Approaches to Lifespan Writing Research: Generating an Actionable Coherence

Perspectives on Writing Series
Copublished with CSU Open Press


This edited collection builds on the three themes that emerged from the 2018 inaugural lifespan writing conference—identity, society, and theory—to further the study of writing through the lifespan. The contributors to this collection provide a framework within which the reader can develop a dynamic, interdisciplinary, multifaceted understanding of the limits and possibilities of studying lifespan writing. Recognizing that such research requires methodological rigor and flexibility as well as theoretical precision and adaptability, Approaches to Lifespan Writing Research draws on a range of methodological and theoretical approaches, from autoethnography to longitudinal structural equation modeling. This methodological and theoretical flexibility reflects the challenges inherent in studying lifespan writing—in particular, the need to develop an integrated framework that enables the “translation” of research findings for use by other lifespan writing researchers. Approaches to Lifespan Writing Research begins that process.

This book is also available as an open access ebook through the WAC Clearinghouse

Ryan J. Dippre is assistant professor of English and director of college composition at the University of Maine. He has published in Literacy in Composition Studies and Networks: An On-line Journal for Teacher Research as well as in edited collections. He serves as the cochair of the Writing through the Lifespan Collaboration, a group of international scholars interested in developing a multi-site, multi-method, multi-generational study of writing through the lifespan.

Talinn Phillips is associate professor of English at Ohio University where she also directs the Graduate Writing and Research Center. She is coeditor of Supporting Graduate Student Writers: Research, Curriculum, and Program Design, coauthor of Teaching with a Global Perspective: Practical Strategies from Course Design to Assessment, and cocreator of the tutor training film, Becoming an Ally: Tutoring Multilingual Writers. She is a cofounder of the Writing Through the Lifespan Collaboration.