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Working with and against Shared Curricula

Perspectives from College Writing Teachers and Administrators

by Connie Kendall Theado (Volume editor) Samantha NeCamp (Volume editor)
©2021 Monographs XIV, 136 Pages

Summary

Working with and against Shared Curricula: Perspectives from College Writing Teachers and Administrators explores the complexities surrounding the expanding use of shared curricula—syllabi and assignments intended to work universally, for all teachers and all students within a given writing program. Chapters in this collection offer the experiential accounts and research-based arguments needed to prepare teachers and administrators to respond to calls to scale up writing programs for delivery by contingent instructors, in online courses, or at distant sites. Speaking from a variety of perspectives and institutional locations, these authors grapple with questions increasingly common in writing programs: In what ways do shared curricula forward noble goals, such as reducing workload for teachers or ensuring an equitable educational experience for all?; In what ways do shared curricula undermine teacher efficacy and student learning?; When syllabi and assignments are exported from one location to another, what contexts are gained, lost, or changed in the process? In the end, what emerges from this collection is not a clear or simplified argument either for or against shared curricula and pre-designed courses. Instead, readers gain a nuanced picture of both the affordances and limitations of these instructional models for writing programs, and their potential impacts for teachers and students. By exploring the lived experiences, material conditions, political economies, and ideological conflicts of shared curricula environments for multiple stakeholders, this collection serves as a thoughtful interrogation of scalability in writing instruction.

Table Of Contents

  • cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the editors
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Contributors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Working with and against Shared Curricula: An Introduction (Samantha NeCamp and Connie Kendall Theado)
  • Chapter One: Online Teaching, Linguistic Diversity, and a Standard of Care: Developing a Shared Curriculum at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (Jacqueline Amorim and Christine Martorana)
  • Chapter Two: Administrative Policies and Pre-Designed Courses (PDCs): Negotiating Instructor and Student Agency (Catrina Mitchum and Rochelle Rodrigo)
  • Chapter Three: Impossibilities of Scalability: Autonomy, Adjunctification, and Apprenticeship in the Age of the Austerity Crisis (Megan Pindling, Emily Price, and Amy J. Wan)
  • Chapter Four: Rigorous Adaptability in the Concurrent Enrollment Writing Classroom (Jonna Gilfus, Sean M. Conrey, and Melanie Nappa-Carroll)
  • Chapter Five: From Skeptic to Believer to Advocate: How I Came to Understand the Benefits of Shared Curricula Writing Programs (Hannah Thompson)
  • Chapter Six: Humanizing Competency-Based Education in the Writing Classroom (Heather Johnson-Taylor)
  • Chapter Seven: ePortfolios: A Constructive Loophole in the Shared Curricula Model (Laurie B. Bauer, Ruth Benander, and Brenda Refaei)
  • Afterword: Toward Dynamic, Inclusive, and Equitable Shared Curricula (Lisa R. Arnold)
  • Index
  • Series index

←viii | ix→

 

Contributors

Jacqueline Amorim is an Associate Teaching Professor in Writing & Rhetoric at Florida International University, where she teaches composition and technical writing. Her interests include curriculum development, designing effective online courses, and supporting student success. She serves as the FYW Online Teaching Success Coordinator.

Lisa R. Arnold is an Associate Professor of English at North Dakota State University. She is co-editor of Emerging Writing Research from the Middle East-North Africa Region and has published in multiple journals on the history of writing instruction and multilingual writers’ perspectives on writing.

Laurie B. Bauer is an Assistant Professor of Reading and Literacy in the English and Communication Department at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College. She teaches developmental reading and study skills courses. Her research interests include new literacies, developmental education, and culturally responsive teaching.

Ruth Benander is a Professor in the English and Communication Department at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College. She teaches developmental ←ix | x→English courses, composition, and professional development. Her research interests include equity and inclusion in higher education, mindfulness for college success, and eportfolios.

Sean M. Conrey is an Associate Director at Syracuse University Project Advance. Dr. Conrey is dually appointed with the English Department and Writing program at Syracuse University and his research focuses on environmental rhetorics, place-based education, and mentoring in concurrent enrollment.

Jonna Gilfus is an Associate Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition at Syracuse University. Her interests include theories of affect in teaching and learning, curriculum development, and leadership studies.

Heather Johnson-Taylor is an Associate Professor and the ESL Coordinator in the English Department of Sinclair Community College. She teaches composition courses, developmental writing courses, and ESL courses. Her research interests include culturally sustaining pedagogies, critical literacy and language education, and disciplinary literacy instruction.

Connie Kendall Theado is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati, where she teaches graduate writing courses and an undergraduate writing methods course for preservice teachers. Her research interests include culturally sustaining pedagogies and the politics of literacy testing.

Christine Martorana is an Assistant Teaching Professor within the Writing & Rhetoric Program at Florida International University, where she teaches first-year composition, Introduction to Writing Studies, and Rhetorical Theory and Practice. Martorana also works with the Writing Across the Curriculum program.

Catrina Mitchum is Interim Director of Online Writing, Senior Lecturer, and Affiliate Faculty of Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English in the Department of English at the University of Arizona. She researches retention and the design and delivery of online writing classes.

Samantha NeCamp is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of two monographs: Adult Literacy and American Identity (2014) and Literacy in the Mountains (2020). She researches the history of literacy teaching and Appalachian rhetorics.←x | xi→

Melanie Nappa-Carroll is an Associate Director at Syracuse University Project Advance. Dr. Nappa-Carroll’s research focuses on mentoring practices in congregations of women religious, mentoring in teacher preparation, concurrent enrollment, and teacher professional development.

Megan Pindling is an adjunct Lecturer in the English Department at Queens College, CUNY, and is also the Program Coordinator for the Black Male Initiative project at Queens. She is a magical realist and fabulist invested in decolonizing the canon and decolonizing the classroom.

Emily Price is a doctoral student in English at the CUNY Graduate Center and a graduate teaching fellow at Queens College, CUNY, where she teaches writing and composition. She is a medievalist researching affect, madness, and melancholy in medieval literature and science.

Brenda Refaei is a Professor in the English and Communication Department and Co-Director of the Learning + Teaching Center at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College. She teaches developmental English courses, first- and second-year composition, and provides faculty and staff professional development.

Rochelle (Shelley) Rodrigo is the Senior Director of the Writing Program and an Associate Professor in the Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English in the Department of English at the University of Arizona. She primarily researches how “newer” technologies better facilitate teaching and learning.

Hannah Thompson is an Associate Dean of Liberal Arts at Southern New Hampshire University, where her work includes writing across the curriculum initiatives and overseeing first-year composition courses. Her research interests include curricular frameworks and linguistic diversity.

Amy J. Wan is an Associate Professor of English at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center. She is author of Producing Good Citizens: Literacy Training in Anxious Times (2014). Her current project analyzes institutional change and linguistic justice in the US global university.

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←xii | xiii→

 

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, we would like to thank our series editor, Alice Horning, for her thoughtful guidance and careful feedback on the chapters included in this collection. We deeply value her encouragement and her counsel. We also want to thank the Peter Lang production team for shepherding us through the publication process, as well as the anonymous reviewers who provided helpful direction and advice on the project. Our deepest thanks go to the wonderful authors who contributed to this collection: Without their hard work and patience with us as we endeavored to bring their individually insightful chapters into a cohesive whole, this collection would not exist—we are grateful for their efforts.

We began this project with a third collaborator, Brice Nordquist. Although other obligations drew him away from this collection in the early going, we truly appreciate his help in conceptualizing this book and framing its call.

Connie would also like to thank the many supportive colleagues and friends in the School of Education and across the University of Cincinnati who encouraged her to pursue this book project. She is especially grateful to her husband, Chuck, and their grown children—Megan, Sarah, Alex, John, and Caity—for never failing to remind her of what is most important in this life: love, unconditionally. And to Samantha, in recognition of her many talents as a writing partner and co-editor and in gratitude for their friendship across the years, she gives heartfelt thanks and appreciation.←xiii | xiv→

Samantha would also like to thank Vanessa Kraemer Sohan and Lisa Arnold for talking through the nascent ideas that inspired this collection. She would also like to thank her supportive colleagues in the Department of English who have had to listen to far too much conversation about this project—most especially Michele Griegel-McCord. She also thanks her husband, John, and her children—Desmond, Jackson, Isaac, and Eleanor—for making space for her to complete the work of this collection in the most unusual of circumstances. Most of all, she’d like to thank Connie for being such an excellent co-editor and supportive friend.

Details

Pages
XIV, 136
Year
2021
ISBN (PDF)
9781433188725
ISBN (ePUB)
9781433188732
ISBN (MOBI)
9781433188749
ISBN (Hardcover)
9781433188411
DOI
10.3726/b18562
Language
English
Publication date
2021 (September)
Published
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien, 2021. XIV, 136 pp., 1 table.

Biographical notes

Connie Kendall Theado (Volume editor) Samantha NeCamp (Volume editor)

Connie Kendall Theado is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati. She received her Ph.D. in English from Miami University (Ohio). Her scholarship appears in JAC, Language and Literacy, Classroom Discourse, Open Words, and several edited collections. Samantha NeCamp is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of two monographs: Adult Literacy and American Identity and Literacy in the Mountains. She received her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from the University of Louisville.

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