Multilingual writers—often graduate students with more content knowledge and broader cultural experience than a monolingual tutor—unbalance the typical tutor/client relationship and pose a unique challenge for the writing center. Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers explores how directors and tutors can better prepare for the growing number of one-to-one conferences with these multilingual writers they will increasingly encounter in the future.

This much-needed addition of second language acquisition (SLA) research and teaching to the literature of writing center pedagogy draws from SLA literature; a body of interviews Rafoth conducted with writing center directors, students, and tutors; and his own decades of experience. Well-grounded in daily writing center practice, the author identifies which concepts and practices directors can borrow from the field of SLA to help tutors respond to the needs of multilingual writers, what directors need to know about these concepts and practices, and how tutoring might change in response to changes in student populations.

Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers is a call to invigorate the preparation of tutors and directors for the negotiation of the complexities of multilingual and multicultural communication. 

Cain wanders the frontier as a Bigfoot-like hairy beast and confronts an early Mormon apostle. An evil band of murderers from Mormon scripture, known as the Gadianton robbers, provides an excuse for the failure of a desert town. Stories of children raised from the dead with decayed bodies and damaged minds help draw boundaries between the proper spheres of human and divine action. Mormons who observe UFOs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries find ways to explain them in relation to the church’s cosmology. The millenarian dimension of that belief system induces church members to invest in the Dream Mine, a hidden treasure that a would-be heir to Joseph Smith wraps in prophecy of the end times. A Utah version of Nessie haunts a large mountain lake. Non-Mormons attempt to discredit Joseph Smith with tales that he had tried and failed to walk on water.

Mormons gave distinctive meanings to supernatural legends and events, but their narratives incorporated motifs found in many cultures. Many such historical legends and beliefs found adherents down to the present. This collection employs folklore to illuminate the cultural and religious history of a people.

Oni, ubiquitous supernatural figures in Japanese literature, lore, art, and religion, usually appear as demons or ogres. Characteristically threatening, monstrous creatures with ugly features and fearful habits, including cannibalism, they also can be harbingers of prosperity, beautiful and sexual, and especially in modern contexts, even cute and lovable. There has been much ambiguity in their character and identity over their long history. Usually male, their female manifestations convey distinctivly gendered social and cultural meanings.

Oni appear frequently in various arts and media, from Noh theater and picture scrolls to modern fiction and political propaganda, They remain common figures in popular Japanese anime, manga, and film and are becoming embedded in American and international popular culture through such media. Noriko Reiderýs book is the first in English devoted to oni. Reider fully examines their cultural history, multifaceted roles, and complex significance as "others" to the Japanese.

In recent decades, genre studies has focused attention on how genres mediate social activities within workplace and academic settings. Genre and the Performance of Publics moves beyond institutional settings to explore public contexts that are less hierarchical, broadening the theory of how genres contribute to the interconnected and dynamic performances of public life. 

Chapters examine how genres develop within publics and how genres tend to mediate performances in public domains, setting up a discussion between public sphere scholarship and rhetorical genre studies. The volume extends the understanding of genres as not only social ways of organizing texts or mediating relationships within institutions but as dynamic performances themselves.

By exploring how genres shape the formation of publics, Genre and the Performance of Publicsbrings rhetoric/composition and public sphere studies into dialogue and enhances the understanding of public genre performances in ways that contribute to research on and teaching of public discourse.

The Colorado River and its deeply entrenched canyons create a lengthy barrier to travel in the interior West. Here and there, ancient Indian foot trails descend canyon walls and find access to the river, but one of the few places between California and Nevada where wheeled vehicles can approach it is at the mouth of the Pahreah River, between Glen Canyon and the river's steep drop toward Grand Canyon. Here, from the mid-19th until well into the 20th century, Lee's Ferry was a primary link between Utah and Arizona. Mormons trying to reach potential Indian converts and new lands for colonization to the south first developed the site. John D. Lee and parts of his family, seeking an inconspicuous spot after the Mountain Meadows massacre, first took up residence at what they called Lonely Dell. In subsequent decades, many interesting and important western characters passed through this topographical and historical funnel, from John Wesley Powell to Buffalo Bill. As river exploration and adventure increased, the place became as important to those using the river-surveyors, miners, river runners-as to folks crossing it. In recognition of its importance, Lee's Ferry has been partially restored as a historic site in the national park system.

P. T. Reilly, himself a legend on the river as boatman and chronicler, wrote the detailed and colorful history this place demanded, focusing on stories of the hodgepodge of people it attracted. He died before he finished reworking his massive narrative into book form, but Robert H. Webb, author of Grand Canyon: A Century of Change, completed that job and selected rare historical photos from the Reilly collection at Northern Arizona University to illustrate it. An epilogue by Richard Quartaroli provides a biographical sketch of P. T. Reilly.

Thinking Globally, Composing Locally explores how writing and its pedagogy should adapt to the ever-expanding environment of international online communication. Communication to a global audience presents a number of new challenges; writers seeking to connect with individuals from many different cultures must rethink their concept of audience. They must also prepare to address friction that may arise from cross-cultural rhetorical situations, variation in available technology and in access between interlocutors, and disparate legal environments.

The volume offers a pedagogical framework that addresses three interconnected and overarching objectives: using online media to contact audiences from other cultures to share ideas; presenting ideas in a manner that invites audiences from other cultures to recognize, understand, and convey or act upon them; and composing ideas to connect with global audiences to engage in ongoing and meaningful exchanges via online media. Chapters explore a diverse range of pedagogical techniques, including digital notebooks designed to create a space for active dialogic and multicultural inquiry, experience mapping to identify communication disruption points in international customer service, and online forums used in global distance education.

Thinking Globally, Composing Locally will prove an invaluable resource for instructors seeking to address the many exigencies of online writing situations in global environments.

Contributors: Suzanne Blum Malley, Katherine Bridgman, Maury Elizabeth Brown, Kaitlin Clinnin, Cynthia Davidson, Susan Delagrange, Scott Lloyd Dewitt, Amber Engelson, Kay Halasek, Lavinia Hirsu, Daniel Hocutt, Vassiliki Kourbani, Tika Lamsal, Liz Lane, Ben Lauren, J. C. Lee, Ben McCorkle, Jen Michaels, Minh-Tam Nguyen, Beau S. Pihlaja, Mª Pilar Milagros, Cynthia L. Selfe, Heather Turner, Don Unger, Josephine Walwema

The Embodied Playbook discovers a new approach to understanding student literacy in a surprising place: the university athletics department. Through analysis of a yearlong case study of the men’s basketball team at the University of North Georgia, J. Michael Rifenburg shows that a deeper and more refined understanding of how humans learn through physical action can help writing instructors reach a greater range of students.

Drawing from research on embodiment theory, the nature and function of background knowledge, jazz improvisation, and other unexpected domains, The Embodied Playbook examines a valuable but unexplored form of literacy: the form used by student-athletes when learning and using scripted plays. All students’ extracurricular prior knowledge is vital for the work they undertake in the classroom, and student-athletes understand the strengths and constraints of written text much as they understand the text of game plays: through embodying text and performing it in a competitive space. The book focuses on three questions: What are plays and what do they do? How do student-athletes learn plays? How can teachers of composition and rhetoric better connect with student-athletes?

The Embodied Playbook reveals the literacy of the body as a rich and untapped resource for writing instruction. Given the numbers of students who are involved in athletics, whether intramural, community-related, or extracurricular, Rifenburg’s conclusions hold important implications not only for how we define literacy but also for how writing programs can serve all of their students most effectively.

Kelly Ritter and Paul Kei Matsuda have created an essential introduction to the field of composition studies for graduate students and instructors new to the study of writing. The book offers a careful exploration of this diverse field, focusing specifically on scholarship of writing and composing. Within this territory, the authors draw the boundaries broadly, to include allied sites of research such as professional and technical writing, writing across the curriculum programs, writing centers, and writing program administration. Importantly, they represent composition as a dynamic, eclectic field, influenced by factors both within the academy and without. The editors and their sixteen seasoned contributors have created a comprehensive and thoughtful exploration of composition studies as it stands in the early twenty-first century. Given the rapid growth of this field and the evolution of it research and pedagogical agendas over even the last ten years, this multi-vocal introduction is long overdue.

The Internationalization of US Writing Programs illuminates the role writing programs and WPAs play in defining goals, curriculum, placement, assessment, faculty development, and instruction for international student populations. The volume offers multiple theoretical approaches to the work of writing programs and illustrates a wide range of well-planned writing program–based empirical research projects.

As of 2016, over 425,000 international students were enrolled as undergraduates in US colleges and universities, part of a decade-long trend of increasing numbers of international students coming to the United States for both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Writing program administrators and writing teachers across the country are beginning to recognize this changing demographic as a useful catalyst for change in writing programs, which are tasked with preparing all students, regardless of initial level of English proficiency, for academic and professional writing.

The Internationalization of US Writing Programs is the first collection to focus specifically on this crucial aspect of the roles and responsibilities of WPAs, who are leading efforts to provide all students on their campuses, regardless of nationality or first language, with competencies in writing that will serve them in the academy and beyond.

Contributors: Jonathan Benda, Michael Dedek, Christiane Donahue, Chris W. Gallagher, Kristi Girdharry, Tarez Samra Graban, Jennifer E. Haan, Paula Harrington, Yu-Kyung Kang, Neal Lerner, David S. Martins, Paul Kei Matsuda, Heidi A. McKee, Libby Miles, Susan Miller-Cochran, Matt Noonan, Katherine Daily O’Meara, Carolina Pelaez-Morales, Stacey Sheriff, Gail Shuck, Christine M. Tardy, Stanley Van Horn, Daniel Wilber, Margaret Willard-Traub

Transiciones is a thorough ethnography of seven Latino students in transition between high school and community college or university. Data gathered over two years of interviews with the students, their high school English teachers, and their writing teachers and administrators at postsecondary institutions reveal a rich picture of the conflicted experience of these students as they attempted to balance the demands of schooling with a variety of personal responsibilities.

Todd Ruecker explores the disconnect between students’ writing experiences in high school and higher education and examines the integral role that writing plays in college. Considering the almost universal requirement that students take a writing class in their critical first year of college, he contends that it is essential for composition researchers and teachers to gain a fuller understanding of the role they play in supporting and hindering Latina and Latino students’ transition to college.

Arguing for situating writing programs in larger discussions of high school/college alignment, student engagement, and retention, Transiciones raises the profile of what writing programs can do while calling composition teachers, administrators, and scholars to engage in more collaboration across the institution, across institutions, and across disciplines to make the transition from high school to college writing more successful for this important group of students.

From scholars working in a variety of institutional and geographic contexts and with a wide range of student populations, Retention, Persistence, and Writing Programs offers perspectives on how writing programs can support or hinder students’ transitions to college. The contributors present individual and program case studies, student surveys, a wealth of institutional retention data, and critical policy analysis.

Rates of student retention in higher education are a widely acknowledged problem: although approximately 66 percent of high school graduates begin college, of those who attend public four-year institutions, only about 80 percent return the following year, with 58 percent graduating within six years. At public two-year institutions, only 60 percent of students return, and fewer than a third graduate within three years. Less commonly known is the crucial effect of writing courses on these statistics.

First-year writing is a course that virtually all students have to take; thus, writing programs are well-positioned to contribute to larger institutional conversations regarding retention and persistence and should offer themselves as much-needed sites for advocacy, research, and curricular innovation. Retention, Persistence, and Writing Programs is a timely resource for writing program administrators as well as for new writing teachers, advisors, administrators, and state boards of education.

Contributors: Matthew Bridgewater, ​Cristine Busser, Beth Buyserie, Polina Chemishanova, ​Michael Day, ​Bruce Feinstein, ​Patricia Freitag Ericsson, ​Nathan Garrett, ​Joanne Baird Giordano, ​Tawanda Gipson, ​Sarah E. Harris, Mark Hartlaub, ​Holly Hassel, ​Jennifer Heinert, ​Ashley J. Holmes, ​Rita Malenczyk, ​Christopher P. Parker, ​Cassandra Phillips, ​Anna Plemons, ​Pegeen Reichert Powell, ​Marc Scott, Robin Snead, ​Sarah Elizabeth Snyder, ​Sara Webb-Sunderhaus, ​Susan Wolff Murphy