University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, WI

COMPUTERS & WRITING CONFERENCE 2015
University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, WI
Graduate
ResearchNetwork
2015
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The Bedford
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The Online
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Fourth Edition
A Guide for Teachers
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Robert J. Miller
NEW
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A Guide for Teachers
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Tara Lockhart
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Reading to
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Literacy Strategies
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Beth L. Hewett
2015 Graduate Research Network
2015 Coordinators
Janice R. Walker, Georgia Southern University
Angela Haas, Illinois State University
Executive Committee
Kristin Arola, Washington State University
Patrick W. Berry, Syracuse University (Afternoon Workshop Co-Coordinator)
Katt Blackwell-Starnes, Georgia Southern University
Michael Day, Northern Illinois University
Risa P. Gorelick, Research Network Forum (RNF Liaison)
Angela Haas, Illinois State University (GRN Co-Coordinator)
Joleen Hanson, University of Wisconsin-Stout (GRN Liaison)
Amy Kimme Hea, University of Arizona
Les Loncharich, Georgia Southern University
Frank Macarthy, Illinois State University (Graduate Assistant)
Suzanne Blum Malley, Columbia College Chicago (Ride2CW Coordinator)
Rebecca Rickly, Texas Tech University
Daniel Ruefman, University of Wisconsin-Stout
Donnie Sackey, Wayne State University
Barbi Smyser-Fauble, Illinois State University
Parrish Turner, Georgia Southern University (Student Assistant)
Janice R. Walker, Georgia Southern University (GRN Coordinator)
Quinn Warnick, Virginia Tech (Afternoon Workshop Co-Coordinator)
Discussion Leaders
Cheryl Ball, West Virginia University (Afternoon Only)
Patrick W. Berry, Syracuse University
Kristine Blair, Bowling Green State University (Afternoon Only)
Michael Day, Northern Illinois University
Linh Dich, Miami University Middletown
Michelle Eble, East Carolina University
Dustin Edwards, Miami University (Afternoon Only)
Douglas Eyman, George Mason University (Afternoon Only)
Alanna Frost, University of Alabama Huntsville
Erin Frost, East Carolina University
Traci Gardner, Virginia Tech
Angela Haas, Illinois State University
Steven Hammer, St. Joseph’s University
Joleen Hanson, University of Wisconsin-Stout
Stephanie Hedge, SUNY Potsdam
Aimee Knight, St. Joseph’s University
Tim Lockridge, Miami University
Karen Lunsford, UC-Santa Barbara
Suzanne Blum Malley, Columbia College
Stacey Pigg, North Carolina State University
Colleen Reilly, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Rochelle Rodrigo, Old Dominion University
Cynthia Selfe, The Ohio State University
Ryan Shepherd, Ohio University
Barbi Smyser-Fauble, Illinois State University
Katt Starnes, Lamar University
Jennifer Stewart, IPFW
Derek Van Ittersum, Kent State
Janice R. Walker, Georgia Southern University
Quinn Warnick, Virginia Tech
Bill Wolff, Rowan University
Melanie Yergeau, University of Michigan
1
NOTES
2
2015 Graduate Research Network Schedule
U N I V E R S I T Y
O F
W I S C O N S I N - S T O U T ,
M E N O M O N I E ,
W I
Memorial Student Center (MSC) Ballroom
7:30 am – 4:30 pm
Conference Registration, MSC
9:00 – 9:30 am
GRN Opening Remarks
9:30 – 11:45 am
Roundtable Discussions
11:45 am – 1:00 pm
Lunch – Merle Price Commons
1:00 – 1:30 pm
Awards and Announcements
1:30 – 3:30 pm
GRN Job/Professionalization Workshop
3:30 – 4:00 pm
Closing Remarks
Campus Map available online at http://www.uwstout.edu/guide/
Wireless access available!
1. Open Web browser and go to http://www.uwstout.edu/
2. Enter your email address into the sign-in field.
3. After 4 hours, you will need to sign in again.
For problems accessing the network, go to the registration desk or dial X2000 from a campus phone.
3
Presenters and Abstracts
Tina Arduini, Bowling Green State University
Gaming Literacy in the Multimodal Composition Classroom
My dissertation examines the overlap between gaming literacy and multimodal composition in order to help construct
a pedagogical framework that utilizes gaming literacies in the multimodal composition classroom. Using survey
responses from students in introductory writing courses and the gaming literacy narratives of three student gamers at
a Midwestern University, I address research questions like, how do students acquire gaming literacy? What kinds of
multimodal skills are acquired through gaming literacy? And, what does one’s gaming literacy narrative reveal about
his or her literate practices? The answers to these questions help to inform my approach to the more pedagogicallydriven research question: How can composition instructors effectively use the literate practices of gamers in the
multimodal composition classroom?
My research reveals many connections between gaming literacies and the skills required to create and consume
meaningful multimodal compositions. In my analysis of these findings, I hope to establish the importance of these
connections—specifically the social and technological skills obtained through gaming—and develop a pedagogical
framework that establishes practical applications for the literate skills of the gaming discourse community.
Andrea Beaudin, Texas Tech University
Exploring the Usability of Feedback/Feedforward
Providing constructive feedback to students is one of our greatest responsibilities—and challenges—as instructors.
In developing our response practices, we’ve typically relied on felt sense or lore. Research into feedback often
addresses students’ perceptions (Edwards, Dujardin, & Williams, 2012; Szerdahelyi, 2012) and our beliefs about how
(and even if) students should apply feedback (Beach & Friedrich, 2005; J. Sommers, 1989; N. Sommers, 1982) to
determine how to respond to our students’ work most effectively. Some instructors have explored providing
feedback in different media (such as embedded voice commentary, or “veedback” [screencast feedback]). Research
suggests that students prefer this to the traditional written form (i.e., the marked up paper or MS Word commentary)
(Still, 2006; Thompson & Lee, 2012). Yet, as usability research in other fields often shows, perception does not
always equal comprehension (Cardello & Nielsen, 2013). My dissertation-in-progress explores the (student-centered)
usability of writing feedback, considering the roles of media for delivery. The aim of this study is to provide
instructors with suggestions of what is usable (effective and efficient as well as satisfying) in current methods and
modes of providing feedback and where we, as instructors, should revisit and perhaps revise our practices.
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Kristin Bivens, Texas Tech University
Listening to Biomedicine: Alarming Biometric Alarms
I had a very specific set of research questions when I replicated a contextual inquiry study examining communication
between nurses and parents in a Texas neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Previously, I had conducted the same
study in a NICU in Copenhagen, Denmark; and data collection was not a challenge. I was surprised to discover that I
was distracted by the sounds, specifically the alarming biometric monitors, in the Texas NICU. I discovered, using
grounded theory, a process of enforcing and reinforcing the authority of biomedicine in the NICU—a matriarchal
space. The sounds of alarming monitors, obtaining consent, and hospital practices, and the witnessing of alarming
monitors, obtaining consent, and administering medications demonstrated aspects of this surprising aural and oral
process. The hospital’s clock, in fact, dictated much of the time of those who occupy, regardless of role, in the
NICU. The hospital clock determined when babies ate, when parents visited, and when nurses acted. Now, I am
working on an interpretive argument to further situate this data and the sounds. There’s more there; and I need help
prioritizing, situating, and choosing an audience for this study’s findings.
Michael Blancato, Ohio State University
"Are the Instructors Going to Teach Us Anything?": Conceptualizing Student and Teacher Roles in the "Rhetorical
Composing" MOOC
This is a co-written piece by Michael Blancato and Chad Iwertz, graduate assistants and instructors in the 2014
iteration of the “Writing II: Rhetorical Composing” MOOC project. Their project combines quantitative and
qualitative analysis to explore the ways in which students shift between the roles of passive learner and active guide in
the “Rhetorical Composing” course. Their findings challenge existing MOOC literature, which configures students as
either passive recipients of knowledge or active agents who generate knowledge in these massive open online
environments. They seek feedback on the methodology employed in their investigation, which includes cluster
criticism of discussion board posts and curricular analysis of the Writer’s Exchange peer review platform.
Kayla Bruce, Arizona State University
Identifying Genre: Preliminary Assessment in FYC Classrooms
Over a period of three semesters, my colleague, Laurenn Jarema, and I drafted and administered an ungraded
preliminary assessment to ask students to identify unmarked genres and then compose in a specific genre. Originally,
we created this assessment as a way to begin our FYC courses and give us, as instructors, an idea of our students’
knowledge and needs. The genre assessment was given in several iterations throughout these semesters, and what we
found most interesting was not how it impacted our knowledge of students, but instead how it actually shifted
students’ perceptions of the course by encouraging them to embrace the course focus after revealing strengths that
they possessed as well as areas where they could improve. We have grounded our work in theory and begun to draft
an article to submit for publication based on our findings. The questions I would like to discuss are: How would data
(from our student’s work) best augment our description of the assessment and discussion of its impact? What
technological tools would be most effective in including this data? What other information would be needed, as
readers, to fully understand the work we did and its exigency and usefulness in our classrooms?
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Janine Butler, East Carolina University
How Would You Caption That? Captioning Multimodal Compositions
Sean Zdenek, Brenda Brueggemann, and Stephanie Kerschbaum have demonstrated the significance of making
captioning integral to multimodal assignments. Composition instructors and students should interrogate the
rhetorical quality of captions and the ways in which captions convey the mood, tone, and meaning of sound in
context. With an emphasis on accessible multimodal pedagogies, I am researching the best means for incorporating
captioning activities in a range of courses. How might instructors design captioning workshops and projects to help
students develop crucial rhetorical skills for communicating across languages, cultures, and abilities? What assessment
practices would best instill the value of accessibility in multimodal compositions? I am exploring scaffolding
assignments, outcomes and goals, and transfer of writing knowledge and practice. I would like to develop
pedagogical and research standards for studying and captioning multimodal compositions that can be distributed to
composition instructors and scholars.
Jeaneen Canfield, Oklahoma State University
FYC Geographies: Navigating the Borders of Literacy
Beginning in 2000, attention to the ways we define “literacy” has increased. Multimodal composition work by Kress,
Selfe, and others has strongly influenced pedagogical approaches that expand literacy practices. Kristi Fleckenstein’s
Embodied Literacies: Imageword and a Poetics of Teaching forwards teaching practices that emphasize “the inextricability of
language and imagery in any literate act” (4). I wish to further explore this notion as it pertains to student
engagement within First-Year-Composition (FYC). I seek to explore the ways students position themselves in FYC
classroom spaces (through the lens of Nedra Reynolds’ work in geographies and the lens of critical pedagogy offered
by Giroux, Shor, and others). I also seek to merge Rosinski’s and Peeples’ problem-based learning with critical
pedagogy to enrich current teaching practices. My questions are as follows: How might expanding Ulmer’s
discussion of avatar complement a pedagogy that encourages students’ engagement? How can we further complicate
our understanding of literacy practices to include student avatars? In what ways can the aforementioned
understanding of literacy affect pedagogy? Within a critical-problem-based pedagogy, what pedagogical practices
might be used to make productive use of student resistances?
Genesea Carter, University of Wisconsin-Stout
Jo, Dracula, and Alice: Informing Composition Classroom Praxis Through the Social Literacies in Victorian Novels
This dissertation project demonstrates the inherent importance of appreciating and respecting the literacies students
bring with them into the university classroom. I frame this project with Bleak House, Dracula, and Through the LookingGlass and What Alice Found There as cultural artifacts illustrating the struggle many literary characters, as well as
composition students, face when negotiating their home literacies with those in academe. In praxis, the composition
classroom can use rhetorical awareness, genre analysis, and a literacy-focused curriculum to help students build upon
their home literacies while adapting to and developing as academic, professional, and civic community members. I
would like help turning my dissertation into a book.
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Rachel Chapman, Oklahoma State University
Creation of a Digital Archive of Academic Women's Stories
I have completed research on academic women’s experiences with clothing choices and perceptions of their identity
in the past, but want to expand this research into a larger project. I want to create a digital archive of these
experiences like the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, but these experiences are personal and risky to share
considering their intimate and personal nature. Considering that these women’s stories require a lot of anonymity, I
feel limited in the possibilities of sharing this research and my results. I’m wondering about the digital possibilities of
creating an archive, advice about archives of personal information (especially academics), and how to write an IRB
that would accommodate an ongoing collection of research, both audio and visual.
Joe Cirio, Florida State University
To Place a Writing Program (Where the Wild Things Are)
In any given writing program, a rich flow of writing activity circulates in the backchannels (Mueller 2009)—this
writing is both ubiquitous and a largely invisible form of writing. However, as this project claims, a writing program’s
sense of place, and ultimately the felt sense of identification, is actively sustained, performed, and constructed in
these backchannels. These backchannels can take the form of group text messages, e-mails to listservs, posts to a
private Facebook group page, and other digital texts—this writing manifests beyond the gaze of formal structures
either because these backchannels are seen as distractions from the central activity or because they are seen as too
ordinary for attention. But we should not discount these spaces of interaction—they are integral to the maintenance
of the place of the writing program. Using the framework of an affective ecology (Edbauer 2005), this project seeks
to bring attention to what this writing is, how it works, and what it does.
Gloria Diaz, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
Student Roles in Co-Requisite English Courses at the Community College Level
My ethnography project involved me observing students who were taking a lower-level English class along with a
program level class at the same time. I had a list of potential questions, but on meeting with the instructor of the class
I was to observe, I learned that her students who were taking co-requisite classes tended to take on roles. She said the
phenomenon was just in her co-req classes. She noticed that she always had a “mother hen,” who kept students on
track and asked about others who were absent or who had sporadic attendance. She also noticed there was a “tech
guy,” and “mentor.” She was very curious about this, so I decided to pursue this question for my project. My
research consisted of six observations of the English 095 class (the lower-level class) and at least two observations of
the English 111 class. I ended up with two questions: why students took on these roles, and why the lower-level class
was more unified and interacted more with their peers, than those in the 111 section. When students gathered before
class in the morning, the 095 students hung out with each other, the 111 students waited in another part of the
building for class to begin. I videotaped portions of the students and the instructor and reviewed footage.
7
Jennifer England, New Mexico State University
Virtual Worlds and Real-World Concerns
My in-progress dissertation addresses the need for research that bridges together the disciplines of environmental
communication and games studies. As the number of studies of environmental communication in literature,
television shows and movies, social media outlets, and even fashion increases, the discipline pays incomparable
attention to videogames. I examine mainstream roleplaying videogames with different worlds: utopian The Sims
Freeplay, technological future Broken Age, and post-apocalyptic Wasteland 2, where I look for representations of nature
and the environment through my own game play. While other studies have examined interactions among multiple
gamers and their avatars in MMORPGs, my study addresses a gap in gaming research by looking at the single-player
experience. Learning how the single player and avatar perceive and interact with the game world environment can
have important implications not only for how that person experiences but also makes decisions about her role in the
real-world environment. This study aims to identify not only how nature and the environment is constructed in
virtual worlds but also how identifying that construction may allow us to better understand – and ultimately
communicate about -- our relationship to/with nature and the environment in the real world.
Jaclyn Fiscus, University of Washington
Genre Uptake and the #Hashtag: The Spreadability of Genre Features
In Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in Networked Culture (Jenkins et al 2013), the authors argue that “[media]
spreadability recognizes the importance of the social connections among individuals, connections increasingly made
visible (and amplified) by social media platforms” (7). Spreadability, for Jenkins et al, creates a theoretical framework
for understanding the way that texts are increasingly circulated (with or without permission) in social media, and I
argue that this concept can also help explain how features of social media have permeated to new contexts, outside
of social media, through user uptake. The hashtag functioned originally as a media tool used to track trending
concepts in social media, and has an added functionality of sometimes providing metacommentary, giving the user a
way of expressing affect about what is being posted. This presentation will discuss how the use of the hashtag as
metacommentary has spread from its original context of social media into new contexts: our verbal communication,
text messages, and emails. In understanding how and why this “spread” occurred, we can better understand how
users uptake genre features in new contexts.
Suzan Flanagan, East Carolina University
Intelligent Content Editing: A Theoretical Approach to Editing Dynamic, Single-source Content
Technical editing has traditionally been a linear, print-based process. However, technological developments—particularly
single sourcing (content created once and reused in multiple media), content management (the management of singlesourced content), and dynamic content delivery (single-source content generated on demand)—have separated content
and product, disrupting the linear workflow (Albers, 2000; Clark, 2007; Eble, 2003; Williams, 2003).
Since few scholars have discussed how editing differs in a single-source environment, I theorize what editing looks like
when content and product are separated and consider the implications of that separation. Based on Rockley and
Cooper’s (2012) concept of intelligent content, I introduce a user experience (UX) approach to single-source editing,
which I call intelligent content editing (ICE). ICE emphasizes editorial strategies for developing, editing, and maintaining
dynamic, single-source content for reuse.
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Merideth Garcia, University of Michigan
Digital Literacies in Secondary Classroom Communities of Practice
This study investigates patterns of introduction, support, and uptake of digital literacies by developing case studies of two
English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms in two different public high schools with populations identified as primarily lowand middle-income. Though it attends to the differing levels of material resources and institutional support for technology
integration, its focus is on how students and teachers perceive the role of digital literacy practices within the formal
curriculum of public schooling. Using ethnographic methods, this study seeks to address the following questions: What
digital literacy practices are students bringing with them, and do they see them as relevant to their academic work? How do
teachers discover students’ latent digital literacies, and how do they perceive the connection between digital and traditional
literacy practices as they prepare students for both standardized assessments and life after high school? How do students and
teachers participate in and leverage digital literacy practices in the classroom?
Bridget Gelms, Miami University-Ohio
Digital Harassment and the Public Female Voice
As social media spaces and interactions within them evolve, so does the nature of digital harassment. Many scholars
have noted the similarities between gendered harassment that occurs both online and off (Barak, 2005; Beard, 2014;
Filipovic, 2007; Mantilla, 2013). Zizi Papacharissi (2014) writes, “Online technologies thrive on collapsing public and
private boundaries thus affording opportunities for expression that may simultaneously empower and compromise
individuals” (94). Given the potential social media has for both empowerment and compromise, I’m left with these
questions: How and where is the female voice empowered and/or compromised on social media, and how does
digital harassment impact the empowerment/compromise of the public female voice? I seek advice on how to design
a project that uses Twitter as a site for examining such issues. Potential questions for discussion are: How can I
narrow or focus the scope of this project? What methodologies are best for this type of project? What format or
potential publication venues are most appropriate for this project?
James Hammond, University of Michigan -- Ann Arbor
Current-Traditional Automation: Notes Toward a Pre-History of Automated Essay Scoring
Many scholars have noted that Automated Essay Scoring (AES) technologies attend principally to the formal, rather
than semantic content of texts. Style is processed algorithmically; writing quality becomes, in some ways, a function
of text feature parsing. The purpose of my current project is to consider (dis)continuities between the practices
guiding AES programs and the current-traditional approach to writing quality, as promoted by figures like Adams
Sherman Hill. Ultimately, a better understanding of how AES processes relate to ostensibly similar approaches to
student writing in the history of Rhetoric and Composition will help to clarify not just the stakes of expanding or
adopting AES programs, but also what some of the digitally-mediated alternatives to AES practices might be.
Samuel Harvey, Saint Cloud State University
Enthymemic Dehumanization in Theory of Mind
It is used in every conversation we have with both those we love and those we despise. It is something that many
claim is what it means to be human. It is theory of mind. Theory of mind will be defined through a synthesis of
various sources and then applied to autism, a neurological difference that is partially defined as struggling or lacking
theory of mind. This leads into a disturbing enthymeme pointed out by Melanie Yergeau in her article “Clinically
Significant Disturbance: On Theorists who Theorize Theory of Mind:” To be human is to have theory of mind, to be
autistic is to lack theory of mind...therefore, to be autistic is to be not human.
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Tracey Hayes, Arizona State University (Afternoon Session Only)
Social Media, Publish Sphere, Public Protests
Samuel Head, Idaho State University
In(ter)ventions in the Community: Blogging for Nonprofits and High-Stakes Writing within FYC
Blogging has developed to include a wide variety of genres and modes that many freshmen students are familiar in.
Most students are already familiar with online social media writing that connects them to a real audience. Assigning
blogging for student writing provides students with a social media site with greater emphasis on textual production
and that is a higher stakes kind of writing. Instructors can also connect students to their physical communities by
centering their blogs around in(ter)ventions available to them through nonprofit organizations. Students can write
narratives, profiles, reports, research projects, and argument pieces on their blogs in order to promote the nonprofit
organization of their choice. Blogging about nonprofits would give students writing scenarios with real audiences,
real purposes, and real impacts.
Daniel Hocutt, University of Richmond & Old Dominion University
Google’s DeepMind Can Win Atari Games: What’s Rhetorical about That?
In a chapter titled “Toward an Algorithmic Rhetoric,” Ingraham (2014) calls algorithms “digital rhetorics with terrific
power to sway what counts as knowledge, truth, and material reality in the everyday lives of people across an
astonishing range of global communities in the twenty-first century” (p. 62). Given the ubiquity of algorithms at
work our daily lives, Ingraham suggests that “paying more attention to the ways their intervention in our lives makes
claims about what matters will help us to attend more critically to their potentially undesirable repercussions" (p. 73).
Quantifying the “potentially undesirable repercussions” of the design, functions, and decisions of algorithmic
rhetoric, and sharing those results with the public, is an initial goal of this study. In this presentation I’ll share
progress made at applying Ingraham’s heuristic for assessing the rhetoricity of an algorithm to the recently released
Google DeepMind algorithm, a neural network that trains itself to play (and win) Atari video games. I’ll seek input
and advice on future directions, potential pitfalls, and new insights related to the intersection of rhetoric and
algorithms, especially in technology interfaces used in composition classrooms.
Chad Iwertz, The Ohio State University
“Are the Instructors Going to Teach Us Anything?”: Conceptualizing Student Roles in the “Rhetorical Composing” MOOC
This is a co-written piece by Michael Blancato and Chad Iwertz, graduate assistants and instructors in the 2014
iteration of the “Writing II: Rhetorical Composing” MOOC. Their project combines quantitative and qualitative
analysis to explore the ways in which students shift between the roles of passive learner and active guide in the
“Rhetorical Composing” course. Their findings challenge existing MOOC literature, which configures students as
either passive recipients of knowledge or active agents who generate knowledge in these massive open online
environments. They seek feedback on the methodology employed in their investigation, which includes cluster
criticism of discussion board posts and curricular analysis of the Writer’s Exchange peer review platform.
10
Lucy Johnson, Washington State University
Incorporating Multimodal Projects Using Emojis in the Freshmen Composition Classroom
This project seeks to validate incorporating emojis as a visual rhetorical practice within the freshmen composition
classroom. Kathleen Blake Yancey in her article titled “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key”
argues that students are in fact composing, just not where we’d like them to. The nature of these compositions is in
fact multimodal in structure as well as delivery. By integrating SMS platforms and more specifically visual
communicative tools such as emojis into student composing, we are able to bridge a gap between composing within
and outside of the academy. Using emojis to craft hybrid texts and narratives can help students view the composing
process as inherently multimodal. With the influx of first generation students and students of color within the
institution, we have an ethical responsibility to revise our pedagogy to include more multimodal projects that allocate
for agency and play in students composing and rhetorical practices. This project argues that using visual composing
tools such as emoji’s can help us cultivate these projects and break down these composing distinctions and
compartmentalizations.
Katherine Kirkpatrick, Clarkson College
Online Doctoral Students Writing for Publication
Doctoral students publishing scholarly papers is a pinnacle accomplishment that means students are doing the work
of scholars—the work expected of them after graduation. However, doctoral students face significant barriers to this
objective, not least of which include learning the inexplicit disciplinary discourse conventions of their field and,
perhaps more importantly, transitioning from the role of student to the role of independent scholar. This difficult
transition stems from failing to recognize writing as complicit with the research process and results in writing that
lacks a scholarly voice, as well as students’ failure to position their research among credible scholars in their fields.
Research is growing in this arena, but research dedicated to online doctoral students writing for publication remains
incredibly sparse, even nonexistent. I propose a grounded theoretical approach, including online discussion board
analysis of an online doctoral-level writing for publication course, as well as in-depth interviews of online doctoral
students, to explore avenues for assuaging these difficulties, including classroom, curricular, and environmental
possibilities—all with an aim to ease online doctoral students’ transition to an independent scholar role and thus
increase their abilities to publish before and after graduation.
Charlene Kwon, Temple University
Contingent Faculty and the Integration of Technology in the First Year Writing Classroom
For my dissertation research, I would like to collect techno-literacy autobiographical narratives from current nontenure track and adjunct instructors who teach for the First Year Writing program at Temple University. These
narratives would focus both on teaching practices as well as personal experiences associated with technology. Using
critical incident theory and rhetorical listening, I would examine these narratives for moments that might reveal
avenues for better supporting the integration of technology in the first year writing classroom. I am also curious as to
if and how these narratives might reflect labor and contingency issues. Ideally, these findings would facilitate new
conversations between writing program administrators and contingent faculty. One outcome, for example, could be
incentivized support for instructors to integrate technology in some way, either through multimodality or through
other pedagogical means. Finally, I would like to examine how these more micro and institutionally focused issues
might intersect with the more macro federal imperatives circulating in education policy.
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Kyle Larson, Miami University-Ohio
The Affordances & Constraints of Digital Collaboration and Community-Building
Two other graduate students and I are researching collaborative student writing within and between two different
sections of first-year composition (taught by different teachers). In each section, students wrote collaboratively in
pairs based on each section’s specific theme. Then, pairs from one section joined pairs from the other section to
form a group that deliberated and wrote using only the digital medium. For this digital collaboration, the students
developed social media activism campaigns for local community change. I am interested in discussing and receiving
insights on various research avenues and potential publishing opportunities available with the collected data
(interviews, surveys, student writing). For instance, how did the digital environment affect the collaborative process?
What networks and/or platforms did they use to engage with one another digitally? How did the students perceive
the process of building rapport/community with their peers differently in the digital environment as opposed to in
the physical environment of the classroom? How did collaborating digitally affect the communicative and
collaborative dynamics between the original partners? I invite further insights into these inquiries as well as
encourage other possible inquiries for this research.
Deanna Laurette, Wayne State University
How Technology Serves to Shape Identity
I am interested in how technology, specifically course design software like Blackboard, serves to oppress certain bodies
and identities in the composition classroom. My idea is influenced by Jay Dolmage’s concept of the steep steps that
the university constructs to keep disabled bodies out, but I would like to expand the idea to include students from
less privileged cultural backgrounds—especially urban students. Moreover, I am interested in how issues of access
and assumed levels of skill show themselves in courses that use Blackboard. I am also exploring how writing online
can be utilized to foster identity and collaboration across spaces and among diverse student populations.
Francis Macarthy, Illinois State University
The Digital Coffeehouse: How Anonymity Affects the Stories We Tell
Jürgen Habermas has discussed the deployment of coffeehouses and salons that would serve as public meeting places
for citizens from every class to deliberate politics and other matters pertinent to their lives. According to Habermas,
these locations would remove any hierarchical power structures that may limit certain citizens from participating in
the conversation. It is almost impossible to imagine a space where social, political, and cultural identities are removed
in the name of pure, uninhibited communication. The Internet has changed this. I will draw from digital risk
communication frameworks (Potts), as well as anonymous receiver response studies (Rains and Craig) and comment
case studies (Reader) to unpack the complexities of anonymous digital communication by focusing on Reddit’s
response to a catastrophic event: the Boston bombing of 2013. The subsequent amateur detective “witch-hunt” that
surfaced on Reddit during this incident reveals the power and global reach of anonymous digital communication, as
well as the potential problems of a faceless author. The goal through this research is to better understand how stories
take shape with an “anonymous” author and how integral digital guerrilla tactics (Licona and Gonzales; Springsteen)
are in shaping those stories.
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Vyshali Manivannan, Rutgers University
Teaching Tattoos: A Body(mod)-focused Approach to the Composition Classroom
This presentation combines an anecdotal and scholarly approach to thinking through how computer technologies,
biohacking, and body modification spectacular enable/disable the body and thereby double as a means of political
participation and a pedagogical opportunity. I intend to incorporate scholarship on autonomist radical rhetoric,
quantum poetics, body modification and the generation of subjectivity, “dirt work” in contemporary protest, and
pedagogical strategies in composition classrooms oriented around the body. I will also include samples from past
classes in which this strategy has been most effective. I suggest that incorporating modifications into a body-focused
approach to the composition classroom affords more awareness of our methods of interfacing with physical and
virtual environments, an increasingly central concern as technological innovation redefines literacy and subjectivity in
academic and social spaces. As this research represents the starting point of a larger project, I welcome any and all
feedback.
Zarah Moeggenberg, Washington State University
Towards Queering: Sustained Cross-Course Collaborative Multimodality
With the marked increase in students of color and FirstGen students, as much as we work towards blending
rhetorical methods in the composition classroom by advocating for multimodality and collaboration, it is clear that in
large composition programs we aren’t actually creating major projects that call for either means of composing by our
students. This project seeks to re-see the ways in which we queer the composition space by enacting sustained crosscourse multimodal collaborative composing. Over 200 sections of composition syllabuses have been coded for
multimodality and collaboration, which forms a basis for this project. In a two-semester case study students will
compose collaborative multimodal projects across two sections of composition. In queering time and space we might
come closer towards blending rhetorical strategies and students understanding composition more as a becoming that
transcends their 15 weeks with us, rather than a set of skills to be acquired.
Lynn Reid, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Constructing Disciplinarity in Computers and Composition: An International Journal
How does the scholarship in our field position Computers and Writing teacher-scholars to address what Lamos (2011)
terms moments of “interest divergence” when institutional stakeholders challenge the validity of our work? This
presentation will focus on a preliminary analysis of Computers and Composition: An International Journal focused on how
scholarship in that journal has contributed to the creation of a disciplinary identity for Computers and Writing
professionals. Drawing from Adler-Kassner’s The Activist WPA, I examine locally-focused, narrative-based accounts of
Computers and Writing teacher-scholars attempting to “change the story” about writing and writers in order to
consider how scholars in our field are positioned as agents of change. This work is part of a dissertation project that
examines accounts of “interest divergence” (Lamos, 2011) in both Computers and Composition and Journal of Basic Writing.
Racheal Ryerson, Ohio University
"Get Ready With Me!": Exploring/Exposing Beauty Norms in YouTube Make-up Tutorials
Now in its tenth year, YouTube has only gained in popularity, with more than 1 billion users and over 300 hours of
video uploaded every minute. YouTube has received scholarly attention as a Web 2.0 application that promotes a
participatory culture, or a culture of prosumers, and as a technological tool that might help students develop their
multimodal literacy. More recently, scholars have begun to consider the cultural politics engaged and promulgated
through/from YouTube videos, but little to no research has closely investigated how makeup tutorials reflect sociocultural values of beauty. This project will curate an archive of makeup tutorials to explore and expose how YouTube
makeup tutorials establish norms for beauty, femininity, and consumer behavior.
13
Ann Shivers-McNair, University of Washington
Writing as/and Making
Researchers are demonstrating the implications of the fast-growing maker movement for education (K. Sheridan et
al. 2014) and writing studies (Craig 2014; Sayers 2015; D. Sheridan 2010; Sherrill 2015). The movement brings
exciting possibilities for “expanding our disciplinary commitment to the theorizing, researching, and improvement of
written discourse to include other representational systems and ways of making meaning” (Shipka 2011). I am in the
early stages of designing a dissertation study on a newly formed makerspace in Seattle to engage and extend these
conversations. I am interested in how studying making (and thinking of writing as making) can inform current
discussions in writing studies of agency, uptakes, and knowledge transfer, and I am also interested in investigating the
ways in which critical theory can help us understand how power and access are constituted (particularly in/through
gender, race, and class) in makerspaces. In my presentation, I will share my preliminary research questions and study
design, and I will seek my colleagues’ feedback on those questions, as well as on refining the scope and
methodologies of the study.
Alison Sutherland, Arizona State University
Early Stasis Identification and Other Deliberative Visual Rhetorics
I argue that using computational methods during large-scale multi-stakeholder deliberations (like climate change
negotiations) is important because these data visualizations can more quickly identify stasis in the discussions than
humans alone can identify stasis. In addition to providing an overall view of the project, stasis informs
understandings of how particular stakeholders, including non-expert citizens, are achieving visibility in the shared
public discussions. Given the fragile histories of large-scale public issue resolution, recognizing and capitalizing on
moments of stasis is paramount. These efforts require best practices for composition and analysis of large-scale
datasets, and I use a variety of sources from computers and composition studies to support such efforts. These are
not quick fix strategies for solving climate change, but they do add further legitimate means to supplement current
strategies for resolving large-scale public issues. The community of composition and rhetoric has a long history in
studying public issues, but more attention is needed on how to support large-scale multi-stakeholder projects that
operate under time and resource constraints.
Jason Tham, University of Minnesota
Academy-Industry Collaboration as Rhetorical Education
Collaboration between the academia and professional industry has been an ongoing interest to writing program
administrators, as evident in the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) 2015 conference call for
proposals: “How can partnerships at important transitional points help make post-secondary writing instruction
sustainable? What might those partnerships look like?” To explore the possibilities of such partnership, I use an
exemplary case of academy-industry collaboration to consider the risks and benefits of collaborative programmatic
innovation. First, I will showcase an app I have co-created with a software engineer to streamline the search and
decision-making processes for Rhet/Comp PhD program applicants. Built with data re-aggregated from the 2007
Rhetoric Review Survey of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition, PhD Finder is an interactive app that
allows users to find programs that best match their admittance aptitude and research interests. The app enables users
to see real-time ranking of available programs as they adjust their research interests and order personal strengths.
Then, I will share my experience in negotiating the rhetorical design of the app and lessons learned from such
organic collaboration. It is my hope to discuss the possibilities of pursuing projects of this kind in writing instruction,
and how might we advance programmatic development in our field through academy-industry collaboration.
14
John Walter, Saint Louis University
Collide-oscope, Collage, Chora
As compositional strategies, collide-oscope (Marshall McLuhan), collage (Peter Elbow), and choragraphy (Gregory
Ulmer and Jeff Rice) favor openness over closure, multiplicity of meaning over unity, exploration over explanation,
parataxis over hypotaxis, pattern recognition over data classification, and association over deductive reasoning. In
short, as compositional strategies, they engage the logic of the electronic/digital—electracy, to use Ulmer’s term—
rather than the logic of print. In this work-in-progress presentation, I am exploring how the compositional strategies
of collide-oscope, collage, and chora have influenced my teaching of digital composition, my thinking on how we can
engage the logic of electracy in both digital and non-digital writing environments, and my engagement with new
media composition.
Xiaobo Wang, Georgia State University
Rhetorical and Communication Design of WeChat and Facebook: Situated Free Speech and Democracy
Freedom of speech, first proposed by President Jefferson, is one of the most important human rights in the West and
around the globe. However, not all nations in this world enjoy and respect that freedom. Taking China as an example,
freedom of speech is not always possible, especially in terms of controversial issues. However, technicians invented
different ways to change their rhetorical tradition and present state of human rights. The author rhetorically analyzes
the definitions of democracy and free speech in China and in the West, specifically in the US, and applies
international communication, democracy, meritocracy, rhetorical and communication design, and usability theories to
evaluate how and why different sociocultural backgrounds lead to different rhetorical traditions and therefore
different information and technology inventions and designs. This case study is an example of how technical and
professional information and technology design negotiates between local and global even though cultures differ,
therefore, providing situatedness and convergence examples of rhetorical and communicational globalization in
digital spaces.
Sarah Warren-Riley, Illinois State University
Digital Literacy Narratives
The Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN) currently includes digital literacy narratives focusing on literacy
acquisition of deaf individuals. Many of these are provided by deaf adults who work in academia or are highly
educated. Brueggemann noted that literacy practices of deaf adults – beyond school – are understudied, stating that
“studies of deaf people and literacy all but disappear in adulthood” (2004). She further noted that there are “more
stories to be told and much more work to be done in contextual and cultural approaches to literacy and deaf people”.
I am interested in exploring the “cultural ecologies” and “gateways” (per Hawisher, et al, 2004) that have figured into
the acquisition of digital literacies for deaf adults (particularly those representing differing educational and
socioeconomic backgrounds than those currently available in the DALN); encouraging the stories that might be
shared regarding experiences in acquiring literacies with the internet and social media tools; and cultivating additional
diverse digital literacy narrative submissions.
I seek advice for starting this project and for tying it into my overall dissertation research which is focused on a broad
range of stories that are not told in mainstream society but have the possibility of being shared via digital means.
15
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS!

2015 Computers & Writing Conference, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, WI.

2015 C&W/GRN Travel Grant Awards Committee: Michael Day, Kathie Gossett, Amy Kimme Hea, Suzanne
Blum Malley, Cynthia L. Selfe, Janice R. Walker, and Bob Whipple.

Contributors to the 2015 C&W/GRN Travel Grant Awards Fund (in no particular order):
Karen C. Henry
Michael J. Day
Cynthia L. Selfe
Michael J. Salvo
Alex Babione
Stuart Selber
James Kalmbach
Nick Carbone
Bradley W. Bleck
Suzanne Blum Malley
Michael Edwards
Ben Reynolds
Patrick Berry
Martha Malley
Regis Delagrange
Naomi Silver
Alanna Frost
Traci Gardner
Lee Nickoson-Massey
William Hart-Davidson
Quinn Warnick
Leasa Burton
Kyle Stedman
Melanie Yergeau
Scott DeWitt
Joyce Carter
Tim Lockridge
Dan Landon
John Sullivan
Karita dos Santos
Kathryn Comer
Bill Wolff Fine Art Photo
Ray McCormick
Theresa Dickson
Ilene Altman
Mary Kay Jensen
Cynthia Rast
Susie Brubaker-Cole
James Jensen
Tracy Jensen
Marilyn Jensen
Michael Harker
Tammy Jensen
Lisa Ede
Stacey Pigg
Nita Meola
Hilary Ward
Josephine Tarvers
Alex Way
Patricia Ericsson
Steven Hammer
Janice Fernheimer
Madeleine Sorapure
Cliff Landesman
Ruth Osorio
Janice R. Walker
Extra Special Thanks to:
Ride2CW http://www.ride2cw.org
Publication of this program is partially funded by a grant from the Faculty Service Committee at Georgia Southern University.
16
LIKE US ON FACEBOOK!
17
The Hawisher and Selfe
Caring for the Future
Award (HSCFA)
salutes this year’s C&W
scholarship winner,
Joseph Cirio.
The award honors the work and values of Cindy and Gail by
providing scholarships to people from underrepresented groups,
benefiting not only the scholarship winners, but also our field by
helping it to bring in more diverse views, experiences, and ideas,
thus enriching our discussions and understandings.
To help provide a scholarship for future years, the HSCFA
needs your financial support. During C&W, you can donate
directly to Cheryl Ball, Kristin Arola, or Janice Walker, and they’ll
send you a friendly e-mail thanks. Or, you can give online at :
http://tinyurl.com/hscaring
Think about applying or encouraging your students to apply
for C&W 2016. The scholarship waives the conference and
lodging fee, and provides the winner up to $500 in transportation
expenses.
18
GRN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
(AFTERNOON SESSION)
Moderators: Patrick W. Berry and Quinn Warnick
The Job Workshop is the afternoon session of the Graduate Research Network, held on Thursday, May 28. The event is free and
open to anyone interested in getting advice about the job market and how to conduct an effective job search. Among other
things, we will discuss the following topics:
-
Preparing application materials
Navigating a multidisciplinary job search
Publishing research as a graduate student
Crafting a professional online identity
Preparing for phone, Skype, and MLA interviews
Preparing for campus visits and the “job talk”
The workshop will feature a few short presentations from individuals who have completed successful job searches, but the heart
of the workshop will be a series of roundtable discussions, which will give you the chance to ask questions of faculty who have
chaired search committees and hear stories from colleagues who have been on the job market in the past few years. If you would
like to receive specific feedback on your job application materials (cover letters, CVs, research and teaching statements, etc.),
you are welcome to bring those items to the workshop.
Our esteemed workshop mentors include:
Cheryl Ball, West Virginia University
Patrick W. Berry, Syracuse University
Kristine Blair, Bowling Green State University
Michael Day, Northern Illinois University
Linh Dich, Miami University Middletown
Michelle Eble, East Carolina University
Dustin Edwards, Miami University
Douglas Eyman, George Mason University
Alanna Frost, University of Alabama Huntsville
Erin Frost, East Carolina University
Traci Gardner, Virginia Tech
Angela Haas, Illinois State University
Steven Hammer, St. Joseph’s University
Joleen Hanson, University of Wisconsin-Stout
Stephanie Hedge, SUNY Potsdam
Aimee Knight, St. Joseph’s University
Tim Lockridge, Miami University
Karen Lunsford, UC-Santa Barbara
Suzanne Blum Malley, Columbia College
Stacey Pigg, North Carolina State University
Colleen Reilly, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Rochelle Rodrigo, Old Dominion University
Cynthia Selfe, The Ohio State University
Ryan Shepherd, Ohio University
Barbi Smyser-Fauble, Illinois State University
Katt Starnes, Lamar University
Jennifer Stewart, IPFW
Derek Van Ittersum, Kent State
Janice R. Walker, Georgia Southern University
Quinn Warnick, Virginia Tech
Bill Wolff, Rowan University
Melanie Yergeau, University of Michigan
19
edited by Heidi McKee and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss
now available from Hampton Press (1-57273-705-0)
"The key epistemological breakthrough here: doing digital writing research is not merely a matter of
shipping old methods and methodologies to a new research locale—for instance, the Internet, the
World Wide Web, synchronous chat spaces, virtual classrooms. Rather, technologically mediated
research locales demand changes in method and methodology... Digital Writing Research is the
perfect title for a work that celebrates the achievement of a well-established field while
simultaneously pushing that field into a new identity. This volume makes a strong case for the
distinctive and important nature of computers and writing research." (James Porter, Michigan State
University)
All royalties from book sales will be donated to the Computers &
Writing/Graduate Research Network Travel Grant award funds.
OVERVIEW
Computerized writing technologies impact how and what we write, the ways in which we teach and learn writing, and, certainly,
computers and digital spaces affect our research approaches. Digital Writing Research focuses on how writing technologies,
specifically digital technologies, affect our research—shaping the questions we ask; the sites we study; the methodologies we
use (or could use); the ethical issues we face; the conclusions we draw; and, thus, the actions we take as scholars,
researchers, and teachers.
The chapters in this collection focus on articulating how research practices have evolved—and will continue to evolve—with
changing writing technologies. The chapters provide experienced researchers with a means to reflect upon various aspects of
their research and offer researchers new to composition studies or new to computers and writing research an introduction to
possible approaches and related methodological and ethical issues.
FOCUS
Some questions authors consider include, but are not limited to:
•
How have researchers adapted methodologies for digital writing research? For example, how might a researcher
conduct an ethnography in an online community? What approaches are available for the coding of digital text?
•
What methods are being used by researchers studying sign systems beyond the textual? What research is being
conducted on visuals? What methods are being used by compositionists for studying multimedia texts?
•
What constitutes appropriate human subject research in online environments? When is consent needed, especially
when working in diverse cultural and technological forums? What new issues related to person-based research does
writing in networked spaces create?
•
How are computerized technologies, particularly global technologies, raising new (or remediating old) ethical issues
related to privacy, individual rights, and representation?
•
How have electronic journals and other methods of publishing writing research influenced our research
directions and the distribution of research findings?
CONTENTS
Foreword by James E. Porter
Introduction by the Editors
Part One: Researching Digital Communities: Review, Triangulation, and Ethical Research Reports
Part Two: Researching Global Citizens and Transnational Institutions
Part Three: Researching the Activity of Writing: Time-use Diaries, Mobile Technologies, and Video Screen Capture
Part Four: Researching Digital Texts and Multimodal Spaces
Part Five: Researching the Research Process and Research Reports
20
CALL FOR PROPOSALS:
RESEARCH NETWORK FORUM at CCCC
April 6, 2016 from 8:30AM – 5:00PM
Houston, TX
Proposal Deadline: Thursday, October 31, 2015
http://researchnetworkforum.org
Please join the Research Network Forum as a Work-in-Progress Presenter and/or serve as a Discussion Leader and/or as
a publication Editor.
The Research Network Forum, founded in 1987, is a pre-convention forum at CCCC which provides an opportunity for
established researchers, new researchers, and graduate students to discuss their current projects and receive mentoring from
colleagues in the discipline. The forum is free to CCCC convention registrants. As in past years, RNF 2016 features morning
plenary addresses from Cindy Selfe, Howard Tinsberg, and Todd Taylor focusing on “Writing Strategies for
Action,” the 2016 CCCC theme.
The RNF welcomes Work-in-Progress Presenters (WiPPs) at any stage of their research and at any position in the
composition/rhetoric field (graduate student, junior faculty, tenured faculty, administrator, and/or independent scholar).
During roundtable discussions, WiPPs are grouped by thematic clusters where they discuss their current projects at both a
morning and an afternoon roundtable session in 8 - 10 minute presentations and benefit from the responses of other
researchers. Unless otherwise indicated, WiPPs are scheduled for both morning & afternoon sessions. Collaborating
researchers are placed at separate tables to ensure the most networking opportunities on their research projects.
Discussion Leaders (DLs) lead the thematic roundtables and mentor WiPPs; this role is key to the RNF. We ask that
Discussion Leaders are experienced, established researchers. Serving as a Discussion Leader provides a valuable service to the
composition/rhetoric community. Discussion Leaders may serve at the morning session, afternoon session, or all day, and
they are welcome to also participate as WiPPs.
Participants also include Editors of printed and online composition/rhetoric publications (journals, edited collections, and
book series), who discuss publishing opportunities for completed works-in-progress in an open, roundtable format. We
encourage Editors to bring copies of the publications they edit/publish and announcements for display at the RNF meeting.
Editors are encouraged to serve as Discussion Leaders and may also participate as WiPPs.
To submit a proposal (open August 15 to October 31), visit our website, http://researchnetworkforum.org. Please fill out a
form for each of the roles in which you would like to participate—Work-in-Progress Presenter, Discussion Leader, and/or
Editor. You may appear on the RNF Program in addition to having a speaking role at the Conference on College Composition
& Communication.
Questions? Email Co-Chairs Risa P. Gorelick and Gina M. Merys: [email protected]
http://researchnetworkforum.org
Computers & Writing 2016
Graduate Research Network
Call for Proposals
Join us at
St. John Fisher College
Rochester, NY
May 19, 2016
Proposal Deadline
April 19, 2016
Submit your proposal online:
http://www.gradresearchnetwork.org
For more information contact:
Janice Walker
Department of Writing & Linguistics
P.O. Box 8026
Statesboro, GA 30460
[email protected]
Why Attend?
FREE to all registered conference participants, this
all-day preconference event is comprised of a
series of roundtables that connect emerging and
established scholars of similar interests with one
another. This format provides an ideal
opportunity to:






Jumpstart a new research project
Overcome dissertation / thesis dead-ends
Acquire feedback on current projects
Discover venues for future publication
Prepare for your academic career search
Get to know, learn from, and conspire with
key members of the C&W community