in other composition programs and contexts.

  7. Revising Reflection for Results in Teacher Research
    Abstract

    In this article, we argue that using students’ reflective writing to understand specific aspects of their classroom experience requires that researchers systematically integrate into the curriculum reflections that responsibly attend to both students’ learning and the focus of classroom research. Informed by recently published articles on reflection and collaborative writing and learning, this argument contributes to recent Composition Forum discussions (e.g. VanKooten; Fiscus; Winzenreid et al.; Jankens, Learning How to Ask ). We also aim to demonstrate that the process of learning how to do research “right” is a recursive endeavor. Addressing the challenging results of our study, we consider ways that more systematic reflection in our paired courses might have brought collaborative learning even more to the surface both for students and our research. We pose that, in retrospect, had we developed a series of reflective writing assignments that explicitly prompted students to describe learning as part of a social process within the classroom, this reflective writing would likely have better highlighted collaboration for our research and for students’ meta-awareness of their learning processes.

  8. Centering the Emotional Labor of Writing Tutors
    Abstract

    Writing consultants regularly perform emotional labor. They suppress or express emotions to welcome clients and invoke enthusiasm to cultivate writers’ confidence. Because emotional labor performs these crucial functions, it merits focused attention in writing center studies. However, while research has considered the emotional needs that writers bring, scholars have not yet sufficiently examined the affective engagements that consultations require of writing consultants. The first section of this article presents a case for treating affective dimensions of tutoring as labor. The second section analyzes five tutor-training manuals using the Specific Affect Coding System (SPAFF) to identify references to emotion and affect in the texts. This analysis shows that these tutor training manuals offer limited or indirect discussions of emotional labor and neglect the fact that relational work is just as much a practiced skill as cognitive work. The final section offers implications and proposes ways these manuals could start more robust discussions of emotional labor to further writing center goals of creating supportive, collaborative environments. By teaching and valuing the emotional labor of tutors, writing centers can become more inclusive places and mitigate factors that lead to burnout.

    doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1962
  9. Composing an Anti-Racism and Social Justice Statement at a Rural Writing Center
    Abstract

    This article describes the year-long collaborative composing process of a rural writing center seeking to develop an anti-racism and social justice statement. The author reflects on the way in which rural perspectives are often dismissed, often seen as provincial and hostile towards ideas that might be included in an anti-racism and social justice statement. The piece also connects theories of composing, fluidity, and identity to the writing of the statement and provides a detailed analysis of the lengthy, often challenging composing process used. The author finds that the collaborative composing process, more than the resulting statement, was significant to the ongoing dismantling of racist practices in the writing center and in training writing center consultants.

    doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1961

December 2020

  1. Collaborating between Writing and STEM: Teaching Disciplinary Genres, Researching Disciplinary Interventions, and Engaging Science Audiences
    Abstract

    Collaborating between Writing and STEM: Teaching Disciplinary Genres, Researching Disciplinary Interventions, and Engaging Science Audiences
 This poster describes a multi-pronged effort to build a writing curriculum in Physics and other STEM fields at the George Washington University, USA. These efforts include curricular collaboration, a research study conducted by the Physicists and Writing Scholars, and external funding initiatives.
 This project first began as a curricular collaboration through our Writing in the Disciplines (WID) curriculum, initiated by observations among Physics faculty that undergraduate students lack Physics specific writing skills. Writing faculty responded to this observation by introducing Physics faculty to the idea that writing can and must be taught, that the genres of Physics can be taught by Physics faculty, and that a focus on the writing process can improve student writing. Our curricular goal was to demonstrate to faculty who are unfamiliar with writing studies that writing is a means to learn in Physics (Anderson et al., 2017).
 The first phase of our effort was to persuade Physics faculty that writing contributes to learning in Physics; we describe a collaboration between Physics and Writing faculty that developed assignments and made curricular interventions. This collaboration built upon scholarship in writing studies that argues genre instruction develops capacities and skills for student writing (Swales, 1990; Winsor, 1996). While genre is not a new concept in Writing Studies, for many Physics faculty the idea that they can teach – and have students learn – how to write in disciplinary genres is novel. Collaboration around curricular revisions enabled Writing and Physics faculty to teach students that learning how to write in a new genre is a skill that can be practiced (Ericsson, 2006; Kellogg & Whiteford, 2009). We developed a process for students to follow when faced with types of writing common to Physics, but potentially new to them, such as the abstract (written), lab research notebook (written), article summary (oral), letter to colleague (written), cover letter and resumé (written), elevator pitch (oral), proposal (written and oral), presentation on issues of ethics and equity in STEM (oral), research presentation (oral), poster (written), poster presentation (oral), final research report (written), and Symposium presentation (oral). The collaboration thus created pedagogical exchange between faculty as well as scholarly synergy between the disciplines of Physics and Writing Studies.
 Physics faculty have observed that the curricular collaboration has had measurable results for students. Physics student participation in the campus research day has increased dramatically. We attribute this rise partly to the increased, explicit attention in classroom settings to how to engage with Physics genres of writing, especially abstracts and research posters.
 While the collaboration successfully brought together a small but solid group of Writing and Physics faculty, it also raised questions about how to persuade a broader range of Physics faculty, and other science faculty, that teaching disciplinary genres can improve student writing, and that writing is a means of learning. Given that faculty in STEM disciplines find empirical research persuasive, our next step was to undertake a collaborative research project to measure the impact of the teaching of writing in Physics. The new curricular focus on genre asked students to conceptualize themselves as scientific writers in relation to specific Physics or STEM audiences. The collaborative research therefore investigates if teaching Physics genres improves writing and enables students to conceptualize themselves as emerging scientists engaged in professional communication (Poe et al., 2010; Winsor, 1996). Our longitudinal analysis of student writing in Physics evaluates writing from three sequenced courses, the first before faculty-developed genre assignments, and then after genre assignments. We developed a rubric that evaluates general outcomes – audience, genre, structure, style – and a rubric that evaluates specialized learning outcomes – acknowledgement of past scholarship, working with models, incorporating scholarship, articulation of research questions, working with graphs, and articulation of methods. Preliminary research analysis shows that explicitly teaching Physics genres increases student’s abilities to write successfully in Physics, enabling students to understand how knowledge is communicated persuasively to audiences. Our goal with this research is to show STEM faculty through research by Physicists and Writing Studies scholars that teaching writing socializes students into the discipline of Physics, leading them to identify as professional scientists (Allie et al, 2010; Gere et al., 2019). This increase is exemplified by the large number of students volunteering to present a poster during the University wide research day, giving them experience presenting to an educated audience outside of Physics.
 Thus, a combination of strategies – curricular collaboration and intervention, collaborative research from within the discipline of Physics, and successful external funding – are what demonstrate to scientists that teaching genre and teaching writing are central to science education. Based on this experience, our contribution is that shared pedagogical and research collaborations, and funding, are what make the knowledge of Writing Studies persuasive to scientists.
 We have seen success with these efforts. At George Washington, other STEM faculty have observed successes in the Physics curriculum, and have joined efforts to bring writing more explicitly into their curriculum. This year, we began a Writing in STEM symposium that has grown to include faculty in Chemistry, Systems Engineering, Mathematics, Geography, Mechanical Engineering, and other fields. We have also seen an uptick in STEM courses in the WID curriculum. The Physics and Writing research collaboration has led to a National Science Foundation (NSF) submission on genre, and an NSF award for a study of writing and engineering judgement, being conducted by Writing faculty and Systems Engineering faculty.
 References
 Allie, S., Armien, M.N., Burgoyne, N, Case, J.M., Collier-Reed, B.I, Craig, T.S., Deacon, A, Fraser, D.M.,Geyer, Z, Jacobs, C., Jawitz, J., Kloot, B., Kotta, L., Langdon, G., le Roux, K., Marshall, D, Mogashana,D., Shaw,C., Sheridan, G., & Wolmarans, N. (2009). Learning as acquiring a discursive identity through participation in a community: improving student learning in engineering education. European Journal of Engineering Education, 34(4), 359-367. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043790902989457
 Anderson, P., Anson, C. M., Fish, T., Gonyea, R. M., Marshall, M., Menefee-Libey, W Charles Paine, C., Palucki Blake, L. & Weaver, S. (2017). How writing contributes to learning: new findings from a national study and their local application. Peer Review, 19(1), 4.
 Ericsson, K. A. (2009). The Influence of experience and deliberate practice on the development of superior expert performance. In K. A. Ericsson, R. R. Hoffman, A. Kozbelt & A. M Williams (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp 685–705). Cambridge University Press.
 Gere, A. R., Limlamai, N., Wilson, E., Saylor, K., & Pugh, R. (2019). Writing and conceptual learning in science: an analysis of assignments. Written communication, 36(1), 99–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088318804820
 Kellogg, R., & Whiteford, A. (2009). Training advanced writing skills: the case for deliberate practice. Educational psychologist, 44(4), 250–266. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520903213600
 Poe, M., Lerner, N., & Craig, J. (2010). Learning to communicate in science and engineering: Case studies from MIT. MIT Press.
 Swales, J. (1990). Discourse analysis in professional contexts. Annual review of applied linguistics, 11, 103–114.
 Winsor, D. A.(1996) Writing like an engineer: A rhetorical education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.581
  2. A Cross‐national View on the Organisational Perspective of Writing Centre Work: the Writing Centre Exchange Project (WCEP)
    Abstract

    This paper gives insights into research conducted within the Writing Centre Exchange Project (WCEP), a research collaboration among three university writing centres in Sweden, Germany and Ireland, which focuses on organisational perspectives on writing centre work. WCEP rests on the theoretical framework of institutional work. Previous research, conducted in US writing centres, developed a model of institutional work in writing centres that includes specific Strategic Action Fields (SAFs) and collaborative learning as a means to interact with stakeholders. By using this model, WCEP has targeted ongoing institutional work intended to establish and sustain missions, goals and activities in and around writing centres. Drawing on participatory action research, WCEP explores the extent to which the institutional work at the three European writing centres correlates with the model. The main findings show that indeed the same strategic action fields are relevant, but furthermore, different subcategories emerge depending on the local context. This paper explores some of the subcategories that differ and draws conclusions for the institutional work of writing centre directors.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.603
  3. The 1967 Project
    Abstract

    This program profile describes an intergenerational workshop focused on the 1967 Detroit Rebellion. The workshop was nested within a 15-week community-based intermediate composition course in which undergradu- ates interviewed older adults while older adults wrote personal narratives of their firsthand experiences during the rebellion. The workshop is an example of how intergenerational collaboration built around inquiry into historical events can be the basis for authentic community-university relationships.

    doi:10.25148/14.2.009043
  4. Listening with šǝqačib: Writing Supportand Community Listening
    Abstract

    This essay examines writing partnerships in 2016 and 2017 that invited com- munity nonprofit volunteers and employees into šǝqačib, which is a Seattle youth (middle school and high school) Native cultural literacy classroom community. As a white settler employed by the nonprofit during the events described, I emphasize the wisdom of šǝqačib students who reflect on the collaboration. Drawing on Rachel Jackson’s work on community listening, I find that šǝqačib students demonstrate the importance of cultivating lis- tening practices when community literacy practitioners enter identity-safe scholarly communities such as šǝqačib. I urge academic and literacy sup- porters in similar contexts to center Native and Native youth voices in their own terms.

    doi:10.25148/14.2.009038
  5. Cover and Front Matter
    Abstract

    T he Community Literacy Journal is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes both scholarly work that contributes to theories, methodologies, and research agendas and work by literacy workers, practitioners, and community literacy program staff. We are especially committed to presenting work done in collaboration between academics and community members, organizers, activists, teachers, and artists.

    doi:10.25148/clj.14.2.009032
  6. Third Space: A Keyword Essay
    Abstract

    e were newly appointed graduate WPAs at Ohio State. Both of us were interested in connecting Ohio State's First-Year Writing Program to the surrounding Columbus community, but neither of us were sure how to go about it-how to navigate the various institutional, social, and ethical issues involved in university-community engagement. We carried many of those uncertainties into a meeting with the Columbus Metropolitan Library's community engagement representative. During our first meeting, we learned that, for many students, the library serves as a 'third space' or a space where students spend the greatest amount of time between school and home. We didn't know it then, but this use of third space dovetails nicely with an academic theory of third space that has helped us work through the institutional, social, and ethical issues we have grappled with during our university-community collaboration.

    doi:10.25148/14.2.009046
  7. Asynchronous Collaboration: Bridging the Cognitive Distance in Global Software Development Projects
    Abstract

    Research problem: The role that physical, temporal, and cultural distances play in global software development projects has been well researched. Culturally diverse teams separated by physical distances across multiple time zones face significant challenges in collaborating effectively with each other. This article examines a fourth dimension-cognitive distance-that relates to the problem-solving style of teams that can also have an impact on their ability to collaborate successfully. Research questions: 1. Does cognitive distance affect communication among global software development teams collaborating with each other? 2. How does cognitive distance affect the sentiment/emotion of global software development teams collaborating with each other? Literature review: Prior research shows that collaboration among teams on global software development projects is impacted by practices to manage collaboration; appropriate use of collaboration technologies; collaboration readiness that relates to individual characteristics such as personality traits, motivation, and trust; and shared understanding in group problem-solving. While shared understanding has looked at the effectiveness of the use of common language and knowledge sharing, it has not examined how differences in problem-solving styles of geographically dispersed teams impact their ability to collaborate successfully. Methodology: We examined project artifacts and email communication among geographically dispersed teams within a global software development project. From the project artifacts, we examined tasks allocated to different teams. From the emails, we established the communication network and volume of communication, and performed a sentiment analysis on email content. This analysis allowed us to observe not only the quality of communication among the teams but also the sentiment/emotion that reflected how well they were working together. Results and discussion: Managing teams that vastly differ in problem-solving styles and tasks requires that project managers be aware of these differences and introduce liaisons that reach across the teams to help bridge the cognitive divide.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.2020.3029674
  8. Group Dynamics across Interaction Modes in L2 Collaborative Wiki Writing
    doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2020.102607
  9. Writing to Make Meaning through Collaborative Multimodal Composing among Korean EFL Learners: Writing Processes, Writing Quality and Student Perception
    doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2020.102609
  10. Revising a Scientific Writing Curriculum: Wayfinding Successful Collaborations with Interdisciplinary Expertise
    Abstract

    Interdisciplinary collaborations to help students compose for discipline-specific contexts draw on multiple expertise. Science, technology, education, and mathematics (STEM) programs particularly rely on their writing colleagues because 1) their academic expertise is often not writing and 2) teaching writing often necessitates a redesigning of existing instructional materials. While many writing studies scholars have the expertise to assist their STEM colleagues with such tasks, how to do so—and, more fundamentally, how to begin such efforts—is not commonly focused on in the literature stemming from these collaborations. Our article addresses this gap by detailing an interdisciplinary Writing in the Disciplines (WID) collaboration at a large, public R1 university between STEM and writing experts to redesign the university’s introductory biology writing curriculum. The collaborative curriculum design process detailed here is presented through the lens of wayfinding, which concerns orientation, trailblazing, and moving through uncertain landscapes according to cues. Within this account, a critical focus on language—what we talk about when we talk about writing—emerges, driving both the collaboration itself and resultant curricular revisions. Our work reveals how collaborators can wayfind through interdisciplinary partnerships and writing curriculum development by transforming differences in discipline-specific expertise into a new path forward.

    doi:10.58680/ccc202031040

October 2020

  1. Walleye Wars and Pedagogical Management: Cooperative Rhetorics of Responsibility in Response to Settler Colonialism
    Abstract

    This essay details a history of environmental violence in Wisconsin, showing the ways that the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) responded during the walleye wars of the 1980s and early 1990s. I show that resentment-laden settler colonialism was engaged by an Ojibwe rhetoric of collaboration, a response that pedagogically emphasizes mutual respect and responsibility. In ongoing relationships with Wisconsin publics, they practice a rhetoric that works counter to the logics of settler colonialism. This essay ultimately shows how GLIFWC’s public outreach during the walleye wars unsettles a settler colonial violence grounded in ignorance and resentment. Such an approach to collaborative relationships enacts a pedagogy grounded in treaty rights between the US and Ojibwe tribes, all the while asserting sovereignty.

    doi:10.1080/02773945.2020.1813324
  2. What Happens When We Fail? Building Resilient Community-Based Research
    Abstract

    This article reports on the second stage of a 7-year community-based research project involving service-learning students in technical and professional communication courses and nonprofit organizations in Baltimore City. The article explains how students and community members overcame failure to collaborate on literacy and employment workshops. To assess collaboration, researchers integrated usability testing on workshop resources with 15 ( N = 15) participants, postworkshop questionnaires with 34 ( N = 34) participants, and interviews with 2 ( N = 2) community partners. Participants responded positively, and 47% of workshop attendees found jobs. The article argues that community-based research should use participatory and iterative models and resilience theory.

    doi:10.1177/0047281619876292
  3. A Collaborative Longitudinal Design for Supporting Writing Pedagogies of STEM Faculty
    Abstract

    Providing contextualized, effective writing instruction for engineering students is an important and challenging objective. This article presents a needs analysis conducted in a large engineering college and introduces the faculty development program that was created based on that analysis. The authors advocate for sustained interdisciplinary collaboration to promote contextualized adoption and adaptation of best practices and testing of scalable strategies.

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2020.1713405
  4. Toward a Radical Collaboratory Model for Graduate Research Education: A Collaborative Autoethnography
    Abstract

    This article builds upon the exigence highlighted in recent scholarship on preparing technical and professional communication (TPC) graduate students for collaborative research and professionalization. Using collaborative autoethnography as a self-study methodology, the authors offer authentic graduate research and mentorship experiences in a collaborative research incubator, the Wearables Research Collaboratory, at a midwestern research university.

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2020.1713404
  5. Are Two Voices Better Than One? Comparing Aspects of Text Quality and Authorial Voice in Paired and Independent L2 Writing
    Abstract

    Research has shown that collaboratively produced texts are better in quality compared with individually written texts. However, no study has considered the role of collaboration in authorial voice, which is an essential element in current writing curricula. This study analyzes the effects of collaborative task performance in the quality of L2 learners’ argumentative texts and in their authorial voice strength. A total of 306 upper-intermediate L2 learners were selected and divided into independent ( N = 130) and paired ( N = 176) groups. Each learner/pair was asked to write one argumentative text. The quality of writings was determined by a quantitative analysis that included three measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). Participants’ authorial voice strength was assessed by two raters using an analytic voice rubric. Comparison of means revealed that pairs outperformed independent writers in all CAF measures. However, the results for the role of collaboration in authorial voice were mixed: While pairs were more successful than independent writers in manifesting their ideational voice, independent writers outperformed pairs with regard to affective and presence voice dimensions and holistic voice scores. The article concludes that, despite its positive implications for L2 writing, collaborative writing may pose challenges for learners’ authorial stance taking.

    doi:10.1177/0741088320939542

September 2020

  1. Writing a Videogame: Rhetoric, Revision, and Reflection
    Abstract

    This essay reflects on a three-part assignment in which students plan, design, and reflect on a text-based videogame. Created originally for a composition course focused on rhetoric and videogames, the assignment lends itself to teaching about the writing process, especially invention and revision, teaching procedural rhetorics, and teaching technical communication concepts such as iterative design and usability. This essay is coauthored by the instructor with two students who took the course in different semesters, highlighting the collaborative nature of even solo-authored game design, as well as how making games can help students take up rhetorical concerns in other genres.

    doi:10.31719/pjaw.v4i2.64