WAC Award Recipients: 2021

The committee also recognizes Graduate Writing Across the Disciplines Identifying, Teaching, and Supporting (The WAC Clearinghouse), edited by Marilee Brooks-Gillies and her colleagues, with an honorable mention. The committe notes that this collection answers, in large part, the need for practical help for the burgeoning new programs to improve graduate writing and learning—an effort which is already always writing in the disciplines and professions. View the book on the WAC Clearinghouse.

Heather M. Falconer, University of Maine, and Justin Nicholes, University of Wisconsin Stout

Comments from the Selection Committee: The Committee awards two dissertations for their equal impact and importance. Each adds to timely conversations about construction of disciplinary identities; carefully outlines their methodologies and positions as researchers; provides valuable, curated literature reviews; and each notes the implications of their work for students, pedagogies and institutional curricula.

Heather Falconer’s recommenders note her dissertation, Triple-Binds and Unintended Consequences: Exploring Scientific Discursive Identity Development with Three Women of Color “does not simply tell the story of women of color in the sciences, . . . but also provides … insights on the importance of faculty of color in that mentoring process and the role that white faculty might take in successfully mentoring women of color in the sciences.” With participants from two distinct STEM disciplines, Falconer uses case studies and situated ethnographic methodology to analyze the complex ways in which race, gender, culture, mentorship, and personal histories contribute to (or inhibit) how women of color develop discursive identities as scientists. As Falconer presents “issues of student writing development, mentoring, and the intertwined relationship between development and identity, specifically for under-represented minority students in STEM programs,” she fills a gap in the research on factors supporting persistence and disciplinary acculturation for women of color, particularly at Hispanic- and Minority-serving institutions, with broader, transferable implications. View the dissertation in the Northeastern University Repository.

Justin Nicholes’ dissertation, Exploring How Chemistry and English Majors Understand and Construct Disciplinary Identities in Relation to Life, Departmental, and Writing Experiences: Implications for WAC and Retention, delivers on the title’s promise with a detailed and meticulous picture of the complex relationships that attend disciplinary identity formation. Nicholes’ sample size is large and his careful critique of his own methodology, and of the ethical considerations that guide his research, frame this robust quantitative/qualitative study of students in two very different disciplines: chemistry and English. As his recommender noted, Nicholes “focuses not on the quality of students’ WTL responses but the likelihood of taking up WTL activities into their unscripted composing practices, and at the end of the day, that’s what we care about most, . . . changing students’ writing habits, including their habits of mind.” The study explains the connected roles of composition teachers and WAC practitioners who work to retain students and promote persistence throughout college. In this way, Nichols “not only speaks to genre studies and dispositions research in writing studies but [to] larger conversations in higher ed around student dispositions related to high-impact practices.” View the dissertation in the ProQuest Database.

Heather M. Falconer, University of Maine

Comments from the Selection Committee: Theoretically rich and methodologically robust, Heather Falconer’s article, “‘I Think When I Speak, I Don’t Sound Like That’: The Influence of Social Positioning on Rhetorical Skill Development in Science,” lays out a compelling case for how literacy practices are deeply intertwined with intersecting social identities. Drawing on the case study of Anne, an academically gifted young woman originally from South America who identifies as African American, Falconer shows us that communities of practice are not always generous to those who have historically relegated them to the periphery. Through Anne’s experiences and successes, Falconer demonstrates how rhetorical skill development is neither the result of exposure to the discipline, nor a reflection of student motivation, but rather the outcome of complex interactions of multiple social factors. Falconer shows that minoritized students need more than explicit instruction. They need to see themselves in scientific practice through intentional invitations and guided participation that acknowledges the multiple identity positions that they possess.

As Written Communication editor Chad Wickman wrote in his nomination letter, Falconer’s article is timely, richly developed, “and offers a foundation—and/or perhaps model—for other scholar-practitioners who would like to engage in similar inquiries and teaching practices, in STEM or otherwise.” Like Chad Wickman, the committee members look forward to seeing Falconer’s research emerge as a touchstone for research and program development in the field. View the article in Written Communication.

Sundy Watanabe, University of Utah

Comments from the Selection Committee: Sundy Watanabe’s chapter, “Intercultural Collaboration: Respect, Relationship, Responsibility, and Reciprocity,” in Maureen Mathison’s edited collection Sojourning in Disciplinary Cultures: A Case Study of Teaching Writing in Engineering (Utah State University Press), offers the WAC community an opportunity to see what critical indigenous theory looks like in practice. By focusing on the four R’s noted in the title—Respect, Relationship, Responsibility, and Reciprocity—this chapter helps explicate the benefits of both interdisciplinary and intercultural collaborations in disciplinary spaces. Watanabe shows us, specifically, what it looks like when those in the humanities and engineering collaborate to consider “broader notions of what constitutes power and knowledge” (p. 155).

From the early stages of negotiating a shared course, where the “difficulties and limitations inherent in trying to infuse the modes, content, and assumptions of one disciplinary domain into another” (p. 165) became salient, through the application of said course, Watanabe shows us the power of bringing both Euro-Western and Indigenous approaches to the classroom so that they enhance one another, rather than cancel each other out. This case study provides a glimpse into how WAC practitioners can implement more inclusive approaches into fields that have historically been exclusionary.
View the book at Utah State University PRess.

Honorable Mention: Anne Ruggles Gere, Anna V. Knutson, Naitnaphit Limlamai, Ryan McCarty, and Emily Wilson, University of Michigan

The Committee felt it was important to recognize a second nomination for this award as representing a significant contribution to the WAC community. Anne Ruggles Gere et al.’s “A Tale of Two Prompts: New Perspectives on Writing to Learn Assignments,” published in The WAC Journal, offers an in-depth look into interdisciplinary negotiations on writing prompts with an eye toward critically reviewing and revising ineffective prompts in a variety of disciplinary spaces. The work presented in this article has broad, practical applications of value to a wide variety of stakeholders. View the article on the WAC Clearinghouse.

Comments from the Selection Committee: The Committee also recognizes with honorable mention the important work of Vani Kannan and Elan Justice Pavlinich. In praise of Kannan’s work, the committee wrote, “During her two years of directing WAC at Lehman College, CUNY, Dr. Kannan rebuilt the program to focus on ‘WAC at a Hispanic Serving Institution,’ offering workshops on anti-racist pedagogy, multilingualism, multimodality, and community-engaged, public-facing pedagogies to support our majority-student-of-color campus. She also rebuilt Lehman WAC around an ethos of multigenerational knowledge-sharing and peer-to-peer support. Through Dr. Kannan’s local work, WAC organized and co-sponsored several on-campus events featuring community organizers and local literacy activists to orient WAC to the important writing/reading-related work happening in their local Northwest Bronx community. She has worked to feature student activists, including the Lehman Latinx Student Alliance, in WAC sessions, foregrounding student-led anti-racist activism around curriculum and encouraging the WAC faculty cohort to build anti-racist curricular interventions in their own departments.”

Similarly, the committee called attention to the work carried out by Pavlinich, writing, “Dr. Pavlinich organized the first LGBTQ+ History Month at Wabash College, a small, male institution. LGBTQ+ History Month consisted of a number of social events including a Pride Flag display as well as student writing projects fostered by Equity and Inclusion activism. Students employed research and multimodal writing skills to construct flyers celebrating the local LGBTQ+ History. Then, in collaboration with a number of students five articles for the student newspaper were crafted Finally, they wrote a newsletter documenting their efforts and shared this with the Wabash College community, including alumni. In response to resistance to these efforts, the Student Government met with Dr. Pavlinich to write, revise, and publish an Anti-Homophobia Statement reflecting the core values of Wabash College.”