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The Everyday Writing Center challenges some of the most comfortable traditions in its field, and it does so with a commitment and persuasiveness that one seldom sees in scholarly discussion. The book, at its core, is an argument for a new writing center consciousness--one that makes the most of the writing center's unique, and uniquely fluid, identity.

Writing center specialists live with a liminality that has been acknowledged but not fully explored in the literature. Their disciplinary identity is with the English department, but their mission is cross-disciplinary; their research is pedagogical, but they often report to central administration. Their education is in humanities, but their administrative role demands constant number-crunching. This fluid identity explains why Trickster--an icon of spontaneity, shape-shifting, and the creative potential of chaos--has come to be a favorite cultural figure for the authors of this book.

Adapting Lewis Hyde and others, these authors use Trickster to develop a theme of ordinary disruptions ("the everyday") as a source of provocative learning moments that can liberate both student writers and writing center staff. At the same time, the authors parlay Etienne Wenger's concept of "community of practice" into an ethos for a dynamic, learner-centered pedagogy that is especially well-suited to the peculiar teaching situation of the writing center.

Through Trickster, they question not only accepted approaches to writing center pedagogy, but conventional approaches to race, time, leadership, and collaboration as well. They encourage their field to exploit the creative potential in ordinary events that are normally seen as disruptive or defeating, and they challenge traditions in the field that tend to isolate a writing center director from the department and campus.

Yet all is not random, for the authors anchor this high-risk/high-yield approach in their commitment to a version of Wenger's community of practice. Conceiving of themselves, their colleagues, student writers, and student tutors as co-learners engaged together in a dynamic life of learning, the authors find a way to ground the excess and randomness of the everyday, while advancing an ethic of mutual respect and self-challenge.

Committed to testing a region beyond the edge of convention, the authors of The Everyday Writing Center constantly push themselves and their field toward deeper, more significant research, and more reflective, dynamic teaching.

This volume brings together a cadre of world-renowned interpreting educators and researchers who conduct a rich exploration of paradigms, both old and new, in interpreter education. They review existing research, explicate past and current practices, and call for a fresh look at the roots of interpreter education in anticipation of the future. Expert commentary accompanies each chapter to provide a starting point for reflection on and discussion of the growing needs in this discipline.

       Volume coeditor Christine Monikowski begins by considering how interpreter educators can balance their responsibilities of teaching, practice, and research. Her chapter is accompanied by commentary about the capacity to “academize” what has been thought of as a semi-profession. Helen Tebble shares research on medical interpreting from an applied linguistic perspective. Terry Janzen follows with the impact of linguistic theory on interpretation research methodology. Barbara Shaffer discusses how interpreting theory shapes the interpreter’s role. Elizabeth A. Winston, also a volume coeditor, rounds out this innovative collection with her chapter on infusing evidence-based teaching practices into interpreting education. Noted interpreter educators and researchers also provide an international range of insights in this collection, including Rico Peterson, Beppie van den Bogaerde, Karen Bontempo, Ian Mason, Ester Leung, David Quinto-Pozos, Lorraine Leeson, Jemina Napier, Christopher Stone, Debra Russell, and Claudia Angelelli.

“Expecting Teryk is a rich and sumptuous work that speaks to the deeper realities and represents a unique viewpoint of experiences shared by all individuals who choose the path to parenthood.”—Disability, Pregnancy, and Parenthood

The period just prior to the birth of a child is a time of profound personal transformation for expectant parents. Expecting Teryk: An Exceptional Path to Parenthood is an intimate exploration, written in the form of a letter from a parent to her future son, that reclaims a rite of passage that modern society would strip of its magic.

Dawn Prince-Hughes, renowned author of Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey through Autism, considers the ways being autistic might inform her parenting. She also candidly narrates her experience of becoming a parent as part of a lesbian couple—from meeting her partner to the questions they ask about their readiness to become parents and the practical considerations of choosing a sperm donor.

Expecting Teryk is viewed through the lens of autism as Prince-Hughes shares the unique way she sees and experiences the world—as well as her aching will to be fully present for her son. Contemplating the evolutionary traditions of parenting from both animal and human perspectives and the reassurances that nature offers, Expecting Teryk is a work of sensuous wonder that speaks to the deeper realities and archetypal experiences shared by all who embark on the journey of parenthood.

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.

Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative provides a wide-ranging look at the origins, concepts, theories, and practices of the field. This unique, exciting collection of essays by a range of distinguished scholars and practitioners offers insights into the scholars and thinkers who fertilized the minds of those who helped shape the theory and practice of digital and media literacy education. 

Each chapter describes an individual whom the author considers to be a type of “grandparent.” By weaving together two sets of personal stories—that of the contributing author and that of the key ideas and life history of the historical figure under their scrutiny—major concepts of digital media and learning emerge.