This dissertation is a multi-method study that engaged youth in a digital learning ecology called Literacy Scholars for Justice and focused on critical aesthetic textual interpretation. I employ a queer methodology as the dissertation study's overarching methodological framework. I collected data in a virtual learning ecology during a two-year…

Prevalence of mental health needs, particularly those related to anxiety, depression, and emotion regulation, are on the rise in higher education institutions (Auerbach et al., 2016; Blanco et al., 2008). Research has shown college and university student help-seeking behavior varies by identity and many students are often reluctant to seek support…

Young children engage in multimodal written expression. The research in this study explores the spaces that were created, and the stories created by children in an after-school comic club. The club utilized the Writer's Workshop model to support the Being a Writer program that is used in the Ocean View School District (Ocean View School District…

In this article, the author offers suggestions to assist in taming "The Imposter Monster." What is that? Understanding that while academic writing can often be a daunting prospect for an early career researcher there are strategies that help. Author Marie Stewart writes one of the key strategies that her helped navigate this challenging…

The demand for a creative workforce has never been higher, yet schools struggle to teach and assess creativity among students efficiently. Compositions are an effective way to incorporate creativity across the curriculum; however, essays are time consuming to evaluate for quality or creativity. This study explored (a) if high creativity scores are…

Children's increasing expertise in composition relies partly on word choice. Little is known about how children consider words as they write, their meta-lexical awareness, or about their choice of words for writing. In this study, we investigate children's meta-lexical awareness, as one aspect of their metalinguistic awareness, which guides their…

Reading and writing involve print-related and meaning-making processes, which draw on numerous skills and knowledge. The contributing skills and knowledge, and reading and writing have: a) hierarchical relations where lower order skills support higher order skills in a systematic and cascaded way; b) interactive relations where reading and writing…

Many higher education institutions offer drop-in tutoring programs hosted by writing specialists to support struggling students while others may also/alternatively embed tutors directly into courses. In this quasi-experimental study, we compared survey results from 100 students in basic/developmental courses that featured embedded peer tutors with…

The research process is usually construed as linear, from registration to graduation, defined by completion within a certain period. This notion of a linear 'pipeline' has been critiqued for its embeddedness in a managerial discourse and the way it constrains transformation. Here, we focus on how writing support gets ensnared in 'pipeline…

This study examines three core processes in undergraduates' reasoning about four different evidence types (i.e., anecdotal, observational, correlational, and causal). In particular, we examine undergraduates' processes of evidence identification, evaluation, and selection of evidence to include in writing and how these manifest across different…

This study explores the types of online interaction used and levels of reflection achieved by undergraduate students, including the influence of the former on the latter on Google Docs. A qualitative approach was employed by means of (i) content analysis of students' comments and individual reflections based on the established coding schemes of…

Higher education (HIED) presidents face a wide variety of competing demands and pressures. High emotional intelligence (EI) has been found to be effective in good leadership, but few studies exist which examine HIED presidents' EI. This quantitative growth model study attempted to expand the understanding of EI and its source of change among HIED…

When pondering how to contribute to this special issue, the author was startled to realize that their career, the journal's history, and the development of the discipline--rhetoric and composition/writing studies (RCWS)--had run in parallel for 50 years. This essay tells a story of how "generation" came to matter in rhetoric and…

This essay applies Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness Studies towards affirming the collective existence, experience, and humanity of educational leaders of Color, who tend to experience systemic dismissing and invisibilizing within educational institutions. Like racial commentators such as James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, this essay…

The purpose of this basic interpretive qualitative research study was investigating the perceptions of LGBTQ+ college students regarding their out-of-school literacies and the impact of their participation in a non-academic writing group focusing on their out-of-school writing and identities. Situated within the New Literacy Studies (NLS)…