CCCC  Certificate  of  Excellence  Application  Fall  2014,  August  31.    Institution:  Illinois  State  University,  Normal,  IL:  http://illinoisstate.edu/    Program:  The  Illinois  State  University  Writing  Program:  http://isuwriting.com/    Contact:  Joyce  R.  Walker,  Associate  Professor  of  Writing  Studies  in  the  Department  of  English  Studies,  Writing  Program  Director.  Office  Phone:  309-­‐438-­‐1402;  Cell:  727-­‐543-­‐6649;  email:  jwalke2@ilstu.edu.    The  Illinois  State  University  (ISU)  Writing  Program  is  applying  for  the  CCCC  Writing  Program  Certificate  of  Excellence  because  we  believe  we  are  an  effective  writing  program,  and  that  our  work  represents  all  the  characteristics  outlined  in  the  application  materials.  In  this  application  document,  we  will  specifically  focus  on  two  innovations  that  have  had  significant  impact  on  our  pedagogy  and  the  structure  of  our  program:  (1)  the  development  of  a  genre  studies/cultural-­‐historical  activity  theory  (CHAT)  pedagogy,  and  (2)  a  community  learning  focus  on  the  activities  of  “citizen  writing  research.”  We  believe  these  innovations  make  us  unique,  and  we  would  especially  like  to  document  these  aspects  of  our  program  to  illustrate  our  commitment  to  excellence.  Therefore,  the  following  documents  will  provide  evidence  of  our  overall  work,  matching  the  CCCC  criteria,  but  we  will  also  offer  a  picture  of  our  program’s  long-­‐term  goals  and  aspirations  to  share  our  growing  knowledge  with  other  writing  programs,  members  of  our  community,  P-­‐12  teachers,  and  with  the  field  of  Writing  Studies.    Introduction  &  Summary  The  Illinois  State  University  (ISU)  Writing  Program  has  a  long  history  (more  than  30  years)  as  an  exemplary,  innovative  program.  In  1983,  we  were  among  the  first  in  the  country  to  move  to  computer-­‐based  classrooms,  long  before  many  writing  programs  recognized  the  necessity  of  attending  to  writing  in  digital  environments.  The  ISU  Writing  Program  was  also  a  leader  in  the  1980’s  writing  portfolio  movement,  joining  writing  programs  that  sought  to  make  writing  assessment  more  attentive  to  the  body  of  student  work,  with  a  focus  on  peer  review,  revision,  and  audiences  outside  of  the  single  classroom.  In  the  past  five  years  (since  2009),  the  ISU  Writing  Program  has  undergone  a  further  transition,  moving  radically  away  from  more  traditional  models  for  teaching  and  assessing  writing,  toward  one  that  focuses  on  teaching  for  transfer,  assessing  learning  rather  than  visible  mastery,  and  creating  “writing  research”  identities  for  ourselves  and  our  students.    The  specific  mission  of  the  ISU  Writing  Program  is  to  support  the  work  of  English  101  and  English  145  courses  (each  course  has  several  variants,  which  are  described  in  the  next  paragraph),  designed  to  serve  both  different  populations  of  students  as  well  as  the  needs  of  different  colleges  and  programs  throughout  the  university.  Beyond  our  adherence  to  the  ISU  general  education  curriculum  goals  (http://gened.illinoisstate.edu/)  and  our  own  program  learning  outcomes  (http://isuwriting.com/2014/01/28/learning-­‐outcomes-­‐eng-­‐101-­‐and-­‐145-­‐spring-­‐2014/),  our  primary  mission  is  to  promote  “citizen  writing  research”  through  a  range  of  activities  that  include  specific  classroom  pedagogies;  a  “grassroots”  writing  research  publication,  fellowship,  and  community  outreach  program;  and  our  own  program-­‐based  research  into  the  intersections  and  complexities  of  our  personal  lived  experiences  as  writers  and  learners.    The  ISU  Writing  Program  administers  two  general  education  writing  courses:  the  English  101  series  courses,  part  of  the  university’s  core  curriculum,  include  English  101  and  English  101.10;  and  the  English  145  series  courses  include  English  145,  English  145.13,  and  English  145.12.1  The  English  101  series  is  part  of  a  two-­‐semester  sequence  with  Communications  110  (a  speech  communication  course)  designed  to  foster  both  specific  reading,  writing,  and  speaking  skills  as  well  as  more  complex  critical  thinking  skills  related  to  writing  and  speaking.  The  English  101.10  course,  equivalent  to  English  101,  offers  extra  writing  resources  to  students  who  self-­‐select  into  the  course.  The  English  145  series  includes  intermediate  writing  courses  that  focus  specifically  on  reading  and  writing  within  

                                                                                                               1  English  101  is  capped  at  22  students;  English  101.10  at  18;  English  145  series  courses  at  18  students.  All  courses  are  taught  in  laptop  computer  classrooms.  See  Appendix  I-­‐III  for  more  specific  details  about  our  program’s  courses.  

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disciplines  and  workplaces.  Students  in  many  (but  not  all)  programs  throughout  the  university  take  English  145,  while  English  145.13  is  designed  with  the  ISU  College  of  Business  for  Business  majors,  and  145.12  is  designed  for  students  in  the  ISU  Presidential  Scholars  Program.    ISU  Writing  Program  courses  have  undergone  significant  change  since  2009,  as  we  have  moved  from  a  generalized  rhetorical  approach  to  a  genre  studies/cultural-­‐historical  activity  theory  (CHAT)  approach,  designed  to  teach  a  more  cognitively  robust  method  for  thinking  about  literate  practice,  and  to  encourage  the  interactive  formative  assessment  of  learning-­‐in-­‐progress.  Additionally,  our  program  works  to  foster  a  more  robust  community  of  writing  researchers  at  ISU,  involving  first-­‐year  students,  advanced  undergraduates,  graduate  students,  faculty,  and  a  wide  range  of  community  members.  Our  community  approach  encourages  writers  of  all  kinds  to  rigorously  investigate  their  writing  practices  and  to  share  their  knowledge  with  other  members  of  the  community.      One  key  change  in  our  program  since  2009  involves  a  focus  on  writers’  abilities  to  learn  about  how  writing  works  in  various  situations  and  to  then  apply  that  knowledge  in  both  real-­‐world  and  school  writing,  to  assess  both  their  learning-­‐in-­‐progress  and  knowledge  transfer,  and  to  identify  their  goals  for  future  learning.  This  focus  shifts  away  from  a  “production  assessment”  model  toward  “the  generation  and  documentation  of  learning”  in  which  we  design  projects  and  activities  (as  well  as  ongoing  assessments  of  them)  that  we,  as  a  community  of  writers,  believe  are  efficacious  in  addressing  skills  and  concepts  that  can  be  transferred  to  a  variety  of  writing  situations.      This  new  focus  defines  our  Writing  Program  as  deeply  and  interactively  experimental,  as  members  of  the  community  work  to  document  their  learning  and  to  design  activities  and  experiments  that  encourage  new  knowledge  making  about  writing  practices.  One  recent  metaphor  we  have  used  for  our  program  is  a  “writing  research  laboratory”  where  all  members  perform  all  the  possible  roles,  including  researchers,  lab  assistants,  research  subjects,  cleaning  crews,  and  so  forth.  Members  of  the  community,  however  loosely  affiliated,  are  encouraged  to  see  themselves  as  writing  researchers,  but  also  to  see  themselves  as  participating  in  the  larger  goal  of  creating  writing  research  that  can  help  writers  better  understand  how  writing  works  in  the  world.  Our  ongoing  goal  is  to  help  all  community  members  understand  their  identities  as  writing  researchers  well  beyond  their  work  as  students,  instructors,  or  other  contributors  to  the  program.  We  expect  that  all  members  of  the  community  (administrators,  instructors,  students,  interested  university  faculty  and  staff,  and  Bloomington-­‐Normal  community  members)  will  share  information,  ideas,  strategies  and  research  about  the  best  practices  for  constructing  successful  writing  identities  through  the  acquisition  of  both  specific  skills  and  knowledge  and  a  research-­‐based  approach  to  new  writing  situations.    Our  work  to  transform  the  program  over  the  past  five  years  has  led  us  to  experiment  with  a  range  of  new  teaching  practices,  new  ways  to  observe  and  document  “uptake,”  and  new  ways  to  share  information  among  students  and  instructors.  We  feel  we  are  only  beginning.  Research  on  learning  on  transfer  specific  to  first-­‐year  writing  is  in  many  ways  still  in  its  infancy,  although  recent  publications  have  begun  to  shine  significant  light  on  the  issue  (see  Bergmann  &  Zeprnick  2007;  Reiff  &  Bawarshi  2011;  Wardle  2012;  Yancey  et  al.  20042).  Our  program  has  developed  highly  innovative  approaches  to  teaching  for  learning  and  transfer,  and  we  look  forward  to  sharing  what  we  are  learning  with  other  professionals  and  other  writing  programs  across  the  country  and  internationally.    List  of  Materials  Submitted  Application  &  Appendices  with  links  to  our  program  website:  http://isuwriting.com/.      Institutional  Description    The  ISU  Writing  Program  is  productively  situated  within  the  Department  of  English  Studies3  (http://english.illinoisstate.edu/).  Each  semester  we  have  several  meetings,  open  to  all  faculty  and  graduate  

                                                                                                               2  Full  citations  of  these  scholars’  work  can  be  found  in  Appendix  IV,  “Partial  Reading  List  for  English  402.”  3  The  ISU  English  Department  is  the  largest  department  in  the  College  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  The  College  of  Arts  and  Sciences  offers  54  programs,  the  largest  number  of  academic  programs  offered  by  a  college  in  the  university  (27  Bachelor,  20  Master’s,  5  Doctoral,  and  2  Certificate).    

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students,  where  we  update  interested  colleagues  about  the  ongoing  work  of  our  program;  but  more  importantly,  we  identify  projects  or  ideas  that  directly  connect  department  concerns  and  writing  program  concerns,  and  encourage  department  members  to  get  involved  in  our  program’s  community.  This  method  of  identifying  issues  for  discussion  each  academic  year  allows  us  to  remain  connected  and  responsive  to  the  department,  while  also  allowing  interested  faculty  to  learn  about  our  program  and  our  innovative  pedagogy.  For  example,  in  2013,  department  faculty  participated  in  the  review  of  our  program  by  the  Illinois  Articulation  Initiative  (which  oversees  the  work  of  identifying  courses  that  will  transfer  across  universities  and  colleges  in  the  state  of  Illinois).  In  2014/2015,  department  faculty  will  collaborate  with  us  in  two  areas:  (1)  the  re-­‐design  of  our  English  101.10  course,  which  includes  a  plan  to  increase  the  budget  for  Master’s-­‐level  graduate  students  to  act  as  consultants  who  can  provide  guidance  for  student  peer-­‐study  groups  as  well  as  one-­‐on-­‐one  meetings  with  students;  and  (2)  the  creation  of  guidelines  for  professional  development  for  all  faculty  who  teach  in  the  writing  program  (tenure,  non-­‐tenure,  and  contingent  faculty).        In  addition,  our  program  works  closely  with  the  Committee  on  Critical  Inquiry,  a  group  comprised  of  members  from  the  ISU  Provost’s  Office  (Jonathan  Rosenthal,  Associate  Provost  for  Undergraduate  Education),  the  College  of  Arts  and  Sciences  (Sally  Parry,  Associate  Dean  for  Student  and  Curricular  Affairs),  the  School  of  Communication  (http://communication.illinoisstate.edu/com110/)  and  Milner  Library  (http://library.illinoisstate.edu/).  In  addition,  the  Director  of  our  Writing  Program,  Joyce  Walker,  is  a  member  of  the  university’s  Writing  Across  the  Curriculum  Task  Force  (formed  in  2013)  and  the  College  of  Arts  and  Sciences  Classroom  Technology  Committee.  These  institutional  affiliations  help  keep  the  Writing  Program  connected  to  dialogues  that  shape  our  theoretical  and  physical  identity  within  the  university.    Program  Funding    The  Writing  Program  is  funded  through  the  production  of  our  in-­‐house  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal,  produced  twice  yearly.  The  journal’s  place  in  our  overall  program  philosophy  and  pedagogy  is  discussed  elsewhere  in  this  application  document,  but  we  wish  to  note  here  that  the  journal  provides  our  program  with  an  ongoing  budget  for  professional  development  and  resources,  separate  from  the  English  Department’s  budget.  In  addition,  we  receive  funding  through  the  department  and  ISU’s  College  of  Arts  and  Sciences4  for  all  staff  positions  as  well  as  one-­‐time  funding  for  various  research  and  professional  development  projects  and  materials.    Program  Demographics  As  with  most  writing  programs,  our  numbers  of  students,  instructors  and  courses  vary  from  semester  to  semester.  However,  we  can  offer  our  Fall/Spring  breakdown  for  2013/2014.  Including  both  semesters  is  important  because  we  offer  more  sections  in  Fall  than  in  Spring.  Our  program  courses  are  taught  almost  entirely  by  non-­‐tenure  track  faculty  and  graduate  teaching  assistants.  Contingent  faculty  are  a  small  and  important  part  of  our  teaching  force,  but  we  work  to  offer  these  positions  primarily  to  graduates  of  our  program  (M.A.  graduates  who  are  taking  a  year  before  applying  to  Ph.D.  programs  or  Technical  Communication  M.A.s  or  Ph.D.  students  who  are  working  in  areas  related  to  Writing  Studies).  In  addition,  we  have  successfully  connected  with  several  in-­‐service  P-­‐12  teachers  who  are  graduates  of  our  program,  who  will  occasionally  teach  evening  courses  for  us  as  well.  This  last  arrangement  has  helped  us  in  our  ongoing  efforts  to  establish  and  maintain  dialogues  with  P-­‐12  instructors  (see  “Other  Community  Outreach”  section/“K-­‐12  Outreach”  description  for  more  information  on  these  dialogues). ISU  Writing  Program  Demographics,  Fall  2013:

• Sections  of  ENG  101  (59  sections  @  23  students  per  section),  ENG  101.10  (10  sections  @  18  students  per  section),  ENG  145  (13  sections  @  18  students  per  section),  ENG  145.12  (2  sections  at  18  students  per  section),  ENG  145.13  (12  sections  @  18  students  per  section);  

• 57  Instructors:  9  Full-­‐time  Non-­‐tenure  Track  Faculty  (NTT’s),  4  Part-­‐time  Contingent  Faculty,  44  Graduate  Teaching  Instructors  (GA’s);    

                                                                                                               4  Recent  funding  had  included  new  furniture  and  technology  for  our  writing  program’s  space,  funding  for  new  technology  for  writing  program  classrooms,  and  funding  for  a  longitudinal  study  of  student  writing  experiences  at  ISU  (see  “Longitudinal  Study  of  Student  Writers”  section  for  more  information  on  that  project).    

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• Total  Students:  96  sections,  approximately  2023  students.    

ISU  Writing  Program  Demographics,  Spring  2014: • Sections  of  ENG  101  (53  sections  @  23  students),  ENG  101.10  (1  section  @  18  students),  ENG  145  (14  

sections  @  18  students),  ENG  145.13  (12  sections  @  18  students);   • 52  instructors:  9  Full-­‐time  NTT’s,  1  Part-­‐time  Contingent  Faculty,  42  GA’s; • Total  Students:  80  sections,  approximately  1705  students.  

 ISU  Student  Population  Information:  As  of  December  2013  and  the  last  available  figures,  on-­‐campus  enrollment  was  19,  924  (17,648  undergraduate  and  2,276  graduate).  Of  that  enrollment  figure,  8,785  (44.1%)  were  male  and  11,139  (55.9%)  were  female.  The  largest  number  of  minority  students  were  Hispanic  and  African  American,  with  Asian,  American  Indian  or  Alaskan  Native,  and  Hawaiian  or  Pacific  Islander  also  represented.  International  students  included  131  undergraduate  and  268  graduate.  The  largest  number  of  students  was  enrolled  in  the  College  of  Arts  and  Sciences  (30%),  followed  by  Applied  Science  and  Technology  (21%),  Business  (17%),  and  Education  (13%).  New  students  in  Fall  2013  scored  an  average  ACT  Composite  score  of  24.0,  while  the  average  statewide  and  national  scores  were  20.6  and  20.9,  respectively.      Program  Philosophies    Our  Writing  Program  is  based  on  some  specific  departures  from  traditional  models  for  teaching  introductory  writing.  Our  efforts  to  make  these  departures  is  indebted  to  the  work  of  scholars  such  as  David  Smit  (a  review  of  writing  instruction  failing  as  an  activity  in  higher  learning  institutions),  Dave  Russell  (an  investigation  of  how  activity  theory  can  help  us  understand  the  failures  of  general  education  programs),  Elizabeth  Wardle  (a  paradigm-­‐changing  look  at  what  we  can  and  cannot  claim  as  the  work  of  first-­‐year  writing),  and  Elizabeth  Wardle  and  Doug  Downs  (a  look  at  how  a  Writing  Studies  curriculum  might  change  our  approach  to  first-­‐year  writing  instruction).      

• Smit,  David  (2004).  The  end  of  composition  studies.  Carbondale:  Southern  Illinois  University  Press.      • Wardle,  Elizabeth  (June  2009).  “Mutt  genres”  and  the  goal  of  FYC:  Can  we  help  students  write  the  genres  

of  the  university?  CCC  60:4.  Pp.  765-­‐89.  • Russell,  David  (1995).  Activity  theory  and  its  implications  for  writing  instruction.  In  Joseph  Petraglia,  Ed.  

Reconceiving  writing,  rethinking  writing  instruction.  Mahwah,  NJ:  Lawrence  Erlbaum.  Pp.  51–78.    • Douglas  Downs  and  Elizabeth  Wardle  (2007).  Teaching  about  writing,  righting  misconceptions:  

(Re)Envisioning  ‘First  Year  Composition’  as  introduction  to  writing  studies.  CCC  58:4.  Pp.  522-­‐84.    We  have  gained  great  insight  from  these  (and  other)  scholars  who  have  both  helped  us  to  think  about  what  is  not  working  in  our  approach  to  first-­‐year  writing,  and  directed  our  work  toward  finding  new  approaches.  However,  our  program  has  also  diverged  in  significant  ways  from  these  scholars’  contributions,  and  our  goal  in  this  section  is  to  explain  the  foundational  theories  and  concepts  of  our  work.    Genre  Studies:  One  of  the  terms  our  program  uses  widely  is  “genre  studies.”  We  often  explicitly  say  that  we  take  a  “rhetorical  genre  studies  and  cultural-­‐historical  activity  theory  (CHAT)  approach  to  the  teaching  of  writing.”  The  term  “genre  studies”  is  becoming  more  central  to  the  field  of  Composition/Literacy  Studies,  and  many  writing  programs  at  the  university  level  are  using  the  term  to  describe  changes  in  their  approaches  to  teaching  writing.      In  the  ISU  Writing  Program,  the  concept  of  “genre”  guides  our  understanding  of  how  the  texts  we  produce  are  part  of  the  range  of  discourse  communities  to  which  we  belong  (or  want  to  belong).  We  use  “genre”  to  define  what  we  study  as  writers  and  researchers;  we  study  specific  kinds  of  texts  produced  in  specific  locations,  in  response  to  specific  conditions.  “Genre”  indicates  a  complicated,  always-­‐in-­‐motion  relationship  of  a  specific  text  to  ways  that  text  can  be  identified,  defined  and  used.  Thus,  we  try  to  understand  why  an  “email”  produced  in  a  specific  situation  establishes  a  different  relationship  between  writers  and  readers  than  a  letter,  a  text  message  or  a  short  story,  as  well  as  how  different  settings  may  require  the  production  of  widely  different  kinds  of  texts  all  called  “email.”    

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 For  us,  learning  to  identify  and  recognize  the  complexity  of  genre  relationships  (which  are  cultural,  social  and  political  as  well  as  material)  is  an  important  step  in  learning  how  to  research  and  evaluate  one’s  own  textual  productions  as  specific  responses  to  a  set  of  evolving  genre  conventions.  We  understand  that  our  ability  to  produce  texts  in  specific  situations  is  governed  by  our  knowledge  and  understanding  of  genre  conventions;  but  also  that  our  knowledge  and  understanding  are  never  complete  because  varying  contextual  circumstances  can  change  how  a  genre  will  be  understood  and  used  by  authors  and  readers.  With  this  in  mind,  we  avoid  pedagogies  that  explicitly  teach  (or  imply)  that  genres  are  uncomplicated.  Even  genres  that  (at  first  glance)  seem  fairly  stable  and  clear  can  spawn  hybrid  or  brand  new  genres,  and  they  can  morph  over  time  in  ways  that  change  our  expectations  of  what  a  genre  will  look  like  or  do.  We  strive  to  include  this  complexity  in  our  activities  as  a  program  and  in  the  writing  projects  we  assign  to  students.    Cultural-­‐Historical  Activity  Theory  (CHAT):  Activity  theory,  actor-­‐network  theory  and  cultural-­‐historical  activity  theory  are  related  theoretical  frameworks  that  help  us  unpack  and  research  writing  activities  and  to  enrich  our  understanding  of  how  writing  happens  in  the  world.  These  theories  move  us  away  from  the  products  people  produce  when  they  write  as  the  most  important  (or  even  the  only  important)  thing  when  analyzing  writing  situations.  Instead,  these  theories  help  us  to  focus  on  a  more  complex  system  of  activities,  where  different  kinds  of  actors  (human  and  non-­‐human)  interact  in  different  kinds  of  situations.  Activity  theory  frameworks  allow  us  to  envision  situations  and  systems  in  which  texts  are  produced,  rather  than  “black-­‐boxing”5  these  activities  as  we  do  when  we  consider  only  the  “artifact  of  production.”      A  key  benefit  of  including  activity  theory  frameworks  in  our  approach  to  writing  instruction  design  is  that  we  can  begin  to  think  about  all  writing  (all  textual  production)  as  occurring  within  a  web  of  relationships  between  people,  other  texts,  cultural  practices,  modes  of  communication  and  non-­‐human  actors.  Because  activity  theory  (combined  with  attention  to  genre)  can  help  us  to  “unpack”  or  make  explicit  the  dynamic  processes  through  which  we  gain  knowledge  about  writing  situations,  it  may  also  help  us  to  develop  practical  strategies  for  encountering  new  writing  situations  and  relating  these  new  situations  to  our  existing,  antecedent  knowledge.  Not  every  author  needs  to  do  this  kind  of  deep  analysis  for  every  writing  situation;  however,  knowing  how  to  take  an  “activity-­‐based  research”  approach  to  new  writing  situations  can  help  us  to  see  nuances  and  complications  we  could  not  previously  see,  even  in  situations  where  we  thought  we  already  “knew  how  to  do  it.”    “CHAT,”  which  refers  to  Cultural-­‐Historical-­‐Activity-­‐Theory,  is  a  vital  acronym  for  our  program  because  it  refers  to  a  set  of  theories  about  rhetorical  activity  (how  people  act  and  communicate  in  the  world—specifically  through  the  production  of  all  kinds  of  texts),  that  help  us  look  at  the  how/why/what  of  writing  practices.  CHAT  essentially  takes  the  basics  of  activity  theory  (which  tend  to  focus  on  people  interacting  in  pairs  and  groups  in  particular  situations)  and  adds  both  a  “social”  and  “historical”  dimension.  It  is  perhaps  the  most  robust  system  developed  to  date  for  thinking  about  writing  in  complex  ways,  in  that  it  includes  the  widest  possible  range  of  interactions  between  humans,  non-­‐humans,  tools,  materials,  situations  and  whole  ecologies  of  environment.  In  this  excerpt  from  “Re-­‐situating  and  Re-­‐mediating  the  Canons:  A  Cultural-­‐historical  Remapping  of  Rhetorical  Activity”  (2007),  Paul  Prior  explains  the  concept  and  components  of  CHAT-­‐based  investigation:    

CHAT  argues  that  activity  is  situated  in  concrete  interactions  that  are  simultaneously  improvised  locally  and  mediated  by  historically-­‐provided  tools  and  practices,  which  range  from  machines,  made-­‐objects,  semiotic  means  (e.g.,  languages,  genres,  iconographies)  and  institutions  to  structured  environments,  domesticated  animals  and  plants,  and  indeed,  people  themselves.  Mediated  activity  means  that  action  and  cognition  are  distributed  over  time  and  space  and  among  people,  artifacts  and  environments  and  thus  also  laminated,  as  multiple  frames  of  field  co-­‐exist  in  any  situated  act.  In  activity,  people  are  socialized  (brought  into  alignment  with  others)  as  they  appropriate  cultural  resources,  but  also  individuated  as  their  particular  appropriations  historically  accumulate  to  form  a  particular  individual.  Through  appropriation  and  individuation,  socialization  also  opens  up  a  space  for  cultural  change,  for  a  personalization  of  the  social.  

                                                                                                               5  We  are  using  this  term  based  on  our  reading  of  Bruno  Latour’s  work,  especially  in  Pandora’s  Hope.  

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Cultural-­‐historical  activity  theory  points  to  a  concrete,  historical  rhetoric…  a  cultural-­‐historical  approach  asks  how  people,  institutions  and  artifacts  are  made  in  history.”  (Prior  et  al.  18.6)      

This  kind  of  complexity  (and  investigating  it)  is  at  the  core  of  our  program’s  goals.  So  while  writers  (students  or  instructors)  in  our  program  need  not  become  scholars  in  activity  theory  or  CHAT  research,  it  is  important  for  us  to  develop  strategies  as  writers  for  incorporating  a  complex  understanding  of  “knowledge”  and  “activity”  that  shape  even  the  most  (deceptively)  simple  kinds  of  writing.  In  the  past  several  years,  we  have  developed  a  range  of  texts  to  help  us  talk  about  CHAT  in  our  program.  Examples  include  the  following:    

• A  handout  for  teachers  to  use  when  talking  about  CHAT  in  the  classroom:  http://isuwriting.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/chat_overview.pdf        

• Walker,  Joyce.  (Fall  2010).  Just  CHATing.  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  (V.1),  71-­‐80.  https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzH2e3MWzXALNGVhNTNmMTgtMjg2Ni00ZWU0LTgwODMtY2U1OGJiMTlkY2Ji/edit?hl=en_US      

• Kostecki,  Tyler  (Fall  2012).  “Understanding  Language  and  Culture  with  Cultural  Historic  Activity  Theory.”  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  (Vol.  3.1),  79-­‐88.  https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzH2e3MWzXALa1E1ZklGOEVSUUk/edit.      

   In  our  program,  we  use  CHAT  to  do  the  following:  

(1) Create  complex,  dynamic  mapping  processes  (through  the  research  we  do  as  instructors,  students  and  writers)  that  help  us  to  see  more  clearly  how  a  text  is  acting  and  acted  upon  in  various  situations  and  systems;  

(2) See  how  a  text  is  interacting  with  its  variously  related  genre-­‐categories;  (3) Look  at  the  complex  temporal-­‐material  trajectory  of  a  text  (how  it  interacts  with  people,  objects,  genres  

and  other  texts)  as  it  is  produced  and  used;  (4) Better  understand  how  our  relationship  to  a  text  is  never  as  simple  as  “knowing  how  to  do  it,”  but  is  

instead  a  complicated  social/cognitive  process  in  which  we  learn  to  recognize  and  produce  a  certain  kind  of  writing.  

 Cognition  and  Transfer:  The  concept  of  “transfer”  is  related  to  the  knowledge  that,  as  literate  individuals,  we  approach  writing  situations  with  prior  knowledge  of  other  writing  situations,  and  this  knowledge  impacts  the  choices  (conscious  and  unconscious)  that  we  make.  A  central  concept  in  Writing  Studies  theory  currently,  transfer  research  has  serious  implications  for  all  aspects  of  developing  and  teaching  in  an  introductory  writing  course.  Thinking  about  transfer  asks  us  to  question  whether  the  work  we  do  to  “teach  students  about  writing”  actually  results  in  knowledge  that  students  can  use  when  engaged  in  writing  activities  outside  of  our  courses.  David  Russell’s  “Activity  Theory  and  Its  Implications  for  Writing  Instruction”  (1995)  is  one  of  the  first  texts  in  Writing  Studies  that  makes  this  point  clearly.  As  Russell  states,  “to  try  to  teach  students  to  improve  their  writing  by  taking  a  generalized  writing  instruction  course  is  something  like  trying  to  teach  people  to  improve  their  ping-­‐pong,  jacks,  volleyball,  basketball,  field  hockey  and  so  on  by  attending  a  course  in  general  ball  using”  (58).  Our  program  uses  research  in  literacy  and  knowledge  transfer  to  discuss  practices  that  may  make  analysis  and  investigation  of  genres-­‐in-­‐action  (a  key  program  goal)  work  as  a  kind  of  “meta”  tool  in  an  author’s  writing  toolkit  –  so  that  while  specific  writing  knowledge  might  not  transfer,  perhaps  an  attitude  toward  investigating  new  writing  situations  can.      Community  and  Identity:  Concepts  of  community  and  identity  that  focus  on  creating  an  effective  bond  between  a  writer  and  his/her  writing,  or  among  writers  working  together  in  a  writing  course,  have  been  repeatedly  introduced  to  Composition  Studies  in  different  guises  throughout  the  20th  century.  However,  our  program  approaches  “community”  and  “identity”  by  investigating,  with  students,  the  ways  that  different  writing  settings  and  approaches  to  writing  can  impact  a  writer’s  disposition  toward  the  writing  task,  and  either  assist  or  impede  the  writing  process.      We  are  particularly  interested  in  exploring  three  areas  related  to  issues  of  community,  cognition  and  identity:  disposition,  identity,  and  social  environments.  The  first  is  how  “disposition”  (a  writer’s  attitude  and  stance  toward  

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a  particular  writing  situation)  can  impact  the  ability  to  transfer  knowledge  from  other  genres  he  ↔  she  has  worked  with  in  the  past  (antecedent  genres).  These  antecedent  genres  always  operate  in  the  writer’s  mind,  but  they  cannot  always  be  accessed  in  conscious  ways,  and  they  are  not  always  productive.  Because  of  the  complexity  of  the  relationship  between  a  writer’s  current  and  past  knowledge,  we  are  interested  in  making  the  process  of  acknowledging  and  using  past  writing  knowledge  more  explicit,  so  that  writers  can  make  more  effective  use  of  their  existing  knowledges  as  they  move  into  new  writing  situations.    The  second  area  involves  building  a  better  understanding  how  a  writer’s  “identity”  as  a  writer  (the  sum  of  all  his  ↔  her  writing  experiences)  does  and  does  not  play  into  how  a  writer  approaches  and  accomplishes  writing  tasks.  This  area  of  exploration  is  deeply  tied  to  the  first  concept  (disposition),  as  a  writer’s  specific  experiences  with  different  writing  situations  are  the  substance  of  his  ↔  her  writing  identity.  However,  while  the  first  area  of  exploration  focuses  on  examining  how  different  past  experiences  impact  current  knowledge  and  thus  the  writer’s  approach  to  writing  in  new  situations,  this  second  concept  (identity)  focuses  on  how  the  sum  of  a  writer’s  experiences  create  a  general  attitude  toward  writing  that  may  move  across  different  situations.  Our  teacher-­‐research  in  the  ISU  Writing  Program  continues  to  explore  ways  to  help  writers  approach  new  situations  with  flexibility  and  creativity,  and  yet  our  assignments  and  activities  must  also  maintain  relevance  for  the  kinds  of  writing  students  expect  to  do  in  the  academy,  the  workplace  and  their  lives  as  citizens.    A  third  somewhat  more  difficult  and  complex  concept  we  are  also  interested  in  is  the  development  of  “social  environments”  that  facilitate  the  development  of  cognitive  flexibility  in  new  writing  situations.  We  do  that  by  helping  instructors  think  through  the  writing  environments  and  assignments  they  create  in  their  classrooms,  but  we  also  believe  that  in  order  to  help  these  skills  persist  beyond  the  boundaries  of  a  single  writing  class,  our  entire  program  needs  to  reinforce  and  reward  these  skills  as  relevant,  and  provide  writers  the  opportunity  to  learn  about  “writing  in  the  wild”  –  seeing  and  experiencing  literate  activities  in  a  wide  range  of  situations.    At  its  core,  our  efforts  to  create  resources  that  help  our  writers  (collectively)  learn  to  approach  writing  tasks  with  a  “writing  research”  perspective  are  based  on  the  principle  that  in  order  to  develop  the  ability  to  abstract  knowledge  and  skills  from  one  environment  to  another,  an  individual  must  have  a  clear  sense  of  identity  –  one  that  authorizes  him  ↔  her  to  make  such  distinctions  and  abstractions.  In  other  words,  for  writers  to  think  about  writing/research  in  robust  ways,  they  must  have  identities  as  individuals  who  already  know  something  about  writing/research,  and  they  must  practice  those  identities  as  part  of  a  larger  structure  of  activities  where  multiple  writers  are  engaged  in  similar  kinds  of  work.      All  actors  within  our  particular  community  –  and  whatever  communities  they  build  or  interact  with  that  move  beyond  the  borders  of  the  Writing  Program  as  community  –  should  feel  responsible  for  the  project  of  creating  and  sharing  knowledge  about  writing  practices,  and  using  these  practices  to  shape  their  own  productions.  Our  pedagogical  goals  and  our  goals  for  assessment,  then,  take  shape  within  this  framework  as  activities  that  are  designed  to  increase  the  potential  for  agency  and  to  decrease  opportunities  for  interventionist  stances  towards  literacy  acquisition.  At  the  classroom  level,  this  model  of  community  connects  to  student-­‐driven  genre  investigations  and  student-­‐driven  assessment  of  learning  (for  both  individual  and  collective  members  of  a  class).  At  the  program  level,  results  include  community  member  research  as  the  focus  of  programmatic  change,  as  well  as  using  that  research  as  a  tool  for  instructor  professional  development.      Writing  About  Writing:  Our  program  owes  a  significant  debt  to  the  work  of  Elizabeth  Wardle  and  Doug  Downs  (2007),  and  their  development  of  a  “Writing  About  Writing  Curriculum.”  However,  our  writing  program  varies  from  their  work  in  significant  ways.  The  following  chart  outlines  some  important  differences  we  see  between  a  “Writing  About  Writing”  (WAW)  curriculum  and  ours,  which  we  define  as  the  practice  of  “Creating  Writing  Researchers.”    Writing  About  Writing  (Wardle  &  Downs)  

Creating  Writing  Researchers    (ISU  Writing  Program)  

Key  Difference  

 Students  read  writing  

 Students  may  read  some  research  in  

 Our  goal  is  not  only  to  create  students  

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research  from  scholars  in  the  field,  with  the  goal  of  raising  awareness  about  writing  as  a  complicated  activity  that  involves  disciplinary  knowledge  and  research.    

the  field  of  Writing  Studies,  but  they  primarily  read  (and  produce)  “local”  examples  of  writing  research,  which  are  published  in  our  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal.  

who  can  recognize  that  writing  can  be  researched,  but  that  students  are  able  to  create  flexible,  repeatable  strategies  for  investigating  writing  AS  THEY  DO  IT  6  in  the  world.    

 Students  read  about  research  methods  for  conducting  research.    And  sometimes  use  these  methods  to  create  their  own  research  projects.    

 Students  use  the  work  of  other  student  researchers,  and  create  research  projects  using  these  methods,  but  they  also  spend  time  developing  methods  for  conducting  on-­‐the-­‐fly  research  into  literate  practice  as  part  of  a  lived-­‐experience  with  writing  research  that  they  use  in  their  writing  lives.  

 We  love  the  exposure  to  research  methods  that  is  included  in  texts  like  Downs  and  Wardle’s  Writing  About  Writing.  However,  we  want  students  to  see  research  not  as  something  they  do  as  a  student,  but  as  an  activity  that  they  accomplish  daily,  or  whenever  a  new  context  for  writing  occurs.  To  achieve  this,  knowledge  about  scholarly  research  methods  (perspectives  and  activities  for  investigating  both  genres  and  literate  activity  in  general)  is  used  in  our  program  in  order  to  create  on-­‐the-­‐fly  research  practices.    

 Students  conduct  limited  original  research,  modeled  after  disciplinary  methods  and  methodologies    

 Students  conduct  original  research  where  they  define  not  only  the  subject  matter,  but  also  the  generic  conventions  and  the  potential  value  of  the  research  for  projected  audiences.  

 At  first  glance,  there  isn’t  too  much  difference  here.  Ultimately,  however,  our  program  goal  is  not  a  student  production  that  imitates  and  adapts  to  scholarly  conventions  (which  might  only  be  truly  useful  to  students  who  move  into  the  discipline),  but  the  production  of  a  "citizen-­‐researcher"  who  can  share  knowledge  about  how  writing  works  in  the  world  while  also  working  to  build  and  maintain  flexible  knowledge  structures  he  ↔  she  can  use  in  real  world  writing  situations.    

 Overall,  the  key  difference  between  our  program  and  a  Writing  About  Writing  approach  is  that  in  WAW,  students  are  introduced  to  a  scholarly  field  and  taught  that  they  should  have  an  interest  in  and  awareness  of  the  complexity  of  writing.  As  Downs  and  Wardle  note,  “Taking  the  research  community  of  writing  studies  as  our  example  not  only  allows  writing  instructors  to  bring  their  own  expertise  to  the  course,  but  also  heightens  students’  awareness  that  writing  itself  is  a  subject  of  scholarly  inquiry.  Students  leave  the  course  with  increased  awareness  of  writing  studies  as  a  discipline,  as  well  as  a  new  outlook  on  writing  as  a  researchable  activity  rather  than  a  mysterious  talent”  (559).    Essentially,  the  WAW  course  is  seen  as  a  way  of  applying  “writing  studies”  content  to  a  class  that  is  about  academic  reading  and  writing.  

                                                                                                               6  This  difference  is  primarily  due  to  our  interest  in  an  Activity  Theory  approach  to  transfer,  a  critical  aspect  of  our  program.  For  a  useful  discussion  of  the  intersection  of  activity  theory  research  and  perspectives  on  knowledge  transfer,  please  see:  Terttu,  Tuomi-­‐Gröhn  and  Engeström,  Y.  (2003).  Between  School  and  Work:  New  Perspectives  on  Transfer  and  Boundary-­‐Crossing.  Pergamon.  

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 In  our  program,  students  are  immersed  in  “writing  research”  as  daily,  lived  experience,  and  are  taught  to  identify  situations  in  which  their  thinking  and  research  skills  can  be  used  productively.  Our  goal  is  to  equip  writers  with  specific  kinds  of  research  skills  and  ways  of  thinking  about  literate  activity  that  will  allow  them  to  create  personalized  research  plans  for  investigating  their  own  writing  practices  and  productions.  One  potential  outcome  (we  hope)  of  this  focus  is  that  these  skills  and  ways  of  thinking,  applied  appropriately,  have  the  potential  to  both  aid  knowledge  transfer  (moving  knowledge  about  writing  more  adaptively  between  different  situations),  and  to  create  a  more  positive  disposition  towards  adaptation  as  a  key  writing  strategy.      Thus,  our  program’s  focus  on  “Creating  Writing  Researchers”  is  a  critical  difference  that  separates  us  both  ideologically  and  pedagogically  from  the  “Writing  About  Writing”  approach.  Not  only  does  “Creating  Writing  Researchers”  lead  to  these  fundamental  differences  in  curriculum,  we  have  found  that  it  also  impacts  our  attitudes  about  and  practices  of  assessment  in  fundamental  ways.  The  next  section  of  this  application  document  outlines  two  specific  sets  of  activities  related  to  the  differences  in  approach  between  “Writing  About  Writing”  and  “Creating  Writing  Researchers.”    Program  Pedagogies  In  many  ways,  the  assignments  in  our  program  (see  Appendix  3  for  example  Unit  Descriptions)  are  in  keeping  with  a  Writing  About  Writing  or  a  Genre  Studies  model.  While  they  differ  from  assignments  typical  of  a  traditional  writing  program  pedagogy,  they  are  in  sync  with  these  newer  models  for  creating  more  diverse  writing  situations.7  However,  we  think  our  approach  to  two  specific  areas,  “Uptake  Genres”  and  “Alternative  Classroom  Assessment  Practices,”  are  the  best  illustration  of  the  new  directions  we  are  exploring  on  making  learning  visible  (and  thus  potentially  more  transferable  to  diverse  writing  situations).    Open  Syllabus  Policy:  Because  of  our  open  syllabus  policy,  each  instructor  in  the  program  is  relatively  free  to  develop  different  kinds  of  assignments  and  projects,  and  different  kinds  of  uptake  genres  and  models  for  assessment.  The  examples  we  offer  here  are  diverse,  but  they  all  work  to  fulfill  both  our  Learning  Outcomes  and  our  Core  Elements  of  Learning  for  English  101  and  English  145  (See  Appendix  1).    Uptake  Genres  In  a  discussion  with  Anis  Bawarshi,  during  his  2013  campus  visit  for  our  Visiting  Speaker  Series,  we  worked  to  connect  his  notion  of  “uptake  genres”  to  our  own  understanding  of  “documentation-­‐of-­‐learning.8”  The  idea  behind  both  concepts  is  connected  to  “formative  assessment”  –  an  understanding  that  writing  classrooms  need  to  include  practices  in  which  writers  can  gauge  and  evaluate  their  learning-­‐in-­‐progress,  rather  than  waiting  until  an  assignment  or  project  is  due  and  using  only  that  product  to  gauge  learning.  In  the  space  of  our  genre  studies/CHAT  program,  the  benefit  of  formative  assessment  is  also  tied  directly  to  an  understanding  that  any  given  writing  product  is  always  necessarily  a  poor  measure  of  the  way  an  author  is  “taking  up”  information  about  the  genre  and  writing  situation.  Following  the  work  of  Melanie  Kill  (2006),  we  also  want  to  be  conscious  that  uptakes  are  naturally,  inescapably  divergent.  Each  individual’s  uptake  is  based  on  a  myriad  list  of  different  situation  criteria,  including  his  ↔  her  antecedent  knowledge.  Further,  research  in  genre  theory,  CHAT  and  transfer  tells  us  is  that  this  antecedent  knowledge  can  dramatically  impact  uptake  for  each  individual  in  a  given  learning  situation.  Uptake  genres,  then,  allow  participants  to  slow  down  for  a  moment  –  to  make  visible  how  different  members  of  the  class  are  “taking  up”  a  concept,  idea,  or  skill.  Uptake  genres  are  often  formative,  which  means  that  they  happen  during  the  learning  in  a  particular  unit.  However,  our  goal  has  also  been  to  incorporate  different  kinds  of  uptake  genres  into  our  summative  assessments  as  well,  which  we  will  discuss  more  fully  in  the  next  section.    

                                                                                                               7  Models  explored  in  the  First-­‐Year  Composition  Program  at  University  of  Central  Florida  (2012-­‐13  Winner,  CCCC  Writing  Program  Certificate  of  Excellence)  and  the  Writing  Program  at  Washington  State  University  (2008-­‐9  Winner,  CCCC  Writing  Program  Certificate  of  Excellence).    8  We  have  since  adopted  “uptake  genres”  to  talk  about  formative  assessment,  but  some  of  our  materials  still  use  the  term  “proof-­‐of-­‐learning”  or  “documentation-­‐of-­‐learning”  to  describe  this  practice.  

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For  us,  an  “uptake  genre”  is  any  moment  where  a  production  (textual,  oral,  aural,  visual)  allows  participants  to  see  HOW  they  are  learning  rather  than  WHAT  they  are  learning.  This  focus  differs  from  much  work  on  formative  assessment,  which  tends  to  focus  more  on  whether  students  are  learning  in  steps  –  a  way  to  check  small  components  of  learning  as  a  scaffold  to  a  larger  or  more  complex  task.  In  our  view,  uptake  genres  are  designed  to  give  the  writing  researcher  (student  or  teacher)  a  clear  (if  ephemeral)  view  of  what  learning  looks  like  in  all  of  its  complexity  in  any  given  moment  in  the  classroom.    Uptake  Genres  Examples:  While  the  “Course  Units”  we  present  in  Appendix  3  offer  an  example  of  how  “uptake”  works  in  our  classrooms,  the  following  examples  illustrate  how  we  use  uptake  genres  as  part  of  an  ongoing  discussion  throughout  the  activities  of  a  single  unit,  and  across  the  units  in  a  course.    Example  #1:  “The  Genre  Recipe:  A  Genre  Uptake  Activity”    This  example  is  a  genre  used  by  Jeff  Reints,  (Ph.D.  Student,  Graduate  Teaching  Assistant,  Writing  Program  English  101  Coordinator)  as  an  ongoing  activity  that  helps  students  to  not  only  see  their  own  learning-­‐in-­‐progress,  but  also  to  see  how  uptake  can  differ  between  individuals  working  on  the  same  types  of  genre  activities.    

This  activity  opens  with  an  analysis  of  the  genre  of  the  typical  cookery  recipe.  Students  bring  in  favorite  recipes  or  research  them  on  the  Internet.  Small  groups  compare  their  recipes  to  develop  a  list  of  requirements  of  the  genre.  The  two  key  items  in  this  activity,  for  uptake  purposes,  are  1)  a  list  of  required  components,  and  2)  the  instructions  detailing  what  to  do  with  the  components.  The  final  portion  of  the  activity  highlights  the  cultural  and  economic  assumptions  that  lead  to  omissions  in  recipes.  The  activity’s  steps  are  as  follows:  

 1. The  unit  in  which  the  “Genre  Recipe”  is  first  deployed  focuses  primarily  on  genre  investigation.  Each  

student  selects  a  genre  of  writing  they  will  research,  document,  and  reproduce.  2. Midway  through  the  unit,  students  are  asked  to  produce  a  Genre  Recipe  in  which  they  detail  the  required  

materials  and  processes  for  composition  in  the  selected  genre.  They  are  cautioned  that,  unlike  a  traditional  cookery  recipe,  they  must  attempt  to  include  EVERY  component  and  procedure.  Nothing  is  to  be  omitted.  Some  students  will  include  things  like  “a  brain  for  thinking”  or  “a  hand  for  writing”  in  their  Genre  Recipe’s  ingredient  list.  This  is  a  good  thing,  as  it  indicates  a  creative  attempt  at  thoroughness,  and  students  are  encouraged  to  be  similarly  detailed  in  the  procedures  section  of  the  Recipe.  

3. Along  with  the  Genre  Recipe,  students  are  asked  to  hand  in  a  draft  attempt  to  reproduce  the  genre  they  are  investigating.  They  are  explicitly  instructed  to  attempt  to  follow  their  own  Recipe.  

4. The  submitted  Genre  Recipes  are  redistributed  so  that  each  student  receives  the  Recipe  of  another  student  for  anonymous  review.  This  review  consists  of  a  good  faith  attempt  to  replicate  the  genre  strictly  by  following  the  Genre  Recipe,  along  with  a  brief  review  of  what  did  or  did  not  work  in  attempting  to  do  so.  What  was  unclear?    What  was  omitted?    How  can  the  recipe  be  improved  to  better  reveal  the  complexity  of  the  materials  and  procedures  required  for  a  successful  production  of  the  genre?  

5. In  the  final  step,  the  original  composers  of  the  Genre  Recipe  receive  back  the  anonymous  review  and  the  attempted  composition.  They  then  use  this  material  to  write  an  improved  draft  of  the  Genre  Recipe  and  the  target  genre,  possibly  after  further  research.  The  student  documents  all  changes  made  to  the  Recipe.  The  final  deliverables  for  the  unit  are  both  drafts  of  the  Genre  Recipe,  both  drafts  of  the  genre  under  investigation,  and  students’  notes  documenting  the  research  and  composition  process.    

 Example  #2:  “Skills  and  Knowledge  Checklist”      This  example  is  a  genre  used  by  Julie  Bates  (Ph.D.  Student,  Graduate  Teaching  Assistant,  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  Associate  Editor)  as  an  ongoing  text  that  not  only  works  throughout  a  given  unit,  but  moves  throughout  the  entire  semester  as  a  way  for  people  to  document  and  observe  their  learning-­‐in-­‐process.  She  asks  students  to  post  these  checklists  in  a  shared  wiki  space,  and  the  checklists  are  referred  to  throughout  the  semester  in  classroom  discussions  and  activities.    

Skills  and  Knowledge  Checklist  • Briefly  explain  what  you  think  this  Genre  Investigation  is  asking  you  to  do;  

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• Create  a  list  of  all  of  the  skills  and/or  knowledge  you  already  have  that  you  think  will  be  useful  to  you  as  you  complete  the  Investigation;  

• Create  a  list  of  any  skills  and/or  knowledge  you  think  will  be  necessary  to  complete  this  Investigation  but  that  you  do  not  already  have  (or  perhaps  that  you  may  need  to  brush  up  on);  

• Post-­‐Investigation  Checklist  o Briefly  explain  what  you  think  this  Investigation  asked  you  to  do;  o Create  a  list  of  all  of  the  skills  and/or  knowledge  you  already  had  at  the  start  of  the  Investigation  

that  you  ended  up  using  to  complete  this  Investigation;  o Create  a  list  of  all  of  the  skills  and/or  knowledge  that  you  acquired  during  the  Investigation  that  

aided  you  in  completing  the  Investigation;  o Create  a  list  of  any  skills  and/or  knowledge  that,  in  hindsight,  you  wish  you  would  have  acquired  

to  assist  you  in  completing  the  Investigation;  o Spend  some  time  thinking  and  writing  about  how  the  skills  and/or  knowledge  you  already  had  or  

that  you  acquired  during  this  Investigation  might  be  useful  to  you  in  the  future  in  different  kinds  of  writing  situations.  Be  as  specific  as  possible.  

 Alternative  Classrooms  Assessment  Practices  Examples  The  use  of  these  kinds  of  genre  uptake  documents  is  carried  through  to  the  assessment  practices  in  our  classrooms.  Thus,  “documentation-­‐of-­‐learning”  becomes  not  just  an  added  measure  of  learning  (which  is  generally  the  case  when  using  portfolio  reflections  or  writing  journals),  but  also  the  primary  measure  of  learning  and  thus,  a  critical  component  of  the  course  grade.  Because  the  genre  uptake  documents  are  usually  shared  and  often  collectively  examined  and  assessed  by  participants  in  the  class,  this  method  of  summative  assessment  also  tends  to  focus  much  more  on  peer-­‐to-­‐peer  assessment  and  self-­‐assessment  than  traditional  writing  classrooms.  The  following  examples  illustrate  our  focus  on  teaching  the  skills  of  “learning  how  to  learn  how  to  write”  rather  than  on  producing  writing  that  demonstrates  mastery.      Example  #1:  “Assessing  Learning  through  Multiple  Measures”    While  we  cannot  fully  demonstrate  our  diverse  range  of  classroom  assessment  practices,  the  following  excerpt  from  a  course  plan  by  Julie  Bates  (Ph.D.  Student,  Graduate  Teaching  Assistant,  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  Associate  Editor)  illustrates  how  uptake  genres  are  integrated  fully  into  the  formal  assessment  and  grading  for  the  course:    

ENG  101  Assessment  Plan  This  course  emphasizes  learning  over  mastery.  In  other  words,  it  focuses  on  getting  students  to  think  about  and  articulate  their  learning  related  to  specific  assignments  in  the  course.  Although  students  must  produce  the  kind  of  text  the  assignment  requires,  a  key  emphasis  of  each  Investigation  Portfolio  is  how  well  students  are  able  to  articulate  a  clear  understanding  and  knowledge  of  why  the  text  needs  to  be  produced  in  certain  ways  and  what  exactly  they  did  to  create  the  appropriate  text.  In  some  cases,  students  may  get  credit  for  knowing  and  articulating  what  should  be  done,  even  if  they  cannot  yet  do  it  as  well  as  they  would  like.      For  each  investigation,  students  must  turn  in  an  Investigation  Portfolio  that  clearly  shows  the  trajectory  of  their  project  and  what  key  skills  and  knowledge  they  have  developed  during  the  course  of  the  experiment.  Each  Investigation  Portfolio  must  include  the  following  four  deliverables:    

1. Skills  &  Knowledge  Checklist—a  document  students  work  on  throughout  the  semester  (on  their  personal  wiki  pages)  in  which  new  skills  and  knowledge  learned  within  each  investigation  must  be  clearly  identified.  

2. Field  Notes—project  notes  (posted  on  their  personal  wiki  pages),  including  all  class  notes,  research  notes,  assignments,  and  self-­‐assessment  materials  related  to  the  project;  in  particular,  students  must  make  certain  their  field  notes  demonstrate  the  items  listed  on  their  Skills  &  Knowledge  Checklist  (if  they  do  not,  their  portfolios  won’t  be  graded).  

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3. Genre  Experiment—the  actual  writing/textual  production  (posted  on  their  personal  wiki  pages,  unless  the  genre  format  does  not  allow  this).  

4. Genre  Report—a  researched  document  that  explores  students’  learning  during  the  course  of  the  experiment,  including  their  research  process  and  the  results  of  their  genre  experiment  as  well  as  what  they  have  learned  about  the  genre  they  explored,  written  in  the  genre  of  a  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  article  (posted  in  Reggie  Net9  for  grading).  

 Because  students  will  better  understand  what  they  help  to  build,  students  are  actively  engaged  in  the  decision-­‐making  process  regarding  creation  of  assignment  requirements  and  scoring  rubrics.  For  each  Genre  Experiment  and  Genre  Report,  the  class  will  brainstorm  in  larger  or  small  groups  (depending  on  assignment)  a  list  of  characteristics  and  conventions  for  that  genre  and  will  be  tasked  with  collectively  coming  up  with  the  specific  assignment  sheet  to  accompany  each  Experiment  and  Report,  with  guidance  from  the  instructor  as  needed.  In  addition,  the  class  will  work  together  to  identify  specific  requirements  and  point  totals  for  the  scoring  rubric  for  each  Investigation  (following  point  totals  and  guidelines  set  by  the  instructor).  Students  will  be  encouraged  to  create  assignment  guidelines  and  scoring  rubrics  that  are  based  primarily  on  students’  ability  to  learn  and  to  showcase  their  learning  processes  related  to  producing  textual  artifacts  and  understanding  how  such  artifacts  are  produced.

Example  #2:  “Genre  Understanding  Sheet  for  ENG  145.13”      This  second  example  illustrates  the  type  of  work  that  our  teachers  expect  from  students  as  part  of  the  grading  for  various  projects  both  our  English  101  and  our  English  145  courses.  The  Genre  Understanding  Sheet,  developed  by  Rob  Rowan  (Ph.D.  Candidate,  Graduate  Teaching  Assistant),  asks  students  to  not  simply  “reflect”  on  what  they  learned,  but  to  document  the  “how”  of  their  learning.  Since  this  documentation  is  part  of  a  summative  assessment,  there  is  an  expectation  that  students  will  be  able  to  answer  questions  about  their  work  and  the  complex  activities  related  to  its  production.  For  many  teachers,  similar  types  of  questions  are  infused  throughout  each  unit  of  the  course,  working  as  both  formative  and  summative  measures  to  assess  the  learning  that  is  happening  in  the  working  lives  of  the  writers,  rather  than  focusing  on  the  production  as  the  only  (or  even  the  primary)  measure  of  learning.    

Genre  Understanding  Sheet  (GUS)  The  purpose  of  the  GUS  is  to  help  you  actively  think  about  what  you’re  learning.  You  should  be  thinking  about  these  questions  while  you  work  on  the  assignment,  not  just  at  the  end.  Please  fill  out  each  of  the  following  sections  in  as  much  detail  as  possible.  You  must  justify  your  answers  (except  the  genre  name)  with  an  explanation  of  how  you  arrived  at  that  answer.  Assume  that  “How  do  you  know  this?”  is  a  part  of  each  question  below.    

 1. Genre  Name:  What  is  the  genre  called?  (Name  or  brief  description)  2. Writing  Purpose:  What  is  the  business  task  you  are  trying  to  accomplish  with  this  document?  3. Audiences:  Who  are  your  audiences  for  this  business  task  and  document?  What  do  these  audiences  want  

or  need  from  this  document?  4. Content:  What  is  your  content  (the  facts,  figures,  images,  and  details)?  Discuss  how  (or  if)  this  genre  is  

suitable  for  the  task  you  are  working  on,  the  content  you  are  trying  to  deliver,  and  the  audience  you  are  trying  to  reach.  If  you  deliberately  break  a  genre’s  conventions  or  expectations,  explain  why  and  describe  the  results  you  wanted  to  achieve.  

5. Research:  Describe  and  document  (i.e.,  list  sources  for)  the  genre  and  content  research  and  other  knowledge-­‐work  you  performed  for  the  assignment  in  each  of  the  areas  below.  You  should  also  include  other  attributes  you  may  have  researched.  “I  Googled  it”  is  not  sufficient  –  be  more  thorough.  

6. Trajectories:  Examine  the  main  trajectories  of  communication  in  this  genre,  including  where  it  originates,  how  it  is  produced,  and  how  it  will  most  likely  be  used.  

                                                                                                               9  Reggie  Net  is  ISU’s  web-­‐based  learning  and  collaboration  system.  

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7. Ethics:  What  ethical,  legal,  or  cultural  considerations  did  you  take  into  account  when  working  on  this  assignment?  “None”  is  the  wrong  answer.  Ethical  issues  are  often  subtle  and  easy  to  overlook  (our  assumptions  can  blind  us  here),  but  that  does  not  make  the  issues  less  important.  

8. Web  Text:  If  you  used  text  copied  from  the  web  for  part  of  your  assignment,  where  did  you  find  the  text/item,  what  did  you  change,  and  what  does  your  copied  text  mean?  

9. Defining  Characteristics:  List  and  describe  at  least  four  defining  characteristics  of  this  genre—attributes  that,  if  they  were  changed  too  much,  would  turn  the  document  into  a  different  genre.  

10. Self-­‐Analysis:  What  made  this  genre  easy  or  challenging  for  you  to  work  with?  What  would  you  do  differently  next  time?  Describe  the  other  interesting  traits,  features,  benefits,  weaknesses,  or  shortcomings  (yours  or  the  genre’s)  that  you  observed  while  working  in  this  genre.  

11. Group  contributions:  Describe  the  content  and  research  provided  by  each  group  member.    

Example  #3:  “Grading  Breakdowns”      One  aspect  of  our  program  pedagogy,  critical  to  our  overall  approach,  is  that  a  significant  portion  of  a  student’s  course  grade  reflects  “proof-­‐of-­‐learning.”  Although  this  strategy  is  enacted  in  different  ways  in  each  classroom,  its  overall  impact  in  our  program  is  that  our  course  grades  are  based  on  activities  and  learning  that  extend  beyond  what  can  be  seen  through  the  student’s  “Writing  Experiment”  (or  “Production  Artifact”).  In  this  example  document,  written  as  a  letter  to  her  students,  Michelle  Wright  Dottore  (Ph.D.  Student,  Graduate  Teaching  Assistant,  Writing  Program  Professional  Development  Coordinator)  outlines  how  the  grades  for  her  course  can  be  understood  as  a  range  of  learning  products,  rather  than  as  a  single  “assignment”  that  students  produce  for  a  grade.    

Dear  Students,      So  what  does  this  list  of  learning  objectives10  mean  to  you?  Imagine  yourself  as  a  secret  agent,  part  of  an  alliance  of  rhetorical  researchers  and  literary  scientists  whose  mission  is  to  see  more  fully  all  aspects  of  a  writing  situation  that  influence  how  people  use  the  tools  of  language  and  genre.  This  will  encourage  us  to  look  not  only  at  many  specific  forms  of  writing  (its  features,  characteristics,  and  conventions)  in  a  “real-­‐life”  context  (its  situation),  but  also  the  functions  of  writing  (goals,  outcomes)  by  considering  how  and  why  it  is  produced  and  the  span  of  production  within  and  by  certain  cultures.  This  study  will  require  us  to  put  on  a  scientific  lens,  our  scientist  lab  goggles  in  some  instances,  as  we  experiment  with  writing  various  genres  and,  too,  documenting  and  reflecting  on  those  experiments.  For  example,  if  we  were  to  experiment  with  writing  poetry,  specifically  the  genre  of  Shakespearean  sonnets,  you  would  turn  in:    

 1. Your  experiment  proposal  (10%  of  your  experiment  grade)  2. Your  experiment  (and  the  actual  sonnet)  (10%  of  your  experiment  grade)    3. Your  research  lists,  notes,  journals  (30%  of  your  experiment  grade)    4. A  Proof-­‐of-­‐Learning  document  that  outlines  the  “how”  of  learning  for  the  entire  experiment,  using  

citations  and  examples  from  the  experiment  and  all  of  your  other  notes,  journals,  research  lists,  in  class  activities,  etc.  (50%  of  your  experiment  grade)        

 As  you  can  see,  the  actual  writing  experiment  (as  with  the  example  above,  the  Shakespearean  sonnet)  counts  for  only  10%  of  your  overall  grade  while  the  pre-­‐writing,  documenting,  sharing  of  the  experiment  counts  for  90%.  Now  I  realize,  this  may  be  different  from  your  past  writing/English  classes  where  you  were  asked  to  write  a  particular  thing,  like  an  essay,  and  were  given  a  topic  of  research  and  a  rubric  and/or  model  on  how  to  do  it,  which  you  followed,  completed,  and  turned  it  in  to  be  graded  by  your  mastery  of  the  isolated  assignment.  Over.  Done.    

 Here,  however,  you  are  free  to  go  further,  taking  those  valuable  skills  you  have  learned  in  prior  classes  and  using  them  to  get  inside  the  process  (inside  activities  systems,  inside  genres),  asking  how  and  why  writing  functions  in  various  rhetorical  and  social  contexts.  You  will  begin  to  see  writing  as  a  dynamic,  

                                                                                                               10  Please  see  Appendix  I  for  our  program’s  Learning  Outcomes.    

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social  action  and  to  analyze  and  talk  about  what  you  saw,  experienced,  and  learned  in  doing  so.  Your  success/grade  here  is  not  about  your  mastery  to  reproduce  (who  are  masters  anyway?)  but  rather  about  the  thoroughness  of  your  research  and  reflections  as  you  experiment  with  various  writing  situations.    

 Grassroots  Writing  Research  Programs  The  overall  goals  of  the  ISU  Writing  Program  are  best  understood  through  our  “Grassroots  Writing  Research”  activities.  These  activities  make  up  the  core  our  efforts  (outside  of  individual  classrooms)  to  enact  the  activities  of  writing  research.  The  primary  aim  of  all  activities  listed  below  is  to  encourage  robust  investigations  of  literate  activity  through  a  range  of  projects.  Our  Grassroots  Writing  Research  approach  is  a  central  part  of  our  program  pedagogy.    Writing  and  Reading  about  Writing  Research    Writing  and  reading  about  writing  research  is  a  key  activity  in  our  program.  Our  primary  venue  for  grassroots  writing  research  (both  reading  and  producing  it)  is  our  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal,  produced  twice  each  year  by  the  ISU  Writing  Program.  The  journal  includes  articles  by  citizen  writing  researchers,  including  high  school  students,  undergraduates,  graduate  students,  and  writing  research  scholars.  The  journal  solicits  authors  within  and  outside  of  our  institution,  and  publication  is  open  to  writing  researchers  everywhere.  The  print  issue  of  each  journal  is  used  as  the  primary  text  in  two  of  ISU’s  undergraduate  general  education  writing  courses:  English  101/101.10  and  English  145.  Digital  versions  of  previous  issues  are  available  online  (http://isuwriting.com/grassroots/journal/).      The  title  of  the  journal  reflects  our  aspirations  to  present  writing  research  on  different  topics  and  by  a  variety  of  authors,  and  to  feature  articles  in  a  wide  range  of  forms  and  media.  We  encourage  authors  to  share  not  only  what  they  have  learned  about  writing,  but  also  how  they  have  learned  it.  Authors  can  learn  more  about  publishing  on  our  website,  which  offers  back  issues  of  the  journal  and  a  range  of  guides  for  researching  and  writing  for  the  journal.      Talking  about  Writing  Research    Talking  about  writing  research  happens  in  our  classes,  and  in  all  kinds  of  activities  that  our  teachers  engage  in  as  part  of  their  professional  development.  However,  we  specifically  talk  about  writing  research  as  part  of  our  ISU  Writing  Program  Visiting  Speakers  Series.  The  Series  brings  nationally  recognized  scholars  in  Writing  Studies  to  campus  for  2–3  day  visits,  during  which  they  present  their  current  research,  run  workshops  and  discussion  sessions,  and  talk  with  graduate  and  undergraduate  students  about  writing.  Now  a  well-­‐established  part  of  our  Writing  Program,  the  Series  reflects  our  ongoing  endeavors  to  promote  discussions  about  writing  research  in  and  beyond  the  classroom  and  in  and  beyond  ISU.  Although  the  scholars’  presentations  are  not  available  to  the  public,  our  instructors  can  access  archived  presentations  to  share  with  their  students  in  Writing  Program  courses.  Past  Visiting  Scholars  include  the  following:    

• Paul  Prior,  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Illinois  Urbana-­‐Champaign  (2011)  • Kevin  Roozen,  Associate  Professor  of  Rhetoric  &  Composition,  Auburn  University  (2012)  • Ann  Johns,  Faculty  Emerita,  Department  of  Rhetoric  &  Writing  Studies,  San  Diego  State  University  (2013)  • Anis  Bawarshi,  Professor  &  Director  of  Expository  Writing,  University  of  Washington  (2013)  • Jodi  Shipka,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  University  of  Maryland  Baltimore  County  (Upcoming,  2014)  

 Our  annual  Writing  Research  Colloquium  Series  promotes  student  research  in  the  study  of  writing  practices  and  features  presentations  from  and  discussions  with  our  Undergraduate  Writing  Research  Fellows  and  published  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  authors  for  an  audience  of  students  and  instructors,  as  well  as  other  members  of  our  ISU  community.  Speakers  discuss  their  approaches  to  writing  research,  sharing  their  experiences  of  creating  and  reflecting  on  the  lives  of  their  Grassroots  articles  –  processes  that  continue  long  after  the  articles  are  published.  A  list  of  Colloquium  speakers  and  links  to  videos  of  presentations  can  be  found  at  (http://isuwriting.com/grassroots/writing-­‐research-­‐colloquium/).      

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Our  “Let’s  CHAT”  Podcast  Series  brings  together  students  and  instructors  to  talk  about  issues  of  writing  research  that  are  important  to  our  community.  Topics  are  related  to  specific  theories  or  ideas  we  are  exploring,  different  teaching  strategies  we  employ,  and  conversations  about  the  ways  we  understand  and  take  up  “writing”  and  “literacy.”  The  Podcast  Series  was  named  after  one  of  our  key  program  concepts,  Cultural-­‐Historical  Activity  Theory  (CHAT).  Our  program  differs  from  many  writing  programs  in  our  active  use  of  current  research  and  theory  in  Writing  Studies  (and  related  fields  that  research  learning  and  literacy),  as  well  as  our  own  citizen  writing  research.  We  use  research  in  genre  studies  and  CHAT,  research  on  learning  transfer  and  cognition,  as  well  as  other  kinds  of  research  and  theory.  However,  we  are  trying  to  move  beyond  just  learning  about  theory.  We  want  to  enact  it:  to  observe  its  traces  in  our  daily  literate  practices  and  to  incorporate  what  we  are  learning  into  our  personal  knowledge  as  literate  citizens.  Our  Podcast  Series  is  thus  both  a  “talking  about”  and  an  “enacting  of”  our  writing  research  perspective.  It  helps  bring  together  interested  members  of  our  community  to  talk  about  praxis  —  how  the  theories  and  research  we  read  can  make  their  way  into  our  daily  practices  as  writers,  and  as  people  who  need  to  share  our  knowledge  with  others.  Podcast  tapings  are  open  to  the  public,  and  Q&A  and  discussion  sessions  follow  each  podcast.    Enacting  Writing  Research    Enacting  writing  research  means  engaging  actively  and  thoughtfully  in  everyday  lived  experience  where  writing  matters.  Our  teachers  and  students  enact  practical  writing  research,  which  involves  observing  and  thinking  through  how  writing  works  in  daily  life.  The  ISU  Writing  Program  sponsors  the  Undergraduate  Writing  Research  Fellowship  Program  to  promote  student  research  in  the  study  of  writing  practices.  The  Fellowship  Program  provides  an  opportunity  for  undergraduate  scholars  to  engage  in  a  yearlong  writing  research  project.  There  are  up  to  two  fellowships  available  each  academic  year,  which  provide  a  $500.00  stipend  to  an  undergraduate  student  at  any  level  attending  any  higher  education  institution.  Fellowship  participants  have  the  opportunity  to  create  a  research  study  investigating  writing  practices,  present  their  research  at  our  annual  Writing  Research  Colloquium  Series,  and  compose  an  article  for  the  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal.      Our  Half-­‐Mile  Project  brings  together  students  and  residents  of  our  Bloomington-­‐Normal  community  to  talk  about  how  writing  is  produced  and  used  in  the  daily  lives  of  local  residents,  representing  our  efforts  to  connect  students  with  “real  world”  writers  living,  working,  and  writing  in  close-­‐proximity  to  campus.  We  began  these  efforts  in  2011,  when  we  worked  with  the  Bloomington-­‐Normal  branch  of  the  NAACP  to  help  them  create  materials  for  their  organization,  a  collaboration  that  followed  up  with  an  interview  that  will  be  published  in  our  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal.  Another  project  involved  working  with  an  ISU  faculty  member  to  collaborate  on  a  forthcoming  Grassroots  article  about  how  her  move  from  one  field  to  another  helped  shape  her  understanding  of  writing  research.      However,  in  2014  we  began  work  on  a  new  community  collaboration  model,  which  has  now  formally  become  the  Half-­‐Mile  Project.  We  are  now  working  to  bring  community  members  into  our  writing  program  as  part  of  an  event  that  an  instructor  and  students  can  win  (through  a  drawing)  at  the  beginning  of  each  semester.  The  event  (and  writing  produced  and  discussed  during  the  event)  is  then  documented  (including  video  clips)  that  can  be  used  by  other  instructors  in  the  program  as  part  of  an  ongoing  discussion  about  how  writing  research  works  in  the  real  world.  In  the  Project’s  inaugural  semester,  Lindsay  Bachman  of  “That’s  So  Sweet”  bakery  in  Uptown  Normal  brought  her  mini-­‐cheesecake  samples  and  talked  with  an  English  145.13  class.  In  Fall  2014,  the  project  will  involve  a  class  visit  and  discussion  with  Camille  Easton,  a  local  Yoga  instructor.      Collecting  Writing  Research    Collecting  writing  research  is  an  activity  that  happens  as  part  of  the  publication  of  our  journal,  but  this  activity  is  supported  by  our  Grassroots  Literate  Activity  Database  (GLAD)  through  which  we  plan  to  collect  details  about  particular  writing  activities  among  groups  and  individuals.  The  GLAD  is  a  new  project  (started  in  Fall  2014)  being  designed  as  a  resource  to  help  individuals  examine  their  writing  experiences,  better  understand  how  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  and  skills  in  one  writing  experience  may  apply  to  another  writing  experience,  and  document  their  learning  of  these  important  skills.  When  completed,  The  GLAD  will  be  an  open  database  that  researchers  (of  all  kinds)  can  use  to  better  understand  what  people  actually  do  when  they  engage  in  different  kinds  of  writing  and  composing  in  their  daily  lives.  Participants  will  share  details  about  different  kinds  of  writing  

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situations,  either  by  filling  out  an  online  survey  or  through  face-­‐to-­‐face  meetings  with  one  of  our  program’s  researchers.  In  the  current  semester  (Fall  2014),  graduate  instructors  in  the  writing  program  are  conducting  pilot  interviews,  which  we  will  use  to  help  us  design  the  online  interface.  In  Spring  2015,  we  hope  to  train  research  interviewers  (approved  by  our  institutions  Internal  Review  Board)  to  collect  our  first  “public”  interviews  for  the  database.    Other  Community  Outreach    The  ISU  Writing  Program  participates  in  a  range  of  other  community  outreach  projects  that  we  feel  will  help  us  to  gain  new  community  members  and  to  share  our  ideas  with  other  writers  and  instructors.  In  particular,  we  try  to  participate  in  projects  that  help  to  enhance  the  diversity  of  our  community.    ACT-­‐SO  Yearly  Event:  ACT-­‐SO  is  the  Afro-­‐Academic,  Cultural,  Technological  and  Scientific  Olympics  sponsored  locally  by  the  NAACP  and  the  Urban  League.  The  ISU  Writing  Program  works  with  the  Department  of  English  each  year  to  provide  different  enrichment  events  for  participating  students,  including  (1)  “A  Day  of  Writing”  consisting  of  various  writing  activities  led  by  graduate  students  or  campus  professionals  with  particular  expertise,  and  (2)  a  one-­‐on-­‐one  help  day  where  graduate  teaching  assistants  offer  help  to  students  writing  and  editing  applications  to  various  programs  and  scholarships.    NAACP:  In  response  to  a  request  for  writing  support  from  the  Bloomington-­‐Normal  branch  of  the  NAACP,  the  ISU  Writing  Program  helped  produce  an  informational  brochure  about  the  branch.  Following  the  successful  production  of  the  brochure,  our  program  also  helped  the  branch  establish  a  Newsletter  Committee  for  designing  and  producing  a  quarterly  newsletter.  Our  program  provides  ongoing  consulting  support  for  producing  this  newsletter.  An  interview  about  collaborative  writing  with  the  President  and  Membership  Chair  of  the  Bloomington-­‐Normal  NAACP  branch,  conducted  by  members  of  the  Writing  Program  Leadership  Team,  will  be  featured  in  a  future  volume  of  the  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal.      Upcoming  Diversity  Recruitment  Weekend:  In  Spring  2015,  the  Writing  Program  will  join  the  ISU  English  Department  to  participate  in  a  daylong  “English  Studies”  day  that  specifically  targets  students  from  Illinois  high  schools  with  diverse  populations.  We  will  simultaneously  launch  a  Writing  Mentor  Program,  the  only  “new”  (not  yet  instituted)  project  we  have  included  in  our  application.  Planned  in  collaboration  with  our  department’s  Undergraduate  Committee,  this  Program  will  be  part  of  an  ongoing  effort  to  create  a  more  diverse  student  population  in  the  department.  The  Writing  Program’s  contribution  to  this  goal,  the  Writing  Mentor  Program,  will  encourage  a  diverse  range  of  students  who  select  Illinois  State  University  as  their  university  and  English  as  their  major  to  work  as  Writing  Mentors.  These  students  will  take  English  101  (a  special  section  of  the  course)  in  the  fall  semester  of  their  first  year.  In  the  second  semester,  they  will  work  in  the  Writing  Program’s  satellite  Writing  Center  to  provide  mentoring  to  students  taking  English  101  in  the  spring  semester.  This  project  will  be  part  of  our  ongoing  plan  to  increase  peer-­‐mentoring  opportunities  related  to  English  101/101.10.    K-­‐12  Outreach:  In  response  to  the  nationwide  push  to  institute  Common  Core  Standards  (CCS),  our  program  has  collaborated  with  K-­‐12  teachers  and  librarians  across  Illinois  to  discuss  how  our  genre/CHAT  pedagogy  can  support  instructors  and  students  in  meeting  CCS  requirements.  For  two  years  in  a  row  (2013/2014),  we  have  been  invited  to  present  at  Wheaton  North  High  School’s  Professional  Development  Day  to  talk  with  Illinois  English  teachers  about  helping  students  bridge  from  high  school  to  college  writing.  We  have  also  hosted  several  informal  professional  development  days  with  local  K-­‐12  teachers  to  design  “bridge  assignments”  that  introduce  genre/CHAT  to  K-­‐12  students  to  prepare  them  for  writing  they  will  do  in  college.          Critical  Inquiry  Ambassador  Program:  This  program  is  ongoing,  in  collaboration  with  the  Critical  Inquiry  Committee,  particularly  Instructional  Librarians  at  Milner  Library  and  representatives  from  Speech  Communications  (instructors  and  administrators  for  the  Communications  110  course  that  is  a  partner  course  to  English  101  in  the  first  year  experience  for  students).  Since  most  students  take  both  English  101  and  Communications  110  in  their  first  two  semesters  at  ISU  (one  each  semester),  the  Ambassador  Program  has  been  developing  ways  to  help  students  see  connections  between  the  two  courses,  and  to  more  actively  transfer  the  

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knowledge  they  have  gained  between  these  courses.  In  2013/14,  we  began  a  program  that  invited  English  101  and  Communications  110  instructors  to  visit  each  other’s  classes  and  share  information  about  what  they  learned  regarding  similarities  and  differences  between  the  two  courses.  In  Fall  2014,  we  are  working  to  produce  materials  for  teachers  in  both  groups  that  offer  ideas  for  helping  students  bridge  knowledge  and  gain  more  active  awareness  of  their  knowledge  transfer  between  these  courses.    Additional  Resources  for  Undergraduate  Students  In  this  section,  we  want  to  note  some  projects  and  resources  we  offer  (in  addition  to  coursework)  for  undergraduate  students  at  Illinois  State  University.  We  also  want  to  highlight  projects  that  directly  involve  undergraduate  students  as  writing  researchers  within  our  writing  program.    The  Julia  N.  Visor  Center  provides  a  range  of  services  to  students,  which  include  writing  tutoring.  However,  the  structure  of  the  Visor  Center  (a  focus  on  course-­‐specific  and  content  tutoring)  has  made  it  somewhat  difficult  to  connect  our  “writing  research”  pedagogy  with  writing  tutoring  the  Center  offers.  In  the  last  year,  we  have  been  working  to  establish  additional  training  for  Visor  Center  Tutors  that  will  allow  them  to  work  with  students  from  English  101  and  English  145  more  effectively.    English  101.10  is  our  program’s  course  designed  to  provide  students  (who  self-­‐select  into  it)  with  additional  resources  to  help  them  work  on  their  writing.  We  have  put  great  effort  into  the  development  of  this  course,  which  links  M.A.-­‐level  Writing  Consultants  with  specific  sections  of  the  course.  These  Consultants  facilitate  student-­‐led  “Peer  Study  Groups,”  and  they  also  offer  one-­‐on-­‐one  sessions  for  students  in  that  section.  More  information  about  this  course,  the  peer  groups  and  one-­‐on-­‐one  sessions  is  available  on  our  program  website  (see  “English  101.10”  link  above),  but  we  have  also  begun  work  to  connect  our  program  and  the  Visor  Center  (as  a  satellite  writing  center  space)  by  increasing  the  hours  available  for  one-­‐on-­‐one  sessions  offered  in  our  Writing  Program  Space.    Undergraduate  Writing  Research  Fellowship:  This  project  is  mentioned  in  the  above  “Grassroots  Writing  Research  Programs”  section,  but  we  want  to  include  it  briefly  here  because  we  see  this  project  as  a  way  to  not  only  serve  the  few  students  who  win  fellowships  and  complete  research,  but  to  also  serve  the  greater  community  by  producing  ethnographies  of  fellows’  experiences  (to  be  posted  on  our  website)  that  focus  in-­‐depth  on  the  activities  involved  in  becoming  a  writing  researcher.  Additionally,  we  will  include  videos  from  fellows’  live  Colloquium  presentations  that  can  be  viewed  by  students  and  teachers.    Student  Podcasts:  The  “Let’s  CHAT  Podcast  Series”  project  is  mentioned  in  the  above  “Grassroots  Writing  Research  Programs”  section,  but  we  want  to  include  it  briefly  here  because  in  Fall  2014,  we  will  expand  the  Series  to  include  podcasts  by  undergraduate  students  in  our  English  101  and  English  145  courses  (or  former  students  from  these  courses).  Our  first  podcasts  in  this  expanded  series  will  be  recorded  by  a  group  of  former  students  returning  to  talk  about  how  writing  research  skills  can  be  used  practically  in  writing  situations  beyond  our  writing  program  courses.    Participation  in  Scholarly  Conversations  in  Writing  Studies      Our  program  engages  in  ongoing  outreach  efforts  to  connect  our  practices  with  larger  conversations  in  the  field  of  Writing  Studies.  The  Writing  Program  offers  support  (funding)  for  Writing  Program  instructors  who  attend  conferences  and  present  on  topics  related  to  our  unique  program  goals  and  pedagogies.  In  the  past  several  years,  members  of  our  program  community  have  received  funding  to  present  at  such  diverse  conferences  as  the  Conference  on  College  Composition  &  Communication  (2011,  2012,  2013),  the  NCTE  Conference  (2012),  Genre  Studies  Conference  in  Ottawa,  Canada  (2012),  and  the  Allerton  English  Articulation  Conference  (2013,  2014).  Presenters  have  included  the  Writing  Program  Director,  Assistant  Director,  and  members  of  the  Writing  Program  Leadership  Team.  However,  we  have  also  provided  funding  for  more  than  ten  instructors  in  the  past  three  years  to  attend  conferences  and  present  work  that  reflects  our  program’s  best  practices.      Placement  and  Program  Assessment  As  mentioned  in  the  above  section  on  course  assessment  (see  “Program  Pedagogies,”  p.9-­‐11),  our  program  continually  works  to  find  ways  to  document  and  assess  what  students  are  learning  about  the  practices  of  writing  

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(learning  how  to  learn  how  to  write),  rather  than  assessing  the  products  they  produce,  which  are  inadequate  as  measures  of  learning-­‐in-­‐progress.  Our  attention  to  this  shift  has  also  impacted  ongoing  program-­‐wide  assessments.    The  ISU  program-­‐wide  assessments  of  both  English  101  and  English  145  (Fall  2013  and  Spring  2014,  respectively)  were  designed  to  allow  all  members  of  the  Writing  Program  (including  students)  to  assess  how  primary  concepts  are  being  taken  up  and  used  in  our  classrooms.  These  assessments  were  also  designed  to  allow  our  program  to  review  and  assess  (1)  students’  ability  to  think  critically  about  writing  and  how  it  works,  (2)  their  ability  to  engage  in  rigorous  exploration  of  different  kinds  of  literate  situations,  and  (3)  their  ability  to  assess  their  own  productions  for  correctness  and  appropriateness  for  the  genre/situations  in  which  they  are  writing.  Finally,  the  assessments  allowed  us  to  highlight  concepts  and  skills  that  we  may  want  to  focus  on  more  specifically  in  future  semesters  of  Writing  Program  courses.  The  data  collected  from  these  assessments  was  exceptionally  rich,  and  we  expect  to  use  it  for  our  research,  and  as  a  tool  to  better  understand  our  teaching  and  our  students,  for  the  next  several  years.  Links  to  the  reports  generated  from  both  assessments  are  available  on  our  program  website:  http://isuwriting.com/about/research-­‐and-­‐reports/.      The  general  goal  of  our  program-­‐wide  assessments  is  to  observe  and  assess  both  the  research  and  critical  thinking  skills  that  students  use  as  they  confront  new  writing  situations,  and  the  choices  these  students  make  vis-­‐à-­‐vis  the  genres  they  are  working  to  investigate.    While  we  do  not  expect  to  do  another  program-­‐wide  assessment  until  Fall/Spring  2016/2017,  we  will  continue  to  engage  in  program  assessment  during  the  interim  period.  These  smaller  projects  will  focus  on  particular  skills,  concepts,  and  content  we  want  to  help  students  acquire,  or  measurements  of  uptake  (understanding  how  students  are  taking  up  new  learning  and  using  it)  both  in  our  courses  and  beyond.    Small-­‐Scale  Assessment  Projects  In  Fall  2014,  we  will  work  on  a  self-­‐assessment  project  that  experiments  with  ways  to  help  students  better  understand  how  a  genre/CHAT  approach  to  practical  writing  research  can  be  a  useful  way  to  both  understand  one’s  own  writing  knowledge  and  to  gain  knowledge  about  different  genre  situations.  Our  program-­‐wide  assessment  (as  well  as  other,  current  research  in  the  field11)  indicates  that  the  antecedent  understanding  of  “school  genres”  students  bring  to  the  English  101  classroom  has  a  significant  impact  on  the  success  of  their  uptake  and  transfer  efforts.  In  addition,  a  pilot  study  that  we  completed  here  at  ISU  (with  Master’s  students  Kayla  Bruce  and  Laurenn  Jarema)  indicated  that  an  early  exposure  to  students’  own  lack  of  knowledge  about  diverse  genres  created  a  fairly  clear  impetus  for  them  to  attend  to  the  intricacies  of  practical  writing  research  as  a  way  to  become  more  adept  at  writing  in  multiple  genres.    Our  self-­‐assessment  works  to  shape  students’  attitudes  toward  the  work  of  English  101.  Students  in  both  English  101  and  101.10  will  be  completing  the  self-­‐assessment,  as  will  a  “control”  group  (who  will  complete  short  pre/post  surveys  but  not  participate  in  the  full  assessment).  Our  goal  is  to  work  towards  a  program-­‐wide  self-­‐assessment  activity,  but  we  expect  that  work  to  take  several  semesters.      Writing-­‐Across-­‐the-­‐Curriculum  (WAC)  Research  Project  In  Fall  2014,  we  will  conduct  WAC  research  that  surveys  instructors  across  ISU  about  the  types  of  writing  they  assign  in  their  courses.  We  will  begin  with  College  of  Business  instructors,  but  in  Spring  2015  will  move  to  a  survey  of  instructors  across  campus.  All  participating  instructors  will  also  be  encouraged  to  send  us  samples  of  assignments  and  exemplary  student  work.    Longitudinal  Study  of  Student  Writers  In  Fall  2014,  we  will  conduct  interviews  with  students  who  took  English  101  in  Spring  2014.  Two  Writing  Program  instructors,  Katy  Stein  (Ph.D.  Student)  and  Laura  Skokan  (M.A.  Student),  will  work  with  us  to  interview  up  to  20  

                                                                                                               11  For  a  very  recent  discussion  of  this  issue,  see:  Yancey,  Kathleen  Blake,  Robertson,  L.,  and  Taczak,  K.  (2014).  Writing  Across  Contexts:  Transfer,  Composition,  and  Sites  of  Writing.  Utah  State  UP.  

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students  about  the  writing  they  encounter  in  their  coursework  and  how  the  work  of  English  101  does  (or  does  not)  provide  useful  information  as  they  negotiate  these  new  writing  spaces.  We  expect  to  follow  at  least  some  of  these  students  through  their  entire  undergraduate  careers  at  ISU.    The  Writing  Program  Staff  Writing  Program  Staff  includes  eleven  ongoing  positions.  Three  of  the  positions  are  full-­‐time:    

Writing  Program  Director:  Joyce  R.  Walker,  Associate  Professor  of  Writing  Studies,  Department  of  English  Studies.  The  Director  teaches  a  1/1course  load,  which  includes  teaching  English  402  each  fall.  This  course,  titled  “Teaching  College  Writing”  focuses  specifically  on  current  theories  and  concepts  related  to  Genre  Studies,  Cultural-­‐Historical  Activity  Theory,  Threshold  Concepts,  Multimodal  and  Multimedia  Writing,  Linguistic  Diversity,  and  Access  and  Accessibility  (see  Appendix  IV  for  a  Reading  List  for  this  course).  The  Director  actively  oversees  all  training,  assessment  and  ongoing  professional  development  for  the  program,  as  well  as  acting  as  a  liaison  with  a  variety  of  institutions  and  groups  across  campus.    Assistant  Director:  Nancy  McKinney,  Academic  Professional,  Department  of  English  Studies.  The  Assistant  Director  works  with  ISU  advisors  to  schedule  courses  and  assist  with  student  enrollment.  She  also  works  to  negotiate  situations  related  to  plagiarism  and  citation  misuse  (often  working  to  handle  these  situations  “in-­‐house”  as  teaching  situations).  In  addition,  the  Assistant  Director  is  the  first-­‐contact  for  student  and  instructor  problems  and  complaints,  and  is  an  ongoing  resource  for  instructors  regarding  program  policies  and  behavioral  issues  in  particular.    Office  Manager:  Maegan  Gaddis.  The  Office  Manager  is  an  extremely  important  position  in  the  Writing  Program.  She  manages  both  the  facilities  and  the  materials  we  regularly  use  as  a  program.  In  addition,  she  handles  our  budgeting  and  record  keeping,  and  works  with  the  Data  Coordinator  (see  “Graduate  Positions”  section  below)  to  archive  materials  from  our  various  assessment  and  research  projects.  

 Graduate  Positions:  In  addition  to  the  three  full-­‐time  positions  described  above,  there  are  eight  funded  graduate  assistants  (all  at  Ph.D.  level)  with  half-­‐time  appointments  in  the  Writing  Program.  We  have  listed  brief  descriptions  of  these  positions  below,  but  more  complete  descriptions  are  on  our  website  (http://isuwriting.com/about/meet-­‐the-­‐team/).  All  members  of  the  Writing  Program  Leadership  Team  are  also  graduate  students  in  the  Department  of  English,  but  their  areas  of  interest  include  the  full  range  of  sub-­‐disciplines  represented  in  our  English  Studies  department.      

Position  1:  The  English  101  Coordinator  acts  as  a  mentor  for  new  and  continuing  101  instructors,  which  means  that  he  ↔  she  interacts  with  experienced  instructors  and  non-­‐tenure  track  faculty,  as  well  as  new  instructors  (M.A.  and  Ph.D.  students).  This  position  requires  significant  mentoring  skills,  as  well  as  skills  for  designing  course  plans  and  assignments,  and  the  ability  to  work  with  lots  of  different  teaching  styles  in  a  way  that  remains  attentive  to  the  knowledge  and  expertise  that  teachers  bring  to  our  program.  The  current  English  101  Coordinator  is  Jeff  Reints,  Ph.D.,  Literature  and  Culture.      Position  2:  The  English  101.10  Coordinator  works  closely  with  the  101  Coordinator.  In  general,  this  position  is  focused  specifically  on  providing  training,  mentoring,  and  teaching  resources  for  the  101.10  instructors  and  consultants.  The  101.10  Coordinator  should  be  an  excellent  teacher,  preferably  with  experience  teaching  or  consulting  in  ENG  101.10  (although  this  is  not  required).  The  current  English  101.10  Coordinator  is  Evan  Nave,  Ph.D.,  Creative  Writing.        Position  3:  The  English  145  Coordinator  works  to  mentor  instructors  who  are  new  to  teaching  the  course,  and  to  develop  resources  for  instructors.  He  ↔  she  also  oversees  the  ongoing  Writing  Across  the  Curriculum  Project  and  other  projects  involving  the  ISU  College  of  Business.  The  current  English  145  Coordinator  is  Deb  Riggert  Keiffer,  Ph.D.,  English  Education  and  Rhetoric  and  Composition.      

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Position  4:  The  Technology  Coordinator  has  several  important  responsibilities.  He  ↔  she  acts  as  a  liaison  with  instructors,  helping  them  with  our  website  or  other  tech  issues;  provides  resources  (on  our  website  and  in  one-­‐on-­‐one  sessions)  for  innovative  uses  of  technology  in  teaching  writing;  maintains  the  program  website  and  calendar;  and  attends  to  the  recording/publishing  of  our  various  professional  development  events.  The  current  Technology  Coordinator  is  Kate  Brown,  Ph.D.,  Literature  and  Culture  and  Disability  Studies.      Position  5:  The  Program  Outreach  Coordinator  specifically  deals  with  events  that  “reach  out”  to  audiences  beyond  our  program  and  bring  new  voices  and  ideas  into  our  program.  Some  particular  events  this  coordinator  oversees  each  semester  include  the  Writing  Program  Speaker  Series,  the  Writing  Research  Fellowship  Program  and  Colloquium,  and  the  Half-­‐Mile  Project.  In  addition,  the  Coordinator  focuses  on  outreach  to  K-­‐12  instructors  and  programs.  The  current  Program  Outreach  Coordinator  is  Emily  Johnston,  Ph.D.,  Literature  and  Culture  and  Rhetoric  and  Composition.      Position  6:  The  Data  and  Research  Coordinator  is  responsible  for  managing/organizing  multiple  research  projects  currently  in-­‐progress  in  our  writing  program.  Ongoing  program  assessment  projects  are  a  critical  aspect  of  this  position.  Other  projects  include  Writing  Across  the  Curriculum  research,  general  Writing  Curriculum  research,  information  fluency  research  (in  collaboration  with  Milner  library),  and  projects  in  collaboration  with  the  Critical  Inquiry  Committee.  Finally,  the  Data  and  Research  Coordinator  is  responsible  for  producing  resources  (reports,  course  materials,  etc.)  based  on  our  ongoing  research  projects.  The  current  Data  and  Research  Coordinator  is  Summer  Qabazard,  Ph.D.,  Creative  Writing.      Position  7:  The  Professional  Development  Coordinator  is  responsible  for  professional  development  events  designed  specifically  for  Writing  Program  Instructors.  The  PD  Coordinator  plans  events,  writes  reports,  creates  resources,  and  maintains  the  program  calendar  of  events,  including  our  program  podcasts,  other  small  group  events,  and  large  events  such  as  our  pre-­‐semester  summits.  The  current  Professional  Development  Coordinator  is  Michelle  Wright  Dottore,  Ph.D.,  Creative  Writing.      Position  8:  The  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  Editor  is  a  critically  important  position  because  the  timely  publication  of  our  journal  is  the  primary  source  of  funding  for  all  Writing  Program  events  and  resources.  The  current  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  Editor  is  Julie  Bates,  Ph.D.,  Rhetoric  and  Composition  and  Technical  Communication.      

 Professional  Development  Much  of  the  information  above  describes  our  ongoing  efforts  at  professional  development.  Through  activities  such  as  writing  articles  for  the  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  (authors  are  paid  a  $50.00  honorarium  upon  publication),  participating  in  and  listening  to  program  podcasts,  attending  our  Visiting  Speaker  events  and  Colloquium,  and  using  our  other  resources  (such  as  handouts,  information  from  our  program  blog,  or  videos  from  our  events  posted  online),  instructors  can  both  engage  in  ongoing  professional  development  and  also  help  students  to  experience  writing  research  activities  in  a  range  of  ways.  However,  we  have  several  additional  types  of  professional  development  that  we  offer  to  both  new  and  returning  instructors,  which  we  will  briefly  outline  below.      New  Instructor  Orientation:  This  orientation  is  a  seven-­‐day  workshop  for  graduate  assistants  (also  open  to  new  adjunct  instructors  and  NTT  faculty).  A  basic  schedule  for  our  2014  Orientation  is  available  on  our  program  website  (http://isuwriting.com/resources-­‐for-­‐teaching-­‐in-­‐the-­‐writing-­‐program/new-­‐instructor-­‐orientation/).  Orientations  have  been  extremely  well  received  by  our  new  instructors.  While  it  is  not  possible  here  to  list  the  full  range  of  learning  and  support  that  the  Writing  Program  offers  during  these  sessions,  we  would  like  to  list  here  the  evaluations  of  our  Fall  2014  orientation  by  new  instructors  (anonymous,  web-­‐based  survey):      

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     Writing  Program  Summits:  The  ISU  Writing  Program  Summit  is  our  main  professional  development  for  returning  and  new  instructors.  The  Summit  takes  place  on  the  two  days  prior  to  the  start  of  both  Fall  and  Spring  semesters,  offering  a  range  of  activities  designed  to  help  both  new  and  experienced  instructors  learn  about  new  Writing  Program  events  and  research  projects,  as  well  as  a  space  for  instructors  to  discuss  best  practices  for  teaching  in  the  Writing  Program.  A  program  from  our  Fall  2014  Summit,  and  a  “What’s  new  in  the  Writing  Program”  flyer  distributed  at  the  Fall  2014  Summit  are  both  available  on  our  program  website  (see  “Writing  Program  Summits”  link  above).  Some  Summit  planning  takes  place  in  the  summer  and  winter  break,  respectively.  Summer/winter  break  work  usually  includes  contacting  presenters,  finalizing  the  Summit  program,  ordering  food  and  organizing  the  spaces.  However,  summer/winter  break  work  also  includes  a  final  review  of  new  resources,  and  work  to  make  sure  that  resources  are  available  and  in  place  before  the  event  begins.      Tech  Time  Training  and  Outreach:  Our  Technology  Coordinator  provides  ongoing  professional  development  in  both  one-­‐on-­‐one  sessions  and  small  group  meetings.  These  events  provide  time  and  space  for  instructors  to  discuss  and  explore  new  ideas  for  making  effective  use  of  the  technologies  available  to  us  and  our  students,  in  particular,  making  effective  use  of  our  computer  classrooms.  However,  because  we  know  instructors  are  often  busy,  we  also  post  information  from  these  sessions  on  our  program  website.  A  search  of  our  Program  Blog  for  “technology”  brings  up  a  wide  range  of  different  kinds  of  resources,  and  we  also  have  a  Technology  Resources  page  that  provides  a  range  of  links.    Brown  Bag  Lunches:  Throughout  each  semester,  we  offer  a  series  of  2-­‐3  brown  bag  lunches  that  deal  with  a  range  of  general  teaching  topics.  We  often  place  materials  from  these  discussions  on  our  program  website.  In  Fall  2014,  we  have  a  plan  for  several  brown  bag  lunches  (the  Writing  Program  provides  drinks  and  desserts),  in  collaboration  with  the  ISU  chapter  of  the  Rhetoric  Society,  that  focus  specifically  on  disability  and  accessibility  in  the  classroom.  We  will  have  a  guest  speaker  from  ISU  Disability  Services,  but  will  also  feature  discussions  led  by  graduate  students  in  our  program  who  focus  on  disability  studies  and  issues  of  technology  and  accessibility.    English  402:  This  course,  titled  “Teaching  College  Writing,”  focuses  specifically  on  current  theories  and  concepts  related  to  Genre  Studies,  Cultural-­‐Historical  Activity  Theory,  Threshold  Concepts,  Multimodal  and  Multimedia  Writing,  Linguistic  Diversity,  and  Access  and  Accessibility  (see  Appendix  IV  for  a  Reading  List  for  this  course).  The  course  is  taught  as  a  professional  development  course  that  helps  new  instructors  to  form  a  cohort.  However,  we  also  open  this  course  to  interested  NTTs  and  Adjuncts.  We  send  out  a  reading  list  with  discussion  dates  and  invite  instructors  to  attend  sessions  that  they  are  interested  in.  In  addition,  we  invite  non-­‐teaching  graduate  students  to  attend  the  course,  helping  them  to  feel  more  integrated  with  their  cohort.  This  is  certainly  beneficial  when  these  individuals  later  become  interested  in  teaching  in  the  program.    

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Instructor  Cohort  Groups:  These  are  groups  that  operate  during  the  first  semester  for  new  graduate  students,  NTT’s  and  Contingent  faculty.  Since  the  numbers  of  NTT’s  and  Contingent  faculty  are  low,  there  are  not  often  new  faculty  members  who  need  to  participate,  but  we  make  sure  to  invite  (although  not  require)  them  to  attend.  The  cohort  groups  are  required  for  new  M.A.  and  Ph.D.  students  during  their  first  semester.  Each  spring  semester,  we  also  encourage  the  formation  of  cohort  groups,  which  can  include  any  instructors  in  the  program.  Most  often  these  are  attended  by  first-­‐year  instructors,  but  we  often  have  5-­‐10  experienced  instructors  who  attend  these  meetings  as  well.      Experimental  Teaching  Groups:  Each  year  we  try  to  form  at  least  one  experimental  teaching  group  that  focuses  on  an  issue  of  interest  to  our  program.  We  have  two  goals  for  these  groups:  (1)  to  create  ideas  about  best  practices,  and  (2)  produce  materials  and  resources  for  teachers  and  students  to  use.  In  addition,  these  groups  are  encouraged  (and  supported  in  their  efforts  to)  publish  or  present  this  work  at  a  range  of  conferences.  In  the  past  few  years  of  the  Experimental  Teaching  Groups,  participants  have  gone  onto  present  at  two  national  conferences,  among  others:  the  NCTE  Conference  in  2011  (“Knowing  What  I/You/We  Know:  Alternative  Assessment  in  Writing  Instruction”),  and  the  CCCC  in  2014  (“Teach,  Transform,  and  Talk  for  High  Road  Transfer:  Uptake  Genres  Helping  Students  Articulate  How  They  Mediate  Writing  Development”).    Support  for  Outside  Professional  Development:  We  provide  financial  support  for  teachers  who  participate  in  professional  development  (attending  conferences,  presenting  at  conferences,  conducting  research  into  literate  practice,  publishing  work,  and  so  forth).  Each  year,  we  spend  up  to  $1500.00  of  our  total  budget  to  assist  instructors  with  these  types  of  projects.  A  list  of  recent  conferences  where  our  instructors  have  presented  is  maintained  on  our  program  website.    APPENDIX  I:  Writing  Program  Learning  Outcomes    Learning  Outcomes  for  English  101  

1. Identifying  Genres:  Students  should  be  able  to  articulate  features  of  multiple  academic  and  non-­‐academic  genres,  including  how  those  features  shape  content  and  reader  expectations,  as  well  as  how  their  writing  does/doesn’t  conform  to  generic  features.    

2. Creating  Content:  Students  should  be  able  to  create  content  in  multiple  genres,  analyze  their  use  of  rhetorical  strategies  in  producing  genre  productions,  and  articulate  how  those  strategies  shape  texts  and  their  production.    

3. Organizing  Information  in  Multiple  Genres:  Students  should  be  able  to  identify  and  articulate  the  organizational  structures  that  govern  different  kinds  of  genres.  

4. Technology/Media:  Students  should  be  able  to  identify  the  technologies/tools  necessary  to  produce  different  genres,  articulate  how  texts  are  affected  by  the  technologies  they  employ,  and  select  appropriate  technologies  to  produce  their  own  texts.      

5. The  Trajectories  of  Literate  Activity:  Students  should  be  able  to  trace  the  trajectories  of  texts  in  relation  to  the  social,  historical  contexts  that  shape  them.  

6. Flexible  Research  Skills:  Students  should  be  able  to  find  and  utilize  a  variety  of  source  materials  and  data-­‐collection  methods  for  research  purposes.    

7. Using  Citation  Formats  and  Citing  Source  Material  in  Multiple  Genres:  Students  should  investigate  one  or  more  academic  citation  styles,  integrate  source  material  into  their  written  projects  to  support  rhetorical  goals,  and  cite  source  material  correctly  according  to  those  styles.    

8. Grammatical  Usage  and  Sentence  Structure:  Students  should  be  able  to  articulate  how  sentence  structure,  grammar  and  vocabulary  define  particular  genres,  then  use  those  conventions  appropriately  in  their  own  productions  and  identify/revise  any  areas  for  improvement.    

9. Cultural  and  Social  Contexts:  Students  should  be  able  to  identify  cultural,  political  and  social  interactions  that  shape  writing  in  particular  genres  as  well  as  how  texts  respond  to  sociocultural  influences.    

 Learning  Outcomes  for  English  145  

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The  primary  goal  of  English  145  is  to  prepare  students  for  the  continuation  of  writing  and  researching  in  their  academic  disciplines  as  well  as  within  their  professional  fields.      

1. Identifying  Genres:  Students  should  be  able  to  identify  and  articulate  the  features  of  genres  in  their  academic  disciplines  and/or  in  their  potential  career  fields.  They  should  also  be  able  to  articulate  how  discipline  and  field-­‐specific  information  is  shaped  by  a  range  of  genres  common  to  discourses  in  those  disciplines  and  fields.    

2. Creating  Content  for  Multiple  Settings  and  Modalities:  Students  should  be  able  to  create  content  in  multiple  genres,  particularly  genres  related  to  working  and  learning  in  various  types  of  business-­‐related  settings  in  the  workplace  and  in  academia;  they  should  be  able  to  identify  different  types  of  rhetorical  strategies  and  employ  them  in  their  writing;  they  should  be  able  to  employ  a  range  of  other  skills  (a  knowledge  of  mechanics,  style,  different  production  modalities,  etc.)  and  defend  their  choices  as  a  thoughtful  response  to  specific  writing  and  genre  situations.  Students  should  be  able  to  demonstrate  (through  written  or  verbal  communication)  how  a  given  text  is  affected  by  the  use  of  different  technologies  or  media  (in  terms  of  its  conception,  production,  and  distribution,  as  well  as  the  potential  ways  the  text  may  be  taken  up  by  users).  

3. Flexible  Research  Skills:  Students  should  be  able  to  demonstrate  knowledge  and  understanding  of  what  constitutes  research  (and  valid,  reliable  source  material)  within  their  professional  fields;  they  should  be  familiar  with  a  variety  of  data  collection  methods  specific  to  their  fields;  and  they  should  be  able  to  identify  and  use  library  databases,  scholarly  journals,  and  trade  journals  used  most  frequently  within  their  major  area  of  study  and  within  their  professional  fields.  

4. Using  Citation  Formats  and  Citing  Source  Materials:  Students  should  have  a  general  understanding  of  the  different  types  of  citation  styles  used  in  academic  disciplines  (MLA,  APA,  Chicago  Manual  of  Style,  etc.),  but  should  also  be  able  to  use  alternative  means  of  citing  (or  giving  credit  to  sources)  in  non-­‐academic  genres.  Students  should  be  able  to  integrate  source  material  into  written,  visual,  and  multi-­‐modal  genres.  

5. Discourse  Communities:  Students  should  demonstrate  an  understanding  of  how  written,  oral  and  visual  communication  is  shaped  by  discourse  communities  within  their  academic  disciplines  and/or  professional  fields  as  well  as  an  understanding  that  different  discourse  communities  (especially  within  different  fields  and  different  workplace  settings)  differently  shape  the  manner  in  which  genres  are  produced.    

6. Trajectory:  Students  should  be  able  to  employ  practical  knowledge  about  the  trajectories  of  texts  in  order  to  solve  writing  problems  that  include  the  following  elements:  (1)  the  trajectory  of  any  text  or  genre  is  not  simple,  unidirectional,  or  isolated  but  instead,  the  trajectory  of  a  given  text  is  complex,  multi-­‐directional,  and  non-­‐linear;  (2)  the  trajectory  of  a  text  does  not  end  once  it  has  reached  its  desired/designated  receiver;  and  (3)  Individuals  and  groups  that  receive  a  text  (and  use  it)  may  do  so  in  ways  that  are  unexpected  or  unintended  by  the  author/producers.  

7. Globalization,  Cultural  Contexts  and  Diversity:  Students  should  be  able  to  demonstrate  an  understanding  of  how  to  produce  genres  in  ways  that  take  international,  multicultural,  and  culturally  diverse  settings,  practices,  and  ideologies  into  consideration.    

8. Ethics:  Students  should  be  familiar  with  (and  adhere  to)  the  codes  of  conduct,  ethical  behaviors  and  practices,  and  guidelines  for  responsible  research  within  their  professional  fields.  Students  should  be  able  to  solve  writing  problems  in  which  that  definition  of  ethical  behavior  may  be  interpreted  differently  within  different  cultural,  social,  and  global  contexts.    

 APPENDIX  2:  Requirements  &  Topical  Outline  for  Writing  Program  Courses  Because  English  101  and  English  145  are  General  Education  courses  at  ISU  and  thus  need  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  Illinois  Articulation  Initiative,  there  are  certain  aspects  of  the  course  that  need  to  be  the  same  across  all  sections.  However,  the  ISU  Writing  Program  and  instructors  have  agreed  that  this  uniformity  need  not  be  achieved  through  a  “common  syllabus.”  Instead,  we  work  with  a  set  of  requirements  that  meet  or  exceed  the  requirements  of  the  university  and  state  of  Illinois.  Instructors  have  the  freedom  to  design  innovative  courses  that  include  a  wide  range  of  genres  and  assessment/grading  methods,  and  work  with  a  wide  range  of  topics  and  ideas.    However,  each  instructor  must  meet  overall  course  requirements,  and  be  confident  that  the  course  he  ↔  she  has  designed  meets  (or  exceeds)  the  requirements.  We  have  included  here  a  copy  of  the  requirements  and  course  

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outline  for  English  101,  but  we  provide  a  similar  document  for  instructors  who  teach  English  145.  Full  Information  about  our  courses  is  available  on  our  program  website:  http://isuwriting.com/about/quick-­‐course-­‐descriptions/.      Course  Design  Requirements  for  English  101  Series  Courses    Learning  Outcomes  There  are  Program  Learning  Outcomes  appropriate  to  each  Writing  Program  course.  Instructors  should  make  sure  that  they  are  addressing  each  of  the  learning  outcomes  in  a  significant  way,  and  also  that  their  assessments  and  grading  practices  are  clearly  connected  with  the  learning  outcomes.    Required  Research  Elements  These  items  are  different  from  the  Program  Learning  Outcomes,  because  they  are  elements  we  expect  instructors  to  ensure  that  each  section  of  English  101  contains.  How  these  elements  are  organized  and  what  projects/genres  they  are  a  part  of  is  up  to  the  instructors.    

1. Content  Research  and  Genre  Research:  Since  “researching  literate  activity”  is  a  core  component  of  our  program,  instructors  need  to  ensure  that  all  projects  include  some  kind  of  research  into  the  actual  activity  system  (we  call  that  “genre  research”)  in  which  a  piece  of  writing  occurs.  However,  instructors  should  also  provide  opportunities  for  students  to  do  “content  research”  on  various  topics  as  well.    

2. Formal,  documented  research  component  to  all  projects:  Our  goal  here  is  to  make  sure  that  multiple  projects  throughout  the  semester  include  not  only  content  and  genre  research,  but  that  this  research  be  documented  and  included  as  part  of  the  grade  for  the  project.  This  means  that  if  you  have  a  project  where  the  actual  “genre-­‐of-­‐production”  is  one  where  formal,  cited  research  would  be  inappropriate  (for  example,  a  news  article,  brochure,  or  Public  Service  Announcement),  you  should  make  sure  that  students  document  their  content/genre  research  in  the  form  of  some  kind  of  formal  writing  (a  report  or  other  kind  of  cited  document)  that  can  be  assessed  as  part  of  the  grade  for  the  project.        

3. Researched  writing  that  includes  citations:  At  least  one  (but  preferably  more)  of  the  projects  in  English  101  should  include  discussion  and  practice  of  various  citation  methods.  Remember  there  are  two  important  aspects  related  to  citations  you  should  continually  address:  (1)  that  citation  practices  vary  in  different  kinds  of  writing  settings;  and  (2)  that  in  many  settings  it  is  critical  to  be  able  to  accurately  document  where  information  comes  from  (discussions  of  practices  in  citing  digital  information  are  critical).  

4. Researched  writing  that  is  for  a  “real  world”  audience:  At  least  one  project  in  the  course  should  include  researched  writing  that  is  specifically  designed  for  a  public  audience.  

5. Project  length:  At  least  one  project  in  the  course  should  include  content  research  that  is  3000  words  (approximately  6  pages  or  the  equivalent  if  multimodal)  in  length.  This  excludes  the  additional  “genre  research”  that  students  might  be  doing  for  the  project.    

6. Writing  research  and  genre  investigation:  Because  “the  investigation  of  literate  activity”  is  a  core  principle  of  our  program,  instructors  need  to  make  this  is  a  focus  for  the  course.  The  concepts  of  “writing  research”  should  inform  all  projects  in  the  course,  but  we  prefer  that  the  longer,  researched  writing  project  also  be  a  project  that  asks  students  to  investigate  literate  activity  (and  perhaps  produce  writing  appropriate  for  the  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal).  However,  this  is  not  a  required  element  because  instructors  can  achieve  a  “writing  research”  focus  by  focusing  on  this  work  as  part  of  the  “Formal,  documented  research  component”  for  each  project,  even  if  they  do  not  include  writing  research  as  the  focus  of  their  researched  writing  project.  

7. Sentence-­‐level  and  linguistic  research:  It  is  important  that  instructors  include  assignments  where  the  accuracy  of  the  choices  a  student  makes  regarding  grammar,  style,  organization,  and  so  forth  have  an  impact  on  the  final  grade.  Although  we  are  striving  to  assess  “learning  not  mastery,”  it  is  still  important  for  students  to  be  able  to  document  their  learning  about  these  critical  choices  –  which  often  occur  at  the  sentence  or  even  word-­‐level.  This  means  that  instructors  should  regularly  include  discussions  of  these  issues  as  part  of  the  work  of  each  project.  

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8. Finding  and  using  source  materials  effectively:  It  is  critical  that  instructors  include  not  only  multiple  opportunities  for  students  to  engage  in  research,  but  that  they  actively  teach  and  include  discussions  on  how  to  effectively  find  and  use  information.  Since  we  are  focusing  on  documented  research  for  both  genre  and  content  research,  these  discussions  can  be  a  regular  part  of  the  class  work  for  each  project.  Your  ISU  librarians  can  also  help  you  with  ideas  for  this  kind  of  instruction.  

9. Research  methods:  We  would  like  all  instructors  to  think  carefully  about  the  kinds  of  research  methods  that  are  included  in  both  the  content  and  genre  research  you  ask  students  to  produce.  Rather  than  simply  focusing  on  finding  source  materials  through  traditional  print-­‐or-­‐digital  library  sources,  we  would  like  instructors  to  actively  engage  with  one  or  more  specific  types  of  research  methods  that  are  used  in  a  range  of  disciplines.    

 General  Example  of  a  Topical  Outline  for  English  101  This  example  includes  15  weeks.  ISU  generally  has  15  weeks  of  class  and  one  week  of  break  during  a  semester.    Week  One:  During  week  one,  instructors  generally  take  time  to  have  students  do  introductions  and/or  activities  that  get  them  to  begin  engaging  in  discussions  about  the  kinds  of  writing  they  have  engaged  in  in  other  settings  (both  school  and  non-­‐school).  Instructors  also  introduce  the  course  plan  and  explain/discuss  the  program  learning  outcomes  during  this  week.  Instructors  usually  begin  the  first  project  at  the  end  of  week  one,  or  the  beginning  of  week  two.    Weeks  Two  –  Four:  Instructors  usually  begin  the  first  project  (we  often  call  them  “Units”  or  “Writing  Experiments”)  during  the  first  two  weeks  of  the  course.  In  general,  first  units  involve  “shorter”  genres  (i.e.,  writing  for  situations  where  the  word  count  produced  for  the  actual  writing  experiment  might  range  anywhere  from  250-­‐1000  words).  Our  goals  for  these  first  assignments  is  to  ask  students  (many  of  them,  for  the  first  time  in  their  educational  lives)  to  engage  in  a  more  active,  thorough,  research-­‐oriented  approach  to  understanding  their  own  literate  activities,  or  the  entire  body  of  activities  and  productions  that  are  involved  in  writing  in  a  particular  way  for  a  particular  setting.  Thus,  the  writing  experiment  “target  genre”  in  this  first  project  is  often  intentionally  short  because  the  skills  students  are  focusing  on  involve  seeing  that  genre  in  a  very  different  way  than  they  might  have  done  before.  These  first  few  weeks  are  also  the  time  when  instructors  introduce  students  to  the  work  of  creating  writing  “field  notes”  and  “research  reports,”  genres  specific  to  this  course  and  important  assessment  vehicles  for  demonstrating  learning  and  mastery  of  both  specific  writing  skills  for  specific  situations,  and  skills  for  “learning”  about  writing  in  new  situations  more  generally.    Weeks  Four  –  Eight:  In  general,  the  second  Unit  or  Writing  Experiment  begins  to  engage  students  more  actively  in  content  research  (in  addition  to  genre  research),  and  in  the  processes  of  documenting  that  research  through  different  kinds  of  bibliographic  representations.  In  addition,  instructors  usually  introduce  the  concept  of  making  appropriate  genre  choices  (i.e.,  asking  students  to  decide  on  the  specific  genres  they  want  to  produce  in  response  to  a  writing  problem,  and  the  need  to  present  researched  information  and/or  arguments  to  a  specific  type  of  audience).  Instructors  often  use  this  second  unit  to  introduce  students  to  the  idea  of  “research  methods.”  They  explicitly  discuss  with  students  the  idea  that  reading  books  and  other  sources  is  only  one  way  to  generate  information,  while  creating  original  research  may  involve  other  kinds  of  looking/thinking/asking  questions.  The  specific  genres  students  produce  during  this  second  unit  often  vary  in  length  (even  among  students  in  the  same  classroom),  but  the  rigor  of  the  field  notes  and  genre  reports  is  often  increased  for  all  students  during  this  unit.    Weeks  Eight  –  Fifteen:  This  section  of  the  course  is  usually  reserved  for  what  we  call  the  “longer-­‐researched  writing”  production  where  students  are  asked  to  produce  a  research-­‐based  genre  of  significant  length  (minimum  2500-­‐3000  words).  Our  “default”  production  for  this  unit  is  for  students  to  produce  original  writing  research  of  the  kind  that  can  be  published  in  our  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal.  However,  many  instructors  opt  to  give  students  the  choice  to  produce  research  appropriate  to  any  one  of  a  myriad  of  undergraduate  research  publications  (see  http://www.cur.org/resources/students/undergraduate_journals/  for  information  on  different  publications  we  ask  students  to  consider).  In  addition  to  doing  content  research,  students  are  also  asked  to  do  extensive  “genre  research”  to  identify  the  features  of  the  text  they  wish  to  produce.  

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 Weeks  Fourteen  –  Fifteen:  This  section  of  the  course  varies  from  one  instructor  to  another  as  many  instructors  divide  their  units  up  differently  –  even  adding  an  additional  unit  or  two  (which  usually  break  down  skills  or  learning  outcomes  more  discretely,  but  still  follow  a  similar  trajectory).  However,  during  our  “assessment  semesters,”  which  take  place  once  every  three  years,  the  last  several  weeks  of  the  course  are  devoted  to  having  students  across  all  sections  of  the  course  to  engage  in  a  “problem-­‐solving”  assessment  that  asks  them  to  produce  writing  in  response  to  specific  writing  scenarios.  In  general,  our  assessments  ask  students  to  explicitly  practice  (and  articulate  their  use  of)  skills  they  have  learned  in  the  course  to  investigate  an  unfamiliar  writing  situation,  to  engage  in  appropriate  kinds  of  genre  and  content  research  in  response  to  the  scenarios,  and  to  create  productions  that  actively  work  to  solve  the  writing  problem.  This  assessment  asks  students  to  engage  in  the  production  of  “genre  research”  and  “content  research”  reports  (similar  to  those  they  produce  during  the  semester).    Appendix  3:    Sample  Units  for  ENG  101  and  ENG  145  Courses  Because  of  our  program’s  open  syllabus  policy,  we  felt  it  might  not  be  productive  to  offer  a  sample  of  a  single,  full  course  plan.  Instead,  we  offer  this  sample  of  descriptions  of  major  projects  from  three  different  Writing  Program  courses.  These  samples,  when  combined  with  the  application  sections  on  Uptake  Genres  and  Classroom  Assessment  and  the  other  course-­‐related  appendices,  offer  a  robust  snapshot  of  our  courses’  foci  and  productions.    English  101  (General  Course)    Course  Experiments:  

1. Creative  Tongues.  Immersion.  In  our  first  experiment,  we  use  our  writing  research  lab  goggles  to  explore  the  concepts  and  conventions  of  a  creative  folk  tradition  genre.  After  exploring  the  concept  and  conventions  of  the  creative  folk  tradition  genre,  students  will  research  and  experiment  with  another  creative  narrative  genre  of  their  choosing,  specifically  making  a  freely-­‐written  personal  narrative  about  an  intense  emotional  moment  in  their  life  into  a  creative  form  (such  as  a  script,  screenplay,  story  board,  graphic  novel,  picture  book,  fairy  tale,  flash  fiction,  or  prose  poem;  or  a  digital  creative  form,  such  as  a  blog,  or  any  other  approved  creative  narrative  genre).    

2. Lights,  Camera,  (Pathos),  Action.  Collaboration.  In  our  second  experiment,  we  will  take  our  writing  scientist  goggles  into  multimedia  productions  to  investigate  the  genre  of  modern  day  television  commercials.  Becoming  a  member  of  an  advertisement  agency  in  charge  of  your  own  department,  students  will  collaborate  on  the  task  of  producing  an  original  television  commercial,  one  that  persuades  a  specific  audience  to  buy  a  product  as  well  as  a  not-­‐so-­‐obvious  idea  (such  as  nostalgia,  hope,  a  better  way,  etc.)  by  using  pathos  effectively.      

3. What-­‐cha  Wearin’?  Reinvention.  For  our  third  experiment,  we  will  discuss  rhetorical  strategies  of  citation  and  quotation  and  use  this  to  discover  (or  rather  uncover)  the  genres  of  concise  writing  forms,  specifically  what  is  seen  in  tattoo  and  tee-­‐shirts/sweatshirts  designs.  Students  will  experiment  with  recontextualization,  and  then  using  multimodalities,  reinvent  this  quote  on  a  tee  shirt.    

4. Words  Can  Express:  ISU  Deep  Interaction.  For  our  last  experiment,  we  will  be  working  with  the  genre  that  is  the  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  (GWRJ)  article.  Whatever  your  particular  topic,  you  will  be  writing  in  the  genre  of  a  GWRJ  article.  You  are  encouraged  to  submit  “publishable”  drafts  to  the  journal  editors  for  possible  publication  in  a  future  iteration  of  the  journal.    

 English  101  (Specific  Section  for  Education  majors,  with  a  focus  on  preparing  for  teaching  in  urban  settings)    Unit  Summaries  

1. Investigation  1  –  Formulating  an  Understanding  of  Everyday  Genres:  As  an  introduction  to  genre  studies,  this  investigation  begins  with  an  exploration  of  the  course  syllabus.  Once  our  examination  of  the  syllabus  is  complete,  we  will  jump  into  exploring  some  of  the  genres  most  commonly  used  in  daily  life.  We  will  develop  a  list  of  the  most  common  genres  we  encounter  on  a  daily  basis  and  select  three  of  those  genres  to  delve  into  more  deeply.  Some  questions  students  will  consider  as  they  study  these  genres:  How  do  people/groups/etc.  establish  their  identity  through  these  genres?  How  do  you  establish  your  identity  

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through  them?  How  do  you  (and  others)  communicate  your  place  in  life  (figuratively  and  literally)  through  your  use  of  these  genres?  How  are  the  messages  created  in  these  genres  examples  of  literate  activity?  Once  we  have  studied  these  genres  more  closely,  students  will  be  tasked  with  creating  a  message  with  a  specific  goal  in  each  of  the  three  genres  we  are  studying,  and  will  assess  the  similarities  and  differences  between  producing  a  “text”  in  these  genres  based  on  their  research  and  production  experience.  They  will  also  explore  how  their  newfound  knowledge  of  each  genre  changes  (or  doesn’t  change)  as  they  closely  study  and  practice  writing  within  each  genre.  The  final  analysis  of  their  Project  1  investigation  will  be  discussed  in  essay  format,  following  the  characteristics  and  conventions  of  a  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal  article.  

2. Investigation  2  –  Testing  Narrative  Genres:  For  this  investigation,  students  will  begin  by  writing  about  the  moment  they  knew  they  wanted  to  become  a  teacher  or  about  a  person  who  influenced  their  interest  in  becoming  a  teacher.  Then,  after  we  brainstorm  a  list  of  all  of  the  possible  genres  we  can  think  of  in  which  students  could  present  this  type  of  personal  narrative  (beyond  simply  writing  a  personal  narrative  essay),  they  will  be  tasked  with  selecting  a  specific  genre  to  study,  analyze,  and  experiment  with.    

3. Investigation  3  –  Analyzing  Topics  in  Urban  Education:  For  this  investigation,  students  will  begin  by  selecting  a  specific  topic  related  to  urban  education  to  study  in  depth.  Students  will  be  expected  to  conduct  intensive  online  and  library  research  on  the  topic  and  will  present  their  research  in  the  form  of  an  annotated  bibliography  (a  school/research  genre  we  will  study  together  in  class).  Then,  after  we  brainstorm  a  list  of  all  of  the  possible  genres  we  can  think  of,  students  will  be  tasked  with  selecting  a  new  genre  to  study  and  experiment  with.  After  careful  research  (and  some  small-­‐group  work),  students  will  develop  a  thorough  list  of  their  selected  genre’s  characteristics  and  conventions,  and  will  conduct  the  research  necessary  to  create  a  detailed  CHAT  map  for  that  genre.  Then  comes  the  fun  part—“writing”  about  the  specific  topic  related  to  urban  education  the  students  selected  within  the  genre  they  are  studying.  The  final  analysis  will  again  be  produced  in  a  form  appropriate  to  the  Grassroots  Writing  Research  Journal.  

4. Final  Report:  After  completing  their  101  Assessment  Project,  students  will  tackle  the  final  assignment  of  the  course  –  a  report,  written  in  the  genre  of  their  choice,  in  which  they  will  track  their  literate  activity  throughout  their  lives  in  general  and  throughout  this  semester  in  particular.  The  goal  of  this  report  is  helping  students  to  reflect  on  and  think  about  what  they  have  learned  about  writing  in  general  and  teaching  in  urban  spaces  in  particular,  how  their  feelings  toward  writing  and  teaching  have  changed  over  the  course  of  the  semester,  and  how  they  see  themselves  transferring  what  they  have  learned  about  writing  and  teaching  to  future  situations.    

 ENG  145  (General)    Assignments    The  following  is  a  brief  synopsis  of  the  major  assignments  for  the  semester.  More  detailed  instructions  will  be  provided  as  we  progress  through  the  semester.    

1. Reading  Response  Blog:  Students  will  complete  weekly  reading  responses  that  analyze  assigned  readings.  I  expect  you  to  cite  your  sources.  Reading  responses  are  due  by  12:00  P.M.  on  Fridays  and  should  be  a  minimum  of  400  words.  Your  responses  should  be  posted  to  Reggie  Net.    

2. Unit  1  –  Genre/Scene  Research:  In  this  unit,  students  will  consider  a  particular  discipline  by  analyzing  and  researching  the  ways  individuals  in  that  field  communicate  with  one  another  in  a  variety  of  ways.  Students  will  complete  interviews,  observations  and  research  into  a  particular  field  in  order  to  gain  a  comprehensive  understanding  of  the  rules  that  govern  both  its  written  and  verbal  communication.  The  focus  here  is  on  identifying  the  genres  of  writing  and  speech  that  exist  in  a  particular  workplace,  then  considering  carefully  how  these  types  of  communication  affect  culture  in  that  community  in  ways  similar  and  different  from  other  careers/fields/disciplines.  Students  will  also  collect  and  create  texts  in  genres  directly  relevant  to  their  individual  discipline.  The  “Scene  &  Genres  Report”  that  is  produced  through  this  work  will  include  research  about  all  the  types  of  written  and  spoken  communication  that  can  occur  in  a  particular  workplace  setting.  It  will  also  include  examples  of  the  genres  related  to  the  scene,  along  with  a  brief  analysis  of  how  different  genres  accomplish  different  types  of  communicative  work.  The  Scene  &  Genres  Reports  for  this  project  will  generally  be  approximately  2000-­‐2500  words  (5-­‐6  pages).  

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3. Unit  2  Portfolio  –  Critical  Reading  and  Analysis:  Students  will  select  an  academic  article  of  their  choice  from  a  peer-­‐reviewed  journal  in  their  field  and  analyze  how  that  article  works  within  the  larger  body  of  work  represented  by  that  journal,  including  the  history  and  the  trajectory  of  the  journal  and  its  standing  within  the  discipline.  Analyses  may  vary  in  length,  but  will  generally  be  more  than  1500  words  (4-­‐6  pages).  In  this  project,  learning  how  to  conduct  robust  and  thorough  “genre  research”  will  also  be  part  of  the  work,  in  addition  to  practice  in  analyzing  the  content  of  different  types  of  research  in  a  particular  field.  

4. Unit  3  Portfolio  –  Research(ed)  Article:  Each  student  will  complete  an  academic  article  for  a  “real  world”  publishing  venue  that  reflects  an  important  or  controversial  topic  in  his/her  field  of  study.  Choices  for  publication  venues  can  come  from  http://www.cur.org/resources/students/undergraduate_journals/.  This  unit  will  consist  of  several  productions.  Students  will  complete  a  genre  report  on  their  selected  venue,  a  detailed  annotated  bibliography  of  all  sources  for  the  article,  an  abstract,  and  the  article  itself.  Students  will  also  create  a  proposal  and  rationale  for  this  project.  Articles  will  vary  in  length,  depending  on  the  target  publication  venue  selected.  However,  a  minimum  length  of  3000  words  (or  the  equivalent  if  the  project  is  multimodal)  is  required.    

5. Unit  4  Portfolio  –  Alternative  Research(ed)  Project:  Students  will  select  a  genre  from  their  anticipated  profession  in  which  they  choose  to  write.  Students  may  select  the  modality  that  best  fits  the  trajectory  of  the  project.  The  topic  of  the  project  will  also  be  the  student’s  choice.  Students  will  write  a  proposal  for  their  project,  provide  evidence  of  research  and  drafting,  produce  a  final  product,  and  write  a  rationale  describing  the  activities  and  practices  for  meeting  the  goals  set  forth  in  the  rationale.  This  final  project  will  vary  in  length,  according  the  genre  each  student  selects.  However,  the  proposal  and  rationale  must  defend  the  choices  of  genre  and  genre  length  as  appropriate  to  the  field/profession  selected.  

 APPENDIX  IV:  Partial  Reading  List  for  ENG  402  The  full  reading  list  for  this  course  is  too  extensive  to  reproduce  here.  However,  we  want  to  emphasize  that  the  readings  for  this  course  are  not  based  on  general  teaching  skills  or  an  overview  of  the  history  or  research  in  the  field  of  Composition  Studies.  Instead,  more  than  half  of  the  course  is  specifically  focused  on  genre  and  activity  theory,  as  well  as  specific  research  in  the  field  on  genre  awareness  and  uptake,  the  important  of  threshold  concepts,  disposition  and  identity,  and  (particularly)  current  research  on  writing  transfer.  The  following  short  list  indicates  the  range  of  our  readings.    1. Artemeva,  Natasha  and  Ox,  J.  (2011).  Tracing  Discursive  Resources:  How  Students  Use  Prior  Genre  Knowledge  

to  Negotiate  New  Writing  Contexts  in  First-­‐Year  Composition.  In  Written  Communication  (Vol.  28),  312-­‐337.    

2. Beach,  King.  (1999).  Consequential  transitions:  A  sociocultural  expedition  beyond  transfer  in  education.  In  Review  of  research  in  education  (Vol.  24),  101-­‐139.    

3. Bergmann,  Linda  S.  and  Zeprnick,  J.  (Fall/Winter  2007).  Disciplinarity  and  Transfer:  Students’  Perceptions  of  Learning  to  Write.  In  Writing  Program  Administration,  31  (1-­‐2),  124-­‐149.    

4. Canagarajah,  A.  Suresh.  (2013).  Negotiating  Trans  lingual  Literacy:  An  Enactment.  In  Research  in  the  Teaching  of  English,  48(1),  40-­‐67.    

5. Downs,  Doug,  and  Wardle,  E.  (2007).  Teaching  about  writing,  righting  misconceptions:  (Re)  envisioning  ‘first-­‐year  composition’  as  ‘Introduction  to  Writing  Studies.’  In  College  Composition  and  Communication,  552-­‐584.  http://compositionforum.com/issue/26/.      

6. Fuhrer,  Urs.  (1993).  Behavior  setting  analysis  of  situated  learning:  The  case  of  newcomers.  In  Understanding  Practice:  Perspectives  on  Activity  and  Context.  Seth  Chaiklin  and  Jean  Lave,  Eds.  Cambridge  UP,  179-­‐211.      

7. Kill,  Melanie.  (2006).  Acknowledging  the  Rough  Edges  of  Resistance:  Negotiation  of  Identities  of  First-­‐Year  Composition.  In  College  Composition  and  Communication  58.2,  213-­‐235.    

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8. Land,  Ray  and  Meyer,  J.  H.F.  (2010).  Threshold  Concepts  and  Troublesome  Knowledge  (5):  Dynamics  of  Assessment.  In  Threshold  Concepts  and  Transformational  Learning.  Sense  Publishers,  Rotterdam,  61-­‐80.    

9. Latour,  Bruno.  (1999).  Circulating  Reference:  Sampling  Soil  in  the  Amazon  Forest.  In  Pandora's  hope:  essays  on  the  reality  of  science  studies.  Harvard  University  Press.  24-­‐79.      

10. Prior,  Paul,  Solberg,  J.,  Berry,  P.,  Bellwoar,  H.,  Chewning,  B.,  Lunsford,  K.  J.,  ...  and  Walker,  J.  (2007).  Re-­‐situating  and  re-­‐mediating  the  canons:  A  cultural-­‐historical  remapping  of  rhetorical  activity.  In  Kairos:  Rhetoric,  Technology,  Pedagogy,  11(3).  http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/11.3/binder.html?topoi/prior-­‐et-­‐al/index.html.        

11. Reiff,  Mary  Jo  and  Bawarshi,  A.  (2011).  Tracing  Discursive  Resources:  How  Students  Use  Prior  Genre  Knowledge  to  Negotiate  New  Writing  Contexts  in  First-­‐Year  Composition.  In  Written  Communication,  28  (3),  312-­‐337.      

12. Roozen,  Kevin.  (2010).  Tracing  trajectories  of  practice:  Repurposing  in  one  student’s  developing  disciplinary  writing  processes.  In  Written  Communication,  27(3),  318-­‐354.    

13. Rounsaville,  Angela.  (2012).  Selecting  Genres  for  Transfer:  The  Role  of  Uptake  in  Students’  Antecedent  Genre  Knowledge.  In  Composition  Forum  (Vol.  26).  Association  of  Teachers  of  Advanced  Composition.  http://compositionforum.com/issue/26/selecting-­‐genres-­‐uptake.php.      

14. Russell,  R.  David  and  Yañez,  A.  (2003).  ‘Big  picture  people  rarely  become  historians:’  Genre  systems  and  the  contradictions  of  general  education.  In  In  C.  331-­‐362.  http://wac.colostate.edu/books/selves_societies/.      

15. Shipka,  Jody.  (2011).  Toward  a  Composition  Made  Whole.  University  of  Pittsburgh  Press.      

16. Terttu,  Tuomi-­‐Gröhn  and  Engeström,  Y.  (2003).  Conceptualizing  Transfer:  From  Standard  Notion  to  Developmental  Perspectives.  In  Between  School  and  Work:  New  Perspectives  on  Transfer  and  Boundary-­‐Crossing.  Pergamon,  29-­‐38.      

17. Wardle,  Elizabeth.  (September  2012).  Creative  Repurposing  for  Expansive  Learning:  Considering  “Problem-­‐Exploring”  and  “Answer-­‐Getting”  Dispositions  in  Individuals  and  Fields.  In  Composition  Forum  (Vol.  26).  http://compositionforum.com/issue/26/creative-­‐repurposing.php.      

18. Yancey,  Kathleen  Blake,  Robertson,  L.,  and  Taczak,  K.  (2014).  Writing  Across  Contexts:  Transfer,  Composition,  and  Sites  of  Writing.  Utah  State  UP.      

19. Yancey,  Kathleen  Blake.  (2004).  Made  not  only  in  words:  Composition  in  a  new  key.  In  College  Composition  and  Communication,  297-­‐328.