This study investigated how reading medium (print vs. digital) and communicative purpose (informative vs. persuasive) shape writing processes and outcomes in integrative academic tasks. Eighty-one university students read three source texts in print or digitally and, after random assignment, produced either an informative or persuasive synthesis within a 2×2 between-subjects design. Keystroke logging recorded pausing across three writing stages, indexing planning, translation, and revision. Text quality was scored with holistic rubrics capturing discourse features and integration of sources. Reading medium significantly influenced pausing: students who read in print paused longer during writing, yet medium had no effect on overall text quality. Task purpose mattered: persuasive tasks yielded higher-quality formal writing, whereas scores reflecting level of source integration did not differ. No interaction between reading medium and task purpose emerged. When controlling for reading comprehension, working memory, and planning ability, the main effects of medium and task purpose remained, but period-specific pausing effects were no longer significant. Findings highlight distinct roles for reading medium and task purpose in shaping writing behavior and performance. The results support cautious causal interpretations and suggest that incorporating digital reading and varying task types may enhance academic writing in higher education, informing curriculum design and assessment.

Yan Li Abstract Over the past two decades, writing transfer theories have significantly influenced curriculum development in first-year writing (FYW) programs across the United States (US). This study examines the theories shaping multilingual curriculum development in FYW by presenting findings from a national survey informed by a transfer-encouraging methodology. Despite the critical importance of this […]

Abstract Since March 2020, terms like resilient course design, resilient pedagogy, pandemic resilience, and keep teaching have become ubiquitous in higher education. In response to COVID-19, institutions have proselytized about bouncing back. However, what many may have internalized as a survival response to “the unprecedented” — resilience — is intrinsic to what many in English studies teach: the writing process. Writing is an exercise in resilience. To write is to think. To think is to reckon with complexity. And that reckoning requires that one abandons, however momentarily, the illusion of control for the possibility of creating something new. Building on a burgeoning body of scholarship on resilience in critical pedagogy and composition and rhetoric, this article works to normalize resilience in the writing process and in the teaching of First-Year Composition (FYC). In doing so, the article redefines resilience as a rhetorical tool: a flexibility of mindset and moves that student-writers may develop as they encounter different writing situations and reflect on how they navigate those situations, which can guide them in making strategic choices about languaging, in and beyond our classrooms.

Background: Responding to current research gaps in the investigation of researcher identity development among graduate students, we implement a longitudinal study, powered by user-experience (UX) methods, to document engineering doctoral students’ identity formation. Literature review: Identity formation in novice engineering researchers, such as doctoral students remains underexamined. A process-oriented approach to studying researchers’ identity development may yield useful theoretical and programmatic insights. UX methods offer visual and qualitative approaches to the understanding of student experiences by revealing their identity formation journey over time. Research questions: 1. How can UX methods like persona building support studies of researcher identity development? 2. How can the insights generated from longitudinal UX methods inform graduate program design and assessment? Methodology: Twenty participants were recruited from an industrial engineering department at an R1 university. Data were collected via surveys, qualitative interviews, and journey mapping. Analysis methods, informed by a phenomenological perspective, included persona building and collaborative affinity diagramming. Results: Seven distinctive personas were created to represent identity formation experiences influenced by learning modality, attitude, program stage, and prior experience. Theoretical conclusions and opportunities for academic programming emerged from affinity diagrams. Conclusion: Doctoral engineering students’ researcher identity formation presented implications for theory and curricular design. UX methods offered benefits to qualitative research that can support cross-disciplinary efforts.

English professional communication competence is crucial for fresh graduates to succeed in the workplace and has been identified as a national priority in Malaysia to enhance employability. This study explores key attributes of that competence based on interviews with 12 employers and 9 graduates. Using a basic interpretive qualitative approach, 26 attributes were identified across four areas: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence. The findings highlight the importance of aligning educational outcomes with workplace demands and offer insights that support curriculum development, targeted instruction, and assessment—informing policy and future research to enhance graduate readiness.

Introduction: Research shows that empathy is a core competence of communication professionals. Still, the pedagogy of including empathy in professional communication curricula has been underexposed in the literature. About the case: This article describes the development and evaluation of a course aimed at increasing students’ empathy competence in the final year of a Dutch bachelor-level communication program. A detailed description of the course is provided. Situating the case: The course operationalizes a recent model of empathy competence in professional communication settings. It focuses on empathy-related skills, knowledge, and attitudes. Experiential learning and student-led discussions are core elements in the course. Methods/approach: The course was taught in two different classes (N = 47). Student evaluations and reflections included standard institutional course assessment data, a report from an institution-led student panel evaluation, and student reflections during coursework as well as before, immediately after, and two years after the course. Results/discussion: The course was evaluated very positively in the institutional course assessment and panel evaluation. The student reflections show that students had a great appreciation for the course overall, as well as for specific course elements. The course made them aware of the complexity and multifaceted nature of empathy, and had a profound impact on their professional and personal identity. Conclusion: This article demonstrates the effectiveness of a course designed to develop empathy competence in communication professionals and advocates for future research to explore long-term effects and cross-industry applications.

Introduction: Graduates with master's degrees in Translation and Interpreting (MTI) are an important workforce in technical communication. To meet this need, we examined the pedagogy of trans-writing to better integrate technical communication (TC) into translation programs. This teaching case from two Chinese universities discusses the curriculum design, its implementation, and teaching effectiveness. Situating the case: While an increasing number of universities in China are interested in embedding TC courses into their translation programs, no research-backed effective solution has been identified. About the case: To boost the employability of MTI students, we designed the courses as “user-centered trans-writing with global content,” which features trans-writing as a strategy for global content creation, user research as the core learning task, and team projects as the primary form of engagement. Methods: We used a mixed method of interviews and surveys to investigate the course effectiveness, each targeting different groups of stakeholders. Results: We synthesized a competence framework for trans-writers based on interviews, which showed that graduates (who work as trans-writers) and their employers prioritized language/culture, user-centered mindset, and cooperation as core competencies. A survey focusing on other graduates who took our courses but did not become trans-writers also revealed positive learning outcomes, including expanded professional visions and enhanced skills in user awareness, project management, collaboration, and communication. Conclusion: The trans-writing approach is effective in equipping MTI students with the necessary competencies for global technical communication.

This article describes five first-year writing instructors’ experiences with personalizing shared curriculum across three different course delivery formats (face-to-face, hybrid, online). The data is drawn from teaching journals that the co-authors, a non-tenure track, part-time Lecturer and a tenured Writing Program Administrator, and three Graduate Student Teaching Associates completed throughout Fall 2022. The findings illustrate both benefits and drawbacks related to shared curriculum: discussing and troubleshooting curriculum in a community of practice is highly valuable, but separating course delivery from course design is challenging. In our study, those challenges manifested as disconnects between course content and disciplinary identity, as well as personal feelings of failure. On the other hand, the need to personalize shared curriculum across multiple delivery formats proved productive, especially when instructors used asynchronous online materials as a starting point to develop hybrid and face-to-face lesson plans. Ultimately, we advocate for more conversations about how writing programs can support contingent faculty as they personalize shared curriculum through both course delivery and design, and we offer an example of a successful community of practice that revises shared curriculum in response to community members’ experiences with teaching in multiple modalities.

This article discusses the limitations of language proficiency tests in predicting academic performance among business students at the University of Sharjah. It focuses on EFL students who had been instructed in Arabic before joining the university. Using a regression analysis model, the article demonstrates that students’ weakness in writing proficiency cannot be predicted by standardized tests such as the TOEFL and the IELTS. The proposed method uses several alternative variables that can more resourcefully investigate such weakness. The study ended with germane recommendations to EFL teachers and syllabus designers for the enhancement of writing proficiency among this category of students.

Even though learning outcomes have become an expected part of writing programs, how they are defined and subsequently used is often unclear. This study did a textual analysis of the terms used for outcomes on 42 universities’ first-year writing webpages. The study found that university writing programs use different terms for outcomes and define those terms differently across programs. The lack of clear definitions for outcomes across programs makes these documents difficult for writing programs, faculty, and students to use. Consequently, the author argues that composition studies needs to study definitions of outcomes terminology and then clearly define those terms in the materials programs, teachers, and students use. The author then presents suggestions for how programs and teachers might do this definitional work to make outcomes more useable for effective course design.

This course design integrates the use of contemplative practices, specifically applied improvisational theater, into writing pedagogies to foster mindfulness and critical engagement. It explores the theoretical, neuroscientific, and practical rationale for incorporating contemplative pedagogies in writing classrooms, arguing that applied improv offers a unique framework for examining sociocultural and political contexts in writing instruction. Drawing on research in neuroscience, it demonstrates how applied improv promotes affective well-being, interpersonal skills, and rhetorical listening. By embracing uncertainty and cultivating resilience, students engage in contemplative practices and presence, challenging dominant discourses and power dynamics. The course design emphasizes the potential of applied improv to disrupt conventional teaching paradigms and empower students in their literacy learning. Through reflective analysis and student feedback, it evaluates the effectiveness and limitations of this approach in facilitating mindful engagement with writing and dismantling inequitable structures in education.

Student writers labeled “underprepared” by colleges often have trouble imagining themselves as scholars. Challenges these students routinely encounter include difficulty forming original insights and translating ideas to the page. Although the usage of the term “underprepared” varies across institutional contexts, the designation commonly requires that students enroll in a developmental writing course, making it difficult for these students to feel confident in their work and academic abilities. In this article, I position mindfulness as a strategy instructors can use to nurture students’ emerging scholarly identities. After describing common teaching challenges and the role mindfulness might play in overcoming them, I share a sample course schedule and series of assignments for a first-year writing course that incorporates mindfulness practices, such as slow reading and deep listening. These exercises and assignments can help students develop unique voices and connections to course material, qualities that tend to translate to higher levels of student confidence in both the writing classroom and in the college environment more generally.

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated new pressures for students and exacerbated their pre-pandemic stressors. One example is the impact of increased technology use upon students’ mental health. Interest in contemplative pedagogy has recently grown as instructors seek methods to alleviate the worries that students carry. This piece describes a writing course design that uses written reflection as a contemplative practice. Because the author’s institution requires classes to explicitly align with learning outcomes, the course design is a balance of contemplative practice and the learning outcomes expected by the university.

In response to the increasing alienation from nature exacerbated by digital living, this course design presents an advanced composition “rewilding” course. Combining natural history writing, nature therapy research, and mindfulness activities, the course aims to reconnect students with the natural world. Inspired by Micah Mortali’s concept of rewilding and Barry Lopez’s exploration of inner and outer landscapes, the course emphasizes experiential learning. Through natural history writing, students develop attentiveness to the environment, fostering a sense of wonder and connection. By centering on our innate relationship with nature, rewilding becomes a transformative practice, preparing students for ecological literacy and meaningful engagement with the world.

This study analyzes the experiences of undergraduate peer-tutors in a heritage language writing center (HLWC) located at a large public university in the United States. As former heritage language (HL) students themselves, tutors have to navigate the complexities of being bilingual advocates for their tutees while promoting the linguistic ideals of the academic community, where literacy expectations can be more rigid. In order to delve into their experiences at the center, this qualitative investigation examines the end-of- term reflections of 19 Spanish HL tutors working at a Spanish HLWC, addressing the following questions: (1) How do tutors perceive their role as language advocates and arbiters? (2) How can these beliefs be supported or addressed by the HL program? Ideal tutors occupy a middle ground between being a peer-student and an expert-student, whose role is to scaffold the mentee’s process. However, we find that HL tutors struggle with competing linguistic expectations between the heritage and the academic community. Finally, we discuss three areas of tension that are important to address in HL tutor training and program design: ambivalent notions about students’ proficiency and preparedness, their role in the instructional team, and their relationship to expertise.

What do writers do with the feedback they receive? While the answer will vary depending on the writer’s experience and the rhetorical situation, understanding what writers do can provide important information for course redesign and professional development of tutors and instructors. In this first of two manuscripts, the authors examine how first-semester, first-year writing students use responses provided via asynchronous online tutoring (AOT) in revising their assignments. Our primary research question was: What was happening in—and after—those tutorials? We addressed this question by a process of narrowing and refining of data analysis toward increasingly precise inferences as we progressed from automated to coded analysis, which culminated in examining the drafts submitted for tutoring, tutor feedback, and the subsequent assignments submitted for evaluation in the students’ FYW courses. In parallel, we describe the writing analytics–informed methods used to do so in hopes that others will be compelled to replicate or extend this work in their own contexts. We found that students made corresponding revisions at both macro and microstructural levels when provided with directive or declarative feedback, and they made few revisions when tutors provided open-ended questions.

Introduction: As a field, we have tended to look at user-experience design (UXD) as a data-driven design process, anchored by usability studies, and anchored in fulfilling user needs and expectations. How then might technical and professional communication (TPC) curricula respond to evolving trends in user-experience (UX) scholarship and pedagogy? About the case: Addressing this question, we share our programmatic journey, a teaching case that represents more than a decade of reflection and evolution, culminating in the launch of a redesigned major and a UXD minor in a stand-alone department at a regional, primarily undergraduate teaching-focused university. Situating the case: Our programmatic identity began to shift toward a designer mindset that embraced three core frames for professional action–information design, problem solving, and civic engagement—and three complementary design tenets—empathy, advocacy, and bricolage. Methods/approach: To better understand this shift, we recognized the need for a multimethod approach of data gathering. Beginning with an annual assessment of our introductory and capstone courses, we collected data through examination of key course artifacts, through department self-studies, which includes surveys, interviews, and focus groups with relevant stakeholders, and through an external review. Results/discussion: Our self-study data indicated that our students would benefit from stronger audience awareness and design competencies. From these data, we discuss curricular revisions, which include creating a UXD minor. Conclusions: We conclude this article by considering the following three questions: 1. What strategies might other programs consider if they want to design empathy-driven UX pedagogy that is responsive to prevailing scholarly and pedagogical trends? 2. Why might programs cultivate student-researchers as UX bricoleurs? 3. What might other programs expect from student-researcher UX bricoleurs?

In User Experience as Innovative Academic Practice , editors Kate Crane and Kelli Cargile Cook present and curate fresh perspectives for instructional and curriculum design by arguing that technical and professional communication (TPC) programs will benefit if user experience (UX) methodologies are applied in pedagogical settings to gain greater insight into the student user's needs, challenges, and environments, thereby not only making student users the center of the course design process, but also co-creators of instructional materials and strategies. To support the effectiveness of UX methodologies in learning about student needs and assessing program success, Crane and Cargile Cook bring together authors who present case studies where UX methods such as user profiles, journey maps, usability studies, diary entries, affinity diagramming, and so on were applied in various aspects of pedagogic design and re-design.

AbstractOn Wednesday, March 11, 2020, the author received an email that would change the course of his teaching for the following twenty-four months. The university-wide communication indicated that, due to the emerging COVID-19 crisis, all classes, activities, and university business was suspended, with the email further instructing faculty to wait at home for more details. As the author mulled over the educational shifts ahead of him, his training as a technical communicator—and more specifically his knowledge of user-experience (UX) and design thinking—kicked in, offering him a set of tools he could pull from as he sought to create courses that reflected the quickly shifting needs of his students. In this article, the author discusses how the use of design thinking expands the limited conversations about course co-creation, a practice that leads to more effective and equitable course designs. The author additionally uses his experience employing design thinking in the creation of his Shakespeare seminar course as a case study, demonstrating the value that the collaborative nature of design thinking has for pedagogy.

Institutions rely on career-ready competencies developed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) to understand the nationwide job outlook and labor market trends. The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to inform a course redesign process in the business curriculum at a Midwestern university in the United States. Using an adapted NACE survey, we found that while Midwestern employers and alumni valued NACE core competencies and employability attributes similarly, there were certain elements that were overlooked in the previous curriculum. Thus, identification of the locally relevant top competencies and attributes was a leading factor in the course redesign process.

The idea that engineers are graduating without the necessary communication skills, specifically written communication, is not new. In the past 25 years, changes have been made both in accreditation requirements and in engineering program curriculums to work to improve students’ writing skills and make their writing better align with the needs of industry, and research is emerging that considers industry standards and how those standards can be applied to the classroom. One challenge is that the characteristics of quality writing are not always the same for the industry and the classroom, which can create problems for new graduates entering the workforce. This article looks at how effective writing is defined by both academics and professional engineers. Drawing on a study by Cunningham & Stewart (2012), which researched the criteria professional engineers consider essential in effective writing, this article provides the results of a survey of instructors of introductory professional and technical writing classes. The survey was designed to determine the characteristics the instructors use when grading writing assignments. The results are then compared to the characteristics of quality writing as identified by the engineers. In addition, the article reviews assessment rubrics to identify criteria used when evaluating writing and compares these criteria to the qualities of effective writing as determined by the Analytic Writing Continuum, part of the National Writing Project. After determining gaps between industry and academics, the article considers ways to bridge those gaps, including working with professional engineers to obtain sample documents, increasing reading and evaluation of engineering documents in professional and technical writing classes, and using interdisciplinary approaches to course design and instruction.

Abstract In this essay, the authors discuss how collaborative course design fundamentally reshapes power structures within the classroom, opening traditional texts and canonical authors to generative readings. Through the design of an introductory-level literature course centered around a single celebrity author, Charles Dickens, the co-teachers detail how students came to see authorship as an inherently collaborative act, and through the lens of Foucault's “author function,” how these students came to see themselves as both collaborators and authors. This course, from inception to execution, was a collaborative effort grounded in feminist pedagogy, and as demonstrated by student feedback and the project examples included in the appendix, this pedagogical approach empowered the students to recognize themselves as co-creators of knowledge within a classroom.

In this program profile, we describe the development of a new track in Science Communication (SciComm) for an existing Professional Writing minor offered by an independent Writing Program. We identify the international and local exigencies for improving SciComm; the resources needed for this new track—both those already in place and those created; the three lines of SciComm theory that underpin the course designs; and the challenges and opportunities we have identified. Throughout, we offer examples of specific assignments and activities that may interest readers who are considering incorporating more SciComm approaches into their courses and/or programs.

Responding to the call for embracing mêtis in the classroom, this piece puts scholarship on embodiment and emergent gameplay in conversation with one another to explore a potential means of cultivating mêtic intelligence in the composition classroom by empirically examining how the open world game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ( BOTW ) scaffolds mêtic intelligence and encourages mêtic strategies in its players. Founded in Jay Dolmage’s understanding of mêtis as a means to turn the tables on those with greater bie (brute strength) and Karen Kopelson’s use of mêtis as a means of subtle resistance, this piece takes a mixed methods approach and utilizes interview data to see what design elements of BOTW may be able to be brought into composition course design to help cultivate cunning in our students both inside and beyond the classroom.

Design thinking, broadly understood as an organizational and entrepreneurial process aimed at innovative problem solving, has been productively incorporated by scholar-teachers in rhetoric, writing studies, and technical communication. Business communication offers similar opportunities. After briefly explaining design thinking and reviewing related scholarship and pedagogy, the article traces the process of creating an innovative course in business communication through each phase or mode of this recursive method: empathizing with users, defining the problem, ideating and prototyping solutions, and testing and evaluating the prototypes. The article positions course design as a project grounded in radical collaboration, with diverse colleagues as well as students.

What are the outcomes of a course designed for English majors that teaches empirical research methods and uses quantitative and qualitative data collection? This question is of particular importance as students majoring in English typically do not engage in empirical research but are accustomed to humanistic inquiry or creative activity. Although there has been considerable research on assessment of outcomes of undergraduate research on STEM students (Lopatto; Seymour, et al), to date, no assessment of outcomes has been done on this population. We--all enrolled in just such a course--approached this research question through mixed methods: Content analysis of the syllabus; Content analysis of anonymized end-of-term reflections written by the students; Survey of students who have successfully completed the course (n=90); Interviews of the two instructors of the course.

Understanding the expectations of employers contributes to the relevancy of business and professional communication (BPC) courses. Studies that bridge the gap between course content and workplace expectations support this process. This article presents findings from a scale development procedure to analyze BPC skills using a multimodal perspective. Employers ( N = 260) were asked what skills they perceive to be communication and how proficient they expect a recent college graduate to be to better understand the expectations that graduates face when entering the job market. The findings have implications for course design, curriculum selection, and program organization.

Persistent concerns about college graduates’ foundational skills for workforce preparedness compels educators to continue exploring ways to address them. Although effective communication is widely regarded as essential for entry-level professionals, which skills matter most may vary. Employers’ satisfaction with communication skills also shifts over time. This study compares regional employers’ and undergraduate business majors’ satisfaction with given communication skills and their perceptions about various skills’ importance. Results showed students rank importance and satisfaction similarly, and students’ satisfaction with their skills exceeded employers’. Regressions showed student satisfaction with specific skills predict their perceived importance. Implications for curriculum development are discussed.

This essay provides an overview of my experiences teaching Rhetoric of Health and Medicine (RHM) courses with an explicit health justice focus. I ground a discussion of pedagogical possibility by reflecting on my emerging course design, which centers reproductive justice—one example of a justice-oriented framework—as a site of learning and inquiry. In describing my course development and delivery, I suggest that a health justice approach to RHM instruction can be timely, contextually relevant, and challenging. Throughout the essay, I offer specific examples for the purposes of replication or adaptation for differently justice-oriented RHM teaching applications.

This article presents a trauma-informed integrative reflection framework to make a case for prioritizing reflection during learning disruptions, especially in community-engaged learning environments. I begin by describing a community-based service-learning course “TESOL: Theory & Practice” which includes a community-engaged learning partnership between a university English department and the Adult Basic Education division at a local community college. Then, I articulate two aspects of the TESOL course developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: first, a framework for integrative reflection that supports adaptation and student learning throughout the semester, and second, the structures of trauma-informed reflective practice that I integrated throughout the course design. Finally, I highlight three takeaways of embracing disruption: adapting partnerships, disrupting routines, and keeping reflection at the center. Together, these themes point not only to the need for trauma-informed reflective pedagogy, but also the need to keep complicating how we live out this approach to teaching.

Instructors within the writing across the curriculum (WAC) movement leverage student writing for learning and engagement beyond the traditional English or composition classroom. To this end, WAC pedagogy foregrounds the benefits of real-world active learning strategies. Educators often find it logistically difficult to create sustainable versions of these realistic environments, however. The same challenges faced by writing instructors present themselves across disciplinary contexts, including ethics and computer science instruction. In this article, we describe our integrated ethics module linking first-year composition students with computer science capstone design teams to better integrate the study of ethics into the writing classroom while giving students more realistic contexts for practice. The tension between two prominent metaphors for learning – the swamp (the messy situationality of professional practice) and the scaffold (the building of progressively more challenging tasks for students out of smaller, simpler assignments) – guides our discussion of WAC-centered course design.

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.

This approach article describes the structure of the new Composition and Speech Program at Delaware State University, particularly in light of the use of discourse-based interview (DBI) methodology in the development process of the program. The program includes a 4-course sequence—three 2-credit hour composition courses and one 3-credit hour speech course designed to be offered in an 8-week format. The article demonstrates how the program is planned for continuous improvement, and how authors have adapted DBI for their context in at least three different ways—1) one-to-one interviews, 2) instructor surveys, and 3) professional development sessions—to articulate implicit ideas within the institution so as to use them for the programmatic refinement.

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.

This article interrogates how hiphop composition pedagogies can interrupt what the author terms the "hiphop illiteracies" that circulate in predominantly white institutions (PWIs). An analysis of four college writing classrooms that integrate hiphop texts at one PWI reveals pervasive anti-Blackness in student attitudes, but also in the research and course design as well as in department-mandated course texts. The analysis demonstrates the need for writing pedagogies that name and teach Black language, writing, and meaning-making practices while also asking students, teachers, and administrators to reflexively examine their own identities' locations vis-a-vis those practices. The author advocates a reflexive pedagogy that asks students to locate themselves vis-a-vis power as a starting point for investigations of language and culture. The author concludes that hiphop pedagogies have significant critical social justice possibilities in institutionally white educational contexts, but these benefits are not automatic and demand pedagogies of reflexivity, sociolinguistics, and intersectional feminism.

Timed single-draft essays as summative assessment tasks have been argued to be inadequate for both teaching and assessing writing in the context of process writing. This is because single draft essays assess product rather than process. To address this concern, the authors developed, implemented, and evaluated two FL (foreign language) English writing courses that integrate various formative assessment activities for teaching writing. The course-embedded evaluation methodology included three techniques: pre-testing, collecting teacher-student conference reports, and administering a student opinion survey at the end of the semester. Pre-testing and collecting conference reports were both used as techniques for simultaneous teaching and inquiry into this teaching. The student opinion survey evaluated the course design grounded in the new teaching methodology. The findings of the study indicate that consistent use of formative assessment in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing class increases student confidence and motivation to develop their writing skills. Results demonstrate that academic (C1 level) and college (B2 level) writing courses that integrate formative assessment into teaching process writing can be a valuable addition to an array of FL (English) language courses offered by the departments of foreign languages at European universities.

<b>Introduction:</b> The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to universities when instruction had to shift entirely online. Universities were quick to survey their students about those challenges, and education researchers are now focused on building more effective online experiences based on student feedback. <b>About the case:</b> The loss of in-person instruction was difficult for engineering students in practice-based courses as they lost the courses' hands-on aspect, which is essential for reinforcing theoretical concepts. They also lost the support provided through daily interactions with their peers and instructors. <b>Situating the case:</b> Students in a required four-course practice-based mechanical engineering sequence shared their perspectives via reflective portfolio essays on how shifting to online instruction affected their ability to participate in their learning communities and negotiate meaningful learning experiences. <b>Methods/approach:</b> Through thematic analysis of the reflective essays, we applied the lens of communities of practice to put the students' responses into context. <b>Results/discussion:</b> The students' concerns varied depending on their position in the course sequence and the course; however, most students felt that the loss of in-person interaction was most detrimental and disruptive in the transition to online instruction and yielded communication and teaming issues. <b>Implications and conclusions:</b> Five implications arose from the results of this study, including recognizing the unique challenges of online learning in practice-based courses, instructing students in virtual communication tools, exercising empathy, being mindful of cognitive load, and researching self-directed learners in online environments. In addition, faculty should consider the importance of students' communities of practice and build opportunities to maintain and strengthen the bonds of those communities within their courses, both online and face to face. They should also add more opportunities for virtual interaction early in the curriculum to build digital communication skills, which will undoubtedly be required in their careers.

This article explicates the operationalization of a theoretically robust framework in the teaching of business communication at an institute of higher learning. This article reimagines the design of a business communication course that focuses on the coalescence of both decoding and encoding processes of messages as a unified pedagogical approach in teaching business communication. This approach is in contrast with more conventional approaches in designing communication courses, which tend to prioritize one process over the other. Participants in the study acknowledged the instrumentality in the course design in promoting communicative values with real-world impact.

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.

Influenced by ecological theories of writing, the author proposes a new model for writing curriculum design and community-based projects. The article provides a project of the Writing Initiative for Service and Engagement at the University of Colorado Boulder as an example of programmatic engagement with a community issue using an ecological methodology.

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.

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.

This article describes the experience of three professors teaching dual enrollment BTECH Early College High School students at Queensborough Community College, and our incorporation of departmental and campus-wide collaborative learning experiences as an intervention for student success and engagement. We present our collaborative approach to course design, culminating in the Upstanders Project, a multimodal research-based writing assignment incorporating on-campus cultural and learning resources. We argue that this approach led to an immersive learning experience for dual enrollment students that strengthened their ties to the college community.

Introduction: As technical and professional communication (TPC) becomes increasingly networked, students must learn to work cross-culturally. However, these skills can be difficult to develop. We report on a service-learning project aimed at helping students write and design for an audience in India. About the case: The authors saw a need to provide course materials to practitioners in India that became an opportunity to involve students in global content creation. This teaching case reports on two courses designed collaboratively to teach design and communication skills through service-learning, while providing course content to Indian practitioners of TPC. Situating the case: Technical communication has a long history of teaching writing skills for the globalized workplace. Service-learning opportunities can engage students cross-culturally while encouraging them to think critically about audience awareness. This case extends the literature by reporting on how students learned principles of cross-cultural and accessible communication. Methods/approach: This study uses qualitative student reflection documents from two courses to answer questions about how service-learning opportunities shape student skills. Their responses illustrate the successes and failures in the course designs and provide strategies for instructors working on similar projects. Results/discussion: Students reported that their experiences helped them to think critically about audience awareness, synthesize skills in collaboration, engage flexibly with new technologies, and work through time constraints. Conclusion: We provide practical suggestions for implementing similar course designs at other institutions and information about implementing relevant technologies. It outlines adaptations for new teaching environments.

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This article describes a case study of an inclusive Summer Lunch Program, focused on nutrition, community engagement, and literacy programming. The Summer Food Service Program is a federally-funded, state-administered program designed to meet the needs of children from low-income families who qualify for free and reduced lunches during the school year. The most tangible outcome of the program is the food and the literacy programming provided to students during the summer months. Secondary outcomes include the development of new social skills, preparation for new educational experiences, less “screen time” for children, and learning about the community and the people in it.