Summary/Abstract: In "A Litany for Survival’:Black Queer Literacies" I argue that African American LGBT communities have literacy traditions that are under theorized and that represent specific, culturally-influenced, ways of being in the world. For this stage of the project, I conducted interviews with 40 African-American LGBTQ people born 1941-1988. Using grounded theory and critical historical analysis I theorize the learning, practices, meanings and values of literacy through these life stories. Synthesizing these life stories with the published texts of notable African-American LGBT writers (including Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Essex Hemphill and Pat Parker), archival documents from African-American LGBT organization the (National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays) as well as original interviews with African-American LGBT writers and activists (Barbara Smith, A. Billy S. Jones and Jewel Gomez), I build a theory of Black Queer Literacies. Thus, this work examines the symbiotic relationship between literacy and quests for social political change and also links between multiple identities and literacy. In addition, I bring forward the grassroots literacy activities of “ordinary” African-American LGBT people in an effort to illustrate that individual ways of knowing take on social, political, cultural, and spiritual meanings when forging resistance against dominant social forces.

Principal Investigator(s): Eric Pritchard

Summary/Abstract: Using written reflections and in-depth interviews, this qualitative study examines students’ perceptions of speaking and being silent in a first-year composition classroom, and the effects of these on learning and writing; the stories students tell construct a far more complex negotiation in the classroom than our theorizing and our stories suggest. The study focuses on students' negotiations of identity and community and their responses to teachers' demands and various pedagogies. Finally the study explores alternate constructions of silence: that is, the students in this study challenge us to re-examine our beliefs about classroom silence as inherently problemmatic. The results of this study challenge the commonly-held assumptions about what silence means in the classroom and ask us to re-examine our pedagogies as well.

Principal Investigator(s): Mary Reda

Summary/Abstract: My interview (“case study”) research began with the goal of deepening the survey data being gathered by Chris Thaiss for the International WAC/WID Mapping Project. As we were aware, terminilogy describing writing program structures and procedures varies from country to country and sometimes from institution to institution in the same country. Terminology that is the same as that used in the U.S.--e.g. writing center, tutor--may mean something very different in other countries, while different terminology may be used to name program structures and procedures similar to those in the U.S.

Principal Investigator(s): Terry Myers Zawacki

Summary/Abstract: This study is examining how the online master's level technical communications programs at Mercer University, Texas Tech, and Utah State address the needs of their working adult students, the largest part of their student populations. The study is using surveys analyzed with SPSS software and online chat interviews. It is hoped that what we find out from this study will be useful to other schools who want to design online technical communications programs.

Principal Investigator(s): William Ritke-Jones

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this research project is to determine what types of genre knowledge student writers enter college with and the extent to which that prior knowledge helps or hinders their abilities to learn academic discourse conventions. The focus, then, will be on student writers’ previous experiences with particular discourse structures, participation in rhetorically situated language use (including written, oral and digital communication), and familiarity with typical ways of responding to communicative situations.

Principal Investigator(s): Mary Jo Reiff (University of Tennessee) and Anis Bawarshi (University of Washington)

Summary/Abstract: A survey sent to 17,000 Liberal Arts alumni who graduated over the last 20 years
and were subject to the current WAC reuqriement

Principal Investigator(s): Joan Mullin

Summary/Abstract: This is an on-going research project designed to collect and annotate resources on TA education in writing, rhetoric, literature, and related areas of study. Resources include journal articles, books, conference presentations, and web sites.

Principal Investigator(s): Stephen Wilhoit

Summary/Abstract: • Phase 1: Gather broad information via a global survey about required research methods classes in TC and C/R (completed 2005) • Phase 2: Using MS Access, a relational database, gather information from the web on PhD programs in composition/rhetoric and TC and their research methods requirements (programs compiled from consortium, CPTSC, ATTW) (initially complete 2007) • Phase 3: Survey current PhD students and new faculty (3 years or less in their first tenure track job) to see how well prepared they feel they are based on the training they received (completed 2007) • Phase 4: Follow up interviews with current PhD students and new faculty in TC and C/R, resulting in a series of case studies (present)

Principal Investigator(s): Becky Rickly

Summary/Abstract: This study discusses how 13 small undergraduate university writing centres from across Canada defined success and how the University of Atlantic Canada’s Writing Centre (UAC) assessed its own local success. Quantitative and qualitative methods of inquiry were used to gather data. The 13 writing centres from across Canada responded to a questionnaire with closed-ended and open-ended questions and ranking questions. These questions were designed to assess the basic structure of small undergraduate writing centres with respect to volume of appointments, size of budgets, the number and qualifications of staff, and the degree to which staff members were satisfied with their roles in academic learning. Also, 15 open-ended responses from participants at the 22nd conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of Language and Learning were collected. To determine local success, questionnaires and course evaluations were used. Questionnaire responses of 51 UAC faculty members were used to assess their perceptions of the services offered by the UAC Writing Centre. Also, a combined total of 376 responses were collected in 2004-2005 to the UAC Writing Centre anonymous course-based evaluations. These evaluations combined 9-point Likert Scale rankings and closed- and open-ended questions. Also, a random sample of 103 students from the UAC who had accessed the services of the Writing Centre responded to a web-based questionnaire. Results support the existing literature in the fields of adult learning and education and student academic support in university settings, in so far as writing centres are frequently met with student satisfaction, but receive only marginal support from the institution. The results also confirm the strengths of the UAC Writing Centre’s programs in terms of student satisfaction. Overall, students rated the individual attention they received from instructors and class content. Harder to determine quantitatively was how the UAC Writing Centre programs and support affected students’ grades. UAC faculty members who responded were, for the most part, supportive of the Writing Centre, yet many were unsure of how their students’ were affected by Writing Centre support. Faculty members also reported the Writing Centre should focus more on grammar. As a whole, the writing centres across Canada that responded cited similar challenges: a lack of sufficient operational funds, a lack of adequate space and resources, and a lack of identity in their roles as academic support on campus. Overwhelmingly, writing centres reported that they struggled with the misconception that writing centres are either remedial or are editing services. The results from this study indicate that more research is needed to assess the connection between students’ use of writing centre services, grade improvement, and student retention. Another area to research is the transferral rate of writing centre instructors’ suggestions in one-to-one appointments to future assignments. One recommendation is for the UAC Writing Centre to be more proactive and specific in their promotion of their services to faculty members. Also, the Writing Centre instructors should continue to develop first-year transition course curriculum that students feel is relevant to their academic needs.

Principal Investigator(s): Wendy Kraglund-Gauthier

Summary/Abstract: Research questions focus on how university writing center tutors and NNES clients/students perceive "success" in a session and their perceptions of student needs...focus then turns to aspects of directive and non-directive tutoring practices.

Principal Investigator(s): Elise Geither

Summary/Abstract: Working from the premise that qualities of good writing are context-specific, for this study focus groups of students, faculty, staff, administrators, and first year writing program instructors were convened to identify qualities of good writing. Transcripts from the focus groups were analyzed; those analyses were then used to develop an assessment matrix which was used to rate portfolios from the required research writing course to identify to what extent those qualities were visible in the portfolios selected from the course.

Principal Investigator(s): Linda Adler-Kassner and Heidi Estrem

Summary/Abstract: This PhD project is a case study of writing and communication tasks carried out in an international MSc program at a Scandinavian University of Technology. As a pedagogical context for Master students in higher education, Environmental engineering offers an interesting and quite complex setting for an investigation of students’ production of texts and talk. To begin with, engineering education draws heavily on engineering as a professional discipline, including the different practices and writing traditions of this professional field. Secondly, environmental issues are constituted from multiple and conflicting knowledge traditions, voices and perspectives. They are negotiable and transitory, and come into existence through the way they are recognized and addressed through texts and talk. Thirdly, dealing with environmental issues as a student involved in an engineering course demands understanding of how those issues are approached for educational purposes within higher education, and also what it takes to be a successful student.

Principal Investigator(s): Ann-Marie Eriksson, Centre for Language and Communication, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Summary/Abstract: Based on surveys of (1) colleges and universities in the US and Canada and (2) institutions of higher learning around the world, the project attempts to discover information about writing-in-the-disciplines initiatives throughout the world, in English and in other first languages of instruction. Writing courses, staff/teacher development, and writing support services such as writing centers, learning centers, course modules,and workshops are among program features identified. As of April 2008, the US/Canada survey has received responses from 1300 institutions, while the international "preliminary" survey has received 250 responses from 200 institutions worldwide.

Principal Investigator(s): Chris Thaiss

Summary/Abstract: LiteracyCorps Michigan is a documentary research project that inquires into the past and present practices of reading, writing, and composing of members of the "digital generation" across Michigan communities. Its primary objective is to address emerging questions about literacy, technology, and access to social, educational, and technological infrastructures at the start of the 21st century. LCM collects narrative data via videotaped interviews with first-year writers at MSU that emerge from two guiding questions of critical importance to literacy researchers and educators: 1) What experiences and practices of mediation define the literacies of what has come to be known as the "digital generation?"; and 2) In looking at how these practices vary across communities, what we can learn about how students experience access to social and technological infrastructures? LCM aims to yield much-needed educational products, research models, and scholarly resources. Documentary products generated from LCM data will have pedagogical value to educational institutions across the state and across the country. LCM's research methodology will not only create documentary products that inform the delivery of literacy instruction at MSU, but will also serve as a model for similar research efforts in other locations.

Principal Investigator(s): Bump Halbritter and Julie Lindquist

Summary/Abstract: This four-year study is following 75 members, randomly selected, of the University of Denver class of 2010, collecting every piece of writing they do (submitted through an on-line portfolio), having them complete an extended questionnaire each quarter, and interviewing them once per year.

Principal Investigator(s): Doug Hesse

Summary/Abstract: This four-year study is following 75 members, randomly selected, of the University of Denver class of 2010, collecting every piece of writing they do (submitted through an on-line portfolio), having them complete an extended questionnaire each quarter, and interviewing them once per year.

Principal Investigator(s): Doug Hesse

Summary/Abstract: This study will examine the kinds of mentoring activities that occur in Professional Writing Programs across the country.

Principal Investigator(s): Ed Nagelhout

Summary/Abstract: A curricular revision of upper division Organic Chemsitry Lab that integrated information literacy and writing to learn activities.

Principal Investigator(s): Glenn Blalock

Summary/Abstract: Encourage peer editing by providing an exchange style workflow similar to a stock exchange but for writing with the commodity being words-edited. Does it work or not?

Principal Investigator(s): Joshua Pritikin

Summary/Abstract: A comprehensive bibliographic review of RAD Studies of WAC / WID, as a resource for all of us who are formal or informal advocates for writing across the curriculum and / or in the disciplines.

Principal Investigator(s): Glenn Blalock

Summary/Abstract:

This project will include two related studies of adult students as writers, focusing on how their work, personal and academic writing experiences influence each other and on the best ways to provide feedback on their writing. The first study will be based on analysis of the writing of and interviews with School for New Learning (SNL) students and will begin a multi-year, longitudinal research project. The second study will address the same questions as the first, but survey and solicit case studies from community college faculty across the country to answer these questions. In addition to exploring the extent to which the conclusions of the first study can be generalized, the second study will test a website-based method for collaborative research that captures the diversity of the adult student experience.

Principal Investigator(s): Michelle Navarre Cleary

Summary/Abstract: From a distribution of variables connected with essay quality, statistical outliers are chosen and their essays examined in comparison with those of other paticipants. How do the essays of the outliers differ from the others, in terms of holistic rating, syntax, idea elaboration, logical organization, and other criteria. Can the performance of the outliers be deemed "deviant," "extreme," or "nonstandard"?

Principal Investigator(s): Richard Haswell

Summary/Abstract: The Stanford Study of Writing is a five-year longitudinal study investigating the writing practices and development of Stanford students during their undergraduate years and their first year beyond college in professional environments or graduate programs. The Study has several major goals: to provide an overview of student writing at Stanford; to trace student development in writing across a five-year period; and to use findings to inform the work of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric, the Stanford Writing Center, and, if appropriate, our Writing in the Majors courses. In addition, the Study seeks to make useful contributions to the increasingly relevant literature in longitudinal research of writing development and toward improving writing instruction across disciplines in the undergraduate years.

Principal Investigator(s): Andrea Lunsford

Summary/Abstract: The Embodied Literacies Project is a 2-part college writing study conducted between 2005 and 2007 at the University of Tennessee. Part 1 focused on first-year writers and first-year writing, broadly defined. Part 2 examined students' transfer of rhetorical knowledge across genres, mediums, and writing situations; it involved 19% of the project's original participants.

Principal Investigator(s): Jenn Fishman, Stacey Pigg (part 1), and Mary Jo Reiff (part 2)

Summary/Abstract: This research examines the portrayal of sexuality in Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple. I find that a feminist approach is most apt for the study to discuss the sexual relationship of Walker’s protagonists and to link their sexual behavioural to Celie and Shug Avery characteristics. This research analyses the possible emergence of black female homosexuality due to the aggressiveness of males’ sexual behaviours typified in the novel. The Color Purple discusses the life of the protagonist, Celie, who is seen to represent the experience of black community in particular, the women. Celie was challenged with painful and gruesome repressions of the patriarchal system consisting of black and white communities. She was found to be searching for a new identity through her relationship with another woman, Shug Avery, who was believed to be a sexual temptress.

Principal Investigator(s): Merilyne Milton

Summary/Abstract: This study replicates Linda Peterson's 1986 survey-based study of WPA role definition and WPA career patterns, published in the WPA journal, "The WPA's Progress," with the addition of a number of new questions.

Principal Investigator(s): Shirley Rose and Jonikka Charlton

Summary/Abstract: This study looked at the writing histories of 13 University of California students who were either juniors or seniors.

Principal Investigator(s): Susan McLeod

Summary/Abstract: This project follows seven students over their four years at the University of Dayton. Each semester I collect everything students write and conduct and interview with each of them. At times we conduct focus groups and the students complete surveys.

Principal Investigator(s): Elizabeth Wardle

Summary/Abstract: This study explores the practices and difficulties in teaching more advanced communication activities in three disciplinary contexts at MIT. Lerner is investigating the ways in which undergraduate students in biology and biological engineering may be introduced to the professional writing practices of their disciplines. Poe examines how to teach biomedical engineers to select data as evidence in visual arguments. Craig explores the ways in which students learn the team skills central to collaboration in aeronautical/astronautical engineering. Overall, our intent is to address the ways specific science and engineering classes at MIT are responding to changes in the kinds of problems that technical professionals solve and the associated skill sets that they must now have, particularly in communication and collaboration.

Principal Investigator(s): Jennifer Craig, Neal Lerner, and Mya Poe