Readers of Composition Forum may have noticed a pause in our regular volumes; we postponed a Fall 2024 release while we were making some modifications to the journal. First and foremost, we have upgraded the design and functionality of the CF website by implementing a WordPress-based site. We hope you like the new look (and new logo) of the journal—we know it was long overdue. At the same time we were updating the website, Composition Forum was undergoing some changes in our editorial staff as several editors rotated out of their positions and new editors stepped in. Most notably, Jackie Hoermann-Elliot is stepping away from her role as Managing Editor after this volume, and Gavin Johnson and Daniel Ernst will take up this important position. A massive THANK YOU to Jackie for all of the tremendous work she has done with CF—and a big WELCOME to Gavin and Daniel, who will help to shape the direction of the journal in new and exciting ways. We are also very happy to welcome Jillian Viveiros (PhD student at Texas Woman’s University) as an editorial assistant. Finally, we would like to give special acknowledgement to Amanda Kerr (PhD student at Texas Woman’s University) who served as an editorial assistant for 2024–2025 and provided essential service to making this issue a success. We encourage readers to visit our Editorial Board page to become familiar with our current team.
Because of the pause in volumes, we have an exceptionally full offering of features in Volume 55, beginning with an Interview with Ira Shor. In this interview conducted by Ben Kuebrich, Shor reflects on his collaboration with Richard Ohmann, their new book Is College Worth It? Class and the Myth of the College Premium, as well as Shor’s lifetime of experiences as a critical writing scholar and teacher. We are thrilled to publish this new and insightful interview. If you have an idea for an interview, reach out to our Interviews Editors.
The volume features six articles that engage the intersections of theory and pedagogy in writing studies. Making Space for Knowledge Making: Supporting the Continual Learning of TAs in the TA Practicum by Christina Saidy, Emily Robinson, and Kristin C. Bennett examines the experiences of first-year TAs as they conducted teacher research projects in the TA practicum, arguing that teacher research in the practicum provides a way to bridge teaching and knowledge making, foster a continual and layered learning practice, and extend the learning of the practicum beyond the first year. A Data Feminist Pedagogy for Composing the Rhetorical Life of Statistics by Daniel Libertz explores an approach combining “data feminism” and “quantitative rhetoric” that asks students to consider data literacy fundamentals, application of intersectional feminism to contextualize understandings of data, and lessons in composing quantitatively in ways to affect social change across multiple rhetorical situations. Emily Barrow DeJeu’s Style and Substance: Templates for Academic Writing as Frames for Invention suggests that using templates based on the rhetorical figure of antithesis and its arrangement of contrasting cola not only provides students with language that helps them get started in their writing (as templates are designed to do) but also supports their processes of invention. In Visual Mapping: (Re)Presenting Students’ Lived Experiences, Jeaneen S. Canfield explores a nuanced understanding and application of mapping techniques as fruitful for composition assignments and composition research, arguing for a heightened awareness of the relationships between place/space and body/embodiment in effective writing pedagogy.
‘I Couldn’t Have Done This Without You’: Encouraging Horizontal Mentoring in Graduate Degree Programs by Caitlin Martin and Mandy Olejnik argue for a more systematic approach to graduate student mentoring that recognizes the benefits of horizontal mentoring relationships. Drawing on the authors’ own experiences as well as scholarship in mentoring and learning, the article demonstrates the crucial role that horizontal mentoring can play in supporting CRWS graduate students holistically. Adam Phillips’ Charting the Currents: A Deep Dive into the Writing Studies Job Market for Early Career Scholar-Teachers looks at the total jobs available for the 2021–2022 job market compared to previous years, revealing that the job market has changed significantly since earlier studies. And Troubling Teaching for Transfer: Turning (Again) to Rhetoric and Process by Manny Piña and Susan Wolff-Murphy examines the complexity with teaching for transfer (TFT) as curricular content through a qualitative study of how TFT was experienced by first-year writing (FYW) students at a regional, Hispanic-Serving public institution. Their analysis of reflective student writing supports previous studies that show that the curriculum supports the knowledge and application (especially in a two-term sequence) of key concepts of writing studies, including rhetoric, genre, and process. If you have questions or comments about the articles in this volume, or wish to propose an article, contact our Managing Editors.
This volume offers four program profiles addressing the intersection between writing theory and pedagogy. Strategic Alliances and Programmatic Change: The University of Tennessee’s Rethinking of the Rhetoric and Writing PhD Comprehensive Exam by Megan Von Bergen, Kelly Sauskojus, Amber Kent-Johnson, and Lisa King Draws from the various experiences and positionalities of the authors, providing a narrative analysis of the process of changing the PhD exams to reflect diversity in the field and graduate student agency in professionalization. Curricular Success Amid Labor Instability: A WAC Program’s First Five Years by Kimberly K. Gunter, Lindy E. Briggette, Mary Laughlin, Tiffany Wilgar, and Nadia Francine Zamin recounts the development of Fairfield University’s award-winning WAC/WID program, describing the roles of labor and disciplinarity in building “shock-absorbent” WAC program architectures. In Recognizing and Articulating Relationships: The Program for Writing Across Campus at the University of Washington, Seattle Megan Callow interacts with a much earlier (1986) profile about the discipline-linked writing program at the University of Washington, describing the program’s history, organization, and impact. And in A Career-Span Writing Program for Researchers: CSU Writes Program Description—Why and How CSU Writes, Kristina Quynn addresses the specialized writing demands on researchers who must produce submission-quality writing for degree completion, publication, and funding. If you’d like to propose a profile of your institution’s program, please send a query to our Program Profile Editors, Joseph Wilson and Holland Prior.
The Reviews section includes five timely reviews, including a Review of Annette Vee, Tim Laquintano, and Carly Schnitzler’s TextGenEd: Teaching with Text Generation Technologies by Hua Wang; a Review of Lynn C. Lewis’s Pivotal Strategies: Claiming Writing Studies as Discipline by Marie Pruitt; a Review of Heather Ostman, Howard Tinberg, and Danizete Martínez’s Teaching Writing Through the Immigrant Story by Yuni Kim; a Review of Abby A. Knoblauch and Marie E. Moeller’s Bodies of Knowledge: Embodied Rhetorics in Theory and Practice by Grace Boulanger; and a Review of Michal Reznizki and David T. Coad’s Dynamic Activities for First-Year Composition: 96 Ways to Immerse, Inspire, and Captivate Students by Sandie Friedman. Please send review queries—not unsolicited manuscripts—to our Review Editors.
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