Writing center professionals’ (WCPs) efforts to integrate transfer of learning theory into writing tutor education have exceeded empirical research on the effects of such curricula. Building on research in this area (Cardinal, 2018; Hill, 2016), we designed and implemented a semester-long, transfer-focused training curriculum for experienced undergraduate writing tutors that sought to build on tutors’ prior knowledge of writing center pedagogy. We tracked these tutors’ understanding of, attitudes toward, and uses of transfer and transfer talk in writing center sessions over the course of a semester. Through analysis of training meeting transcripts and a post-training survey, we found that tutors developed a basic understanding of transfer and demonstrated positive attitudes toward transfer and transfer talk; however, they responded negatively to examples of explicit transfer talk in the curriculum and proposed modifications constrained by the social context of tutoring (Carillo, 2020). We characterize these modifications as instances of tutors contextualizing transfer talk in light of their prior knowledge of writing center pedagogy. We encourage WCPs who are designing or researching transfer-focused tutor education to conduct additional empirical research and to prioritize tutors’ perceptions and experiences in order to develop more dynamic conceptions of transfer in writing center studies (Carillo, 2020).

Since its inception in 2000, Reflections has functioned as a site of synthesis for community-based writing pedagogy, service-learning, public rhetoric, and community-engaged research. Such a diverse range of influences leads to the formation of a journal that is ever shifting in its identity, scope, and mission. This complexity is what ultimately defines Reflections: a publication that constantly pushes the boundaries of knowledge creation and strives to remain receptive to topics and voices that are often excluded from other academic sources. The following collaborative article offers a content analysis of all publications in Reflections’ twenty-year history (2000-2020). Though not exhaustive, this analysis highlights unique aspects of the journal’s history, methods, non-traditional genres, pedagogical and disciplinary impact, and evolving interactions with power and privilege that have made it the public conscience for Writing Studies.

Revisionist historiographies in rhetorical studies often recuperate marginalized figures to advance scholarship on rhetorical education. I illustrate the heuristic value of recuperating mainstream figures by drawing on unexamined materials of John Bascom, whose contributions to nineteenth-century rhetorical theory have been determined exclusively by his textbook, Philosophy of Rhetoric. I challenge such interpretations by using autobiography and institutional history to illustrate Bascom’s disdain for rhetoric and preference for philosophy. I synthesize Bascom’s publications, teaching, and administrative work while president of the University of Wisconsin to recuperate a civic philosophy of public education that integrated civic humanism with progressivism to promote collective identity and shared governance. I use Bascom’s philosophy to support rhetorical education that integrates participation and deliberation as strategies for civic engagement. This essay contributes to rhetorical historiography by demonstrating how a wider range of materials can produce more complex, compelling accounts of an individual’s contributions to theory or pedagogy.

Review of Eyes on the Ought to Be: What we Teach About When we Teach About Literacy by Kirk Branch. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2007. 216 pages