Next Steps : New Directions For/In Writing About Writing

Next Steps: New Directions for/in Writing about Writing is the first collection of teacher and student voices on a writing pedagogy that puts expert knowledge at the center of the writing classroom. More than forty contributors report on implementations of writing-about-writing pedagogies from the basic writing classroom to the graduate seminar, in two-year and four-year schools, and in small colleges and research universities around the United States and the world.
 
For more than ten years, WAW approaches have been emerging in all these sites and scenes of college writing instruction, and Next Steps offers an original look at the breadth of ways WAW pedagogy has been taken up by writing instructors and into an array of writing courses. Organized by some of the key foci of WAW instruction—writerly identity, process, and engagement—the book takes readers into thick classroom descriptions as well as vignettes offering shorter takes on particular strategies. The classroom descriptions are fleshed out in more personal ways by student vignettes, reflections on encountering writing about writing in college writing classes. As its theoretical basis, Next Steps includes chapters on threshold concepts, transfer of writing-related learning, and the history of WAW pedagogies.
 
As the first extensive look into WAW pedagogies across courses and institutions, Next Steps is ideal for writing instructors looking for new approaches to college composition instruction or curious about what “writing about writing” pedagogy actually is, for graduate students in composition pedagogy and their faculty, and for those researching composition pedagogy, threshold concepts, and learning transfer.
 
Contributors:
Linda Adler-Kassner, Olga Aksakalova, Joy Arbor, Matthew Bryan, Shawn Casey, Gabriel Cutrufello, Jennifer deWinter, Kristen di Gennaro, Emma Gaier, Christina Grant, Gwen Hart, Kimberly Hoover, Rebecca Jackson, Frances Johnson, Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Katie Jo LaRiviere, Andrew Lucchesi, Cat Mahaffey, Michael Michaud, Rebecca S. Nowacek, Andrew Ogilvie, Sarah Read, Rebecca Robinson, Kevin Roozen, Mysti Rudd, Christian Smith, Nichole Stack, Samuel Stinson, Hiroki Sugimoto, Lisa Tremain, Valerie Vera, Megan Wallace, Elizabeth Wardle, Christy I. Wenger, Nancy Wilson, Dominique Zino

Barbara Bird is dean of faculty development and professor of English at Taylor University. Her scholarship focuses on the connection between WAW readings and scholarly writer identity/academic dispositions. She was awarded the Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership award at Taylor in 2010.
 
Doug Downs is associate professor of writing studies at Montana State University, where he directed the Core Writing Program for five years and teaches professional writing, science journalism, multimodal composition, and rhetorical theory. His research centers on public conceptions of writing, reading, and research, particularly relating to first-year composition and to the cultural value of English studies.
 
I. Moriah McCracken is associate professor of writing and rhetoric and the director of the General Education Writing Program at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, where she teaches courses in the writing program and in the Writing and Rhetoric major. Her research focuses on the relationships between threshold concepts, WAW, and information literacy.
 
Jan Rieman is senior lecturer of writing, rhetoric, and digital studies in the University Writing Program and the associate executive director of the University Writing Program at UNC Charlotte. She teaches multimodal composition and courses on the rhetoric of place. Her research focuses on writing program assessment, WAW, and antiracist language practices.