front cover of Vascular Plants of Northern Utah
Vascular Plants of Northern Utah
An Identification Manual
Richard Shaw
Utah State University Press, 1989

front cover of Very Like a Whale
Very Like a Whale
The Assessment of Writing Programs
Edward M. White
Utah State University Press, 2015

Winner of the 2015 CPTSC Award for Excellence in Program Assessment


Written for those who design, redesign, and assess writing programs, Very Like a Whale is an intensive discussion of writing program assessment issues. Taking its title from Hamlet, the book explores the multifaceted forces that shape writing programs and the central role these programs can and should play in defining college education.

Given the new era of assessment in higher education, writing programs must provide valid evidence that they are serving students, instructors, administrators, alumni, accreditors, and policymakers. This book introduces new conceptualizations associated with assessment, making them clear and available to those in the profession of rhetoric and composition/writing studies. It also offers strategies that aid in gathering information about the relative success of a writing program in achieving its identified goals.

Philosophically and historically aligned with quantitative approaches, White, Elliot, and Peckham use case study and best-practice scholarship to demonstrate the applicability of their innovative approach, termed Design for Assessment (DFA). Well grounded in assessment theory, Very Like a Whale will be of practical use to new and seasoned writing program administrators alike, as well as to any educator involved with the accreditation process.


[more]

front cover of Violence in the Work of Composition
Violence in the Work of Composition
Recognizing, Intervening, Ameliorating
edited by Scott Gage and Kristie S. Fleckenstein
Utah State University Press, 2022
Focusing on overt and covert violence and bringing attention to the many ways violence inflects and infects the teaching, administration, and scholarship of composition, Violence in the Work of Composition examines both forms of violence and the reciprocal relationships uniting them across the discipline. Addressing a range of spaces, the collection features chapters on classroom practices, writing centers, and writing program administration, examining the complicated ways writing instruction is interwoven with violence, as well as the equally complicated ways writing teachers may recognize and resist the presence and influence of violence in their work.
 
This book provides a focused, nuanced, and systematic discussion of violence and its presence and influence across pedagogical and administrative sites. Violence in the Work of Composition offers a close look at the nature of violence as it emerges in the work of composition; provides strategies for identifying violence, especially covert violence, addressing its impact and preventing its eruption across many sites; and invites readers to reflect on both the presence of violence and the hope for its cessation. Contributors consider, first, how compositionists can recognize the ways their work inadvertently enacts and/or perpetuates violence and, second, how they can intervene and mitigate that violence.
 
Rich with the voices of myriad stakeholders, Violence in the Work of Composition initiates an essential conversation about violence and literacy education at a time when violence in its many forms continues to shape our culture, communities, and educational systems.
 
Contributors: Kerry Banazek, Katherine Bridgman, Eric Camarillo, Elizabeth Chilbert Powers, Joshua Daniel, Lisa Dooley, Allison Hargreaves, Jamila Kareem, Lynn C. Lewis, Trevor Meyer, Cathryn Molloy, Kellie Sharp-Hoskins, Ellen Skirvin, Krista Speicher Sarraf, Thomas Sura, James Zimmerman
 
[more]

front cover of Voice in the Wilderness
Voice in the Wilderness
Conversations with Terry Tempest Williams
edited by Michael Austin
Utah State University Press, 2006
With her distinctive, impassioned voice and familiar felicity of language, Terry Tempest Williams talks about wilderness and wildlife, place and eroticism, art and literature, democracy and politics, family and heritage, Mormonism and religion, writing and creativity, and other subjects that engage her agile mind—in a set of interviews gathered and introduced by Michael Austin to represent the span of her career as a naturalist, author, and activist.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter