In the present descriptive qualitative study, we present the concept of vocational branding to provide a definition and explain how it may increase interest in a particular vocation or career. We define vocational branding as a set of stories, facts, and ideas communicating the personality, traits, and realistic benefits and challenges of a…

There is growing attention to student assessments designed to reach beyond the classroom, including assessments with an immediate or future audience. The impact of audience, however, has not been examined in multimodal assessments across continents, institutions, disciplines, and teaching contexts. Using qualitative data, this article examines the…

This study investigates the audiences that scholars imagine encountering online and the ways in which these audiences impact scholars' online participation and presentation of self. Prior research suggests that imagined audiences affect what users share and how they present themselves on social media, but little research has examined this topic in…

Fight songs such as "The Victors" and "Notre Dame Victory March" have become part of the American music lexicon. Along with their sister songs, alma maters, they stir memories of carefree college days, elicit feelings of pride, and sometimes--especially fight songs--poke fun at athletic foes. They are the embodiment of…

This article focuses on the writing strategies second-language students use to compose on social media sites. These alternative and unconventional sites for learning provide language learners opportunities to acquire language by using multiple modalities to respond to various rhetorical situations. In comparison to these sites, academic writing…

Nestled in the Himalayan Mountains, Bhutan, a Buddhist country, is one of the most isolated nations in the world. After spending a month there, the authors all agreed it deserved its title of "The Last Shangri-La." Their team of professional development specialists spent the summer of 2010 providing professional development in the basic…

In this analysis the authors introduce three memos announcing layoffs in Chinese companies. The three memos, translated from Chinese, are from: (1) Hewlett Packard China, an American company doing business in China; (2) UT Starcom, founded in China; and (3) Rizhao Steel, one of China's largest steel manufacturers. Comparing the Chinese and…

This research focuses on the current role of mapping practices in communicating climate change in the United States. This includes maps used in monitoring climate change, projecting its potential impacts, and identifying potential adaptation strategies at particular scales. Since few, if any, studies have been done specifically on mapping…

In this article, I present a qualitative analysis of third graders' experiences with a unit from their district-mandated commercial reading curriculum in which the children made strong connections between a fictional account of a Depression-era farm family's economic hardships and their own 21st century lives in a city with one of the highest…

This user-friendly guidance manual is organized by the "target audience" or "end user." First, the manual introduces a "Typical School," which is a school organized in such a way that it represents how many schools in the real world are organized. This Typical School is subdivided into "Organizational Units"…