Since 2010, the Writing Program has offered faculty a vibrant forum in which to review current (and classic) scholarship and discuss the applications of composition and rhetoric theory to practice. Most Faculty Seminars meet for 3-4 discussions sessions of 60-90 minutes each; faculty interested in facilitating a seminar for a future semester are encouraged to propose a topic and tentative reading list.
Introduction to Writing in the Disciplines (Spring 2025)
Generative AI: What Does It Mean for Us? (Fall 2023/Spring 2024)
Cultivating Counterstories in the WR Classroom: Concepts from Critical Race Theory (Spring 2023)
Partnering with Students with Disabilities (Fall 2022)
Creative Nonfiction (Fall 2022)
Linguistic Justice (Spring 2022)
Creativity and Innovation in the Writing Classroom (Fall 2021)
Grading Equitably: Rethinking Grading, from Contract Grading to Ungrading, Specs Grading, and More (Spring 2021)
Rethinking Mentoring in the Writing Program and Beyond (Spring 2020)
Goldsmith, John A., et al. “The Mentor.” The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career: A Portable Mentor for Scholars from Graduate School through Tenure, The University of Chicago Press, 2001, pp. 44-45.
Lechuga, Vincente M. “Faculty-graduate student mentoring relationships: mentors’ perceived roles and responsibilities.” Higher Education, vol. 62, no. 6, 2011, pp. 757-771.
McCann, Thomas M. “Mentoring Matters.” English Journal, vol. 100, no. 2, 2010, pp. 110-112.
Mullen, Carol A. “Constructing Co-Mentoring Partnerships: Walkways We Must Travel.” Theory into Practice, vol. 39, no. 1, 2000, pp. 4-11.
Place-Based Pedagogy (Spring 2019)
Feedback (Spring 2019)
Anson, Chris. “Reflecting Reading: Developing Thoughtful Ways to Respond to Students’ Writing.” Key Works on Teacher Response: An Anthology, edited by Richard Straub, Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc., 2006, pp. 361-382.
Busekrus, Elizabeth. “A Conversational Approach: Using Writing Center Pedagogy to Comment for Transfer in the Classroom.” Journal of Response to Writing, vol. 4, no. 1, 2018, pp. 100-116.
Carbone, Nick, and Margaret Daisley. “Grading as a Rhetorical Construct.” The Theory and Practice of Grading Writing: Problems and Possibilities, edited by Frances Zak and Christopher Weaver, SUNY Press, 1998, pp. 77-94.
Covill, A.E. “College students’ use of a writing rubric: Effect on quality of writing, self-efficacy, and writing practices.” Journal of Writing Assessment, vol. 5, 2018, pp. 1-19.
Elbow, Peter. “The Teacherless Writing Class.” Key Works on Teacher Response: An Anthology, edited by Richard Straub, Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc., 2006, pp. 261-286.
Ferris, Dana R. “Responding to student writing: Teachers’ philosophies and practices.” Accessing Writing, vol. 19, 2014, pp. 6-23.
Ferris, Dana R. “‘They Said I Have a Lot to Learn’: How Teacher Feedback Influences Advanced University Students’ Views of Writing.” Journal of Response to Writing, vol. 4, no. 2, 2018, pp. 4-33.
Haswell, Richard. “The complexities of responding to student writing; or, looking for shortcuts via the road of excess,” Across the Disciplines: A Journal of Language, Learning, and Academic Writing, vol. 3, 2006.
Huisman, Bart, et al. “Peer feedback on academic writing: undergraduate students’ peer feedback role, peer feedback perceptions and essay performance.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 43, no. 6, 2018, pp. 955-968.
Matsuda, Paul Kei, and Michelle Cox. “Reading an ESL Writer’s Text.” A Guide for Writing Center Tutors, 2nd ed., edited by Shanti Brice and Ben Rafoth, Heinemann, 2009, pp. 42-50.
Knoblauch, Cy, and Lil Brannon. “Introduction: The Emperor (Still) Has No Clothes.” Key Works on Teacher Response: An Anthology, edited by Richard Straub, Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc., 2006, pp. 1-13.
Sommers, Nancy. Responding to Student Writers. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013.
Sommers, Nancy. “Responding to Student Writing.” Key Works on Teacher Response: An Anthology, edited by Richard Straub, Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc., 2006, pp. 287-295.
Williams, Joseph M. “The Phenomenology of Error.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 32, no. 2, 1982, pp. 152-168.
Creativity and Collaboration Faculty Seminar (Fall 2018)
“Creativity & Innovation Hub Guide.” BU Center for Teaching & Learning.
Elbow, Peter, and Jane Danielewicz. “A Unilateral Grading Contract to Improve Learning and Teaching.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 61, no. 2, 2009, pp. 244-268.
Elbow, Peter, and Jane Danielewicz. “Appendix to A Unilateral Grading Contract to Improve Learning and Teaching.” ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Gallery, 2009.
Finnegan, Margaret. “It’s Good Till It’s Not.” Inside Higher Ed, 1 August 2017.
Gammarino, M. Thomas. “Class Barriers: Creative Writing in Freshman Composition.” Currents in Teaching and Learning, vol. 1, no. 2, 2009, pp. 19-27.
Hess, Maggie. “Teaching Composition Creatively.” Rhetoric & Writing Studies: College of Arts & Letters, 2011.
Inoue, Asao B. “Community-based assessment pedagogy.” Assessing Writing, vol. 9, no. 3, 2004, pp. 208-238.
Inoue, Asao B. “A Grade-Less Writing Course That Focuses on Labor and Assessing.” First-Year Composition: From Theory to Practice, edited by Deborah Coxwell-Teague and Ronald F. Lunsford, Parlor Press, 2014, pp. 71-110.
McWilliam, Erica L. “Teaching for creativity: from sage to guide to meddler.” Asia Pacific Journal of Education, vol. 29, no. 3, 2009, pp. 281-293.
Oakley, Barbara, et al. “Turning Student Groups into Effective Teams.” Journal of Student Centered Learning, vol. 2, no. 1, 2004, pp. 9-34.
“Teamwork & Collaboration Hub Guide.” BU Center for Teaching & Learning.
Yoder, Lesley. “WR 120: The Graphic Self.”
Teaching the New WR 120 (Spring 2018)
Goldschmidt, Mary. “Teaching Writing in the Disciplines: Student Perspectives on Learning Genre.” Teaching & Learning Inquiry: The ISSOTL Journal, vol. 2, no. 2, 2014, pp. 25-40.
Johns, Ann M. “The future of genre in L2 writing: Fundamental, but contested, instructional decisions.” Journal of Second Language Writing, vol. 20, 2011, pp. 56-68.
Miller, Carolyn R. “Genre as Social Action.” Genre and the New Rhetoric, edited by Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway, Taylor & Francis, 1994, pp. 23-42.
Teaching the New WR 151 (Spring 2018)
Leff, Michael C. “Teaching Public Speaking as Composition.” Rethinking Rhetorical Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy: The Living Art of Michael C. Leff, edited by Antonio de Velasco, et al., Michigan State University Press, 2016, pp. 433-439.
Palmer, Erik. Well Spoken: Teaching Speaking to All Students. Stenhouse Publishers, 2011.
Disability, Inclusion, and Accessibility (Fall 2017)
Chetna, Natascha. “Invisible No More: Supporting students with invisible disabilities.” Inside Higher Ed, 13 March 2016.
Dolmage, Jay. “Disability Studies Pedagogy, Usability and Universal Design.” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 4, 2005.
Dolmage, Jay. “Universal Design: Places to Start.” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 2, 2015.
Duyvis, Corinne, and Kayla Whaley. “Introduction to Disability Terminology.” Disability in Kidlit, 8 July 2016.
Hamraie, Aimi. “Designing Collective Access: A Feminist Disability Theory of Universal Design.” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 4, 2013.
“Helping Someone in Distress: A Guide for Faculty and Staff.” Boston University Student Health Services Behavioral Medicine.
Lang, Jim. “A Welcoming Classroom.” ChronicleVitae, 28 September 2017.
Mooney, Jonathan. “You Are Special! Now Stop Being Different.” The New York Times, 12 October 2017.
Raveenthrarajan, Delicia. “I’m a Student and This Is How I Know Mental Health Stigma Is Real.” Teen Vogue, 21 October 2017.
Seale, Jane K. “Being a Disabled Student in Higher Education.” E-learning and Disability in Higher Education: Accessibility Research and Practice, Taylor & Francis, 2013, pp. 21–33.
“UDL on Campus.” Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education.
“Universal Design in a College Writing Classroom.” Writing Rhetorics: A Pedagogical Blog, 2014.
Womack, Anne-Marie. “Teaching Is Accommodation: Universally Designing Composition Classrooms and Syllabi.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 86, no. 3, 2017, pp. 494-525.
Wood, Tara, et al. “Where We Are: Disability And Accessibility.” Composition Studies, vol. 42, no. 2, 2014, pp. 147-150.
Yuknis, Christina, and Eric R. Bernstein. “Supporting Students with Non-Disclosed Disabilities: A Collective and Humanizing Approach.” Disability as Diversity in Higher Education: Policies and Practices to Enhance Student Success, edited by Eunyoung Kim and Katherine C. Aquino, Taylor & Francis, 2017, pp. 3–18.
Challenging Conversations (Spring 2017)
Bellas, Marcia L. “Emotional Labor in Academia: The Case of Professors.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 561, 1999, pp. 96-110.
Brady, Steve, and Gene Jarrett. “Final Report of the Task Force on Faculty Diversity and Inclusion.” Boston University Task Force on Faculty Diversity and Inclusion, 2 May 2016.
Brunsma, David L., et al. “Teaching Race at Historically White Colleges and Universities: Identifying and Dismantling the Walls of Whiteness.” Critical Sociology, vol. 39, no. 5, 2012, pp. 717-738.
DiAngelo, Robin. “White Fragility.” International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, vol. 3, no. 3, 2011, pp. 54-70.
Ferguson, Sian. “Privilege 101: A Quick and Dirty Guide.” Everyday Feminism, 29 September 2014.
“Gender Bias in Academe: An Annotated Bibliography of Important Recent Studies.” HASTAC, 26 January 2015.
Gorski, Paul. “The Question of Class.” Teaching Tolerance, no. 31, 2007.
Hackman, Rose. “‘Women are just better at this stuff’: is emotional labor feminism’s next frontier?” The Guardian, 8 November 2015.
Harris, Jessica C., et al. “Who Benefits?: A Critical Race Analysis of the (D)Evolving Language Of Inclusion in Higher Education.” Thought and Action, vol. 31, no. 2, 2015, pp. 21-38.
“Implicit Association Test (IAT).” Project Implicit.
Johnson, Pamela. “Dressing the Part.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 10 August 2005.
Jones, Kenneth, and Tema Okun. “White Supremacy Culture.” Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, ChangeWork, 2001.
Larson, Samantha. “What the Word ‘Intersectionality’ Really Means.” Attn:, 27 September 2015.
Lazos, Sylvia R. “Are Student Teaching Evaluations Holding Back Women and Minorities? The Perils of ‘Doing’ Gender and Race in the Classroom.” Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia, edited by Carmen G. Gonzalez, et al., Utah State University Press, 2012, pp. 164-185.
Lensmire, Timothy J., et al. “McIntosh as Synecdoche: How Teacher Education’s Focus on White Privilege Undermines Antiracism.” Harvard Educational Review, vol. 83, no. 3, 2013, pp. 410-431.
Liu, Pei-Hsun Emma, and Dan J. Tannacito. “Resistance by L2 writers: The role of racial and language ideology in imagined community and identity investment.” Journal of Second Language Writing, vol. 22, 2013, pp. 355-373.
MacDonald, Heather. “Multiculti U.” City Journal, Spring 2013.
Poe, Mya. “Reframing Race in Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum.” Across the Disciplines, vol. 10, no. 3, 2013, pp. 87-105.
Schmidt, Peter. “Chief Targets of Student Incivility Are Female and Young Professors.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 May 2010.
Shields, Stephanie A. “Waking Up to Privilege: Intersectionality and Opportunity.” Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia, edited by Carmen G. Gonzalez, et al., Utah State University Press, 2012, pp. 29-39.
Wood, Tara, et al. “Where We Are: Disability And Accessibility.” Composition Studies, vol. 42, no. 2, 2014, pp. 147-150.
Threshold Concepts in Information Literacy and Writing Studies: New Collaborations (Spring 2016)
Clark, Irene L., and Andrea Hernandez. “Genre Awareness, Academic Argument, and Transferability.” The WAC Journal, vol. 22, 2011, pp. 65-78.
Cousin, Glynis. “An Introduction To Threshold Concepts.” Planet, vol. 17, 2006, pp. 4-5.
Downs, Doug, and Liane Robertson. “Threshold Concepts In First-Year Composition”. Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies, edited by Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle, University Press of Colorado, 2015, pp. 105–121.
“Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.” Association of College & Research Libraries, 2015.
Houtman, Eveline. “’Mind-Blowing’: Fostering Self-Regulated Learning in Information Literacy Instruction.” Communications in Information Literacy, vol. 9, no. 1, 2015, pp. 6-18.
Kuglitsch, Rebecca Z. “Teaching for Transfer: Reconciling the Framework with Disciplinary Information Literacy.” Portal: Libraries and the Academy, vol. 15, no. 3, 2015, pp. 457-70.
Land, Ray, Jan H.F. Meyer, and Caroline Baillie. “Threshold Concepts and Transformational Learning (Editors’ Preface)”. Threshold Concepts and Transformational Learning, edited by Ray Land, Jan H.F. Meyer, and Caroline Baillie, Sense Publishers, 2008, pp. ix-xv.
Pope-Ruark, Rebecca. “Know Thy Audience: Helping Students Engage a Threshold Concept Using Audience-Based Pedagogy.” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, vol. 5, no. 1, 2011, pp. 1-16.
Purdy, James P., and Joyce R. Walker. “Liminal Spaces and Research Identity The Construction of Introductory Composition Students as Researchers.” Pedagogy, vol. 16, no. 1, 2016, pp. 9-41.
Shields, Kathy. “Research Partners, Teaching Partners: A Collaboration between FYC Faculty and Librarians to Study Students’ Research and Writing Habits.” Internet Reference Services Quarterly, Vol. 19, nos. 3-4, 2014, pp. 207-18.
Thomas, Alison B., and Alex R. Hodges. “Build Sustainable Collaboration: Developing and Assessing Metaliteracy Across Information Ecosystems.” Association of College and Research Libraries Conference: Creating Sustainable Community, Portland, OR, 25-28 March 2015.
Research and Research-Based Writing (Fall 2010)
Bazerman, Charles. “The Problem of Writing Knowledge.” Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science, University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. 3-17.
Bodi, Sonia. “How De We Bridge the Gap Between What We Teach and What They Do? Some Thoughts on the Place of Questions in the Process of Research.” Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 28, no. 3, 2002, pp. 109-114.
Briggs, John C. “Writing Without Reading: The Decline of Literature in the Composition Classroom.” Forum, vol. 1, Winter 2004, pp. 2-24.
Carter, Michael. “The Idea of Expertise: An Exploration of Cognitive and Social Dimensions of Writing.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 41, no. 3, 1990, pp. 265-286.
Carter, Michael. “Ways of Knowing, Doing, and Writing in the Disciplines.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 58, no. 3, 2007, pp. 385-418.
Davis, Robert, and Mark Shadle. “‘Building a Mystery’: Alternative Research Writing and the Academic Act of Seeking.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 51, no. 3, 2000, pp. 417-446.
Elbow, Peter. “Being a Writer vs. Being an Academic: A Conflict in Goals.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 46, no. 1, 1995, pp. 72-83.
Eubanks, Philip, and John D. Schaeffer. “A Kind Word for Bullshit: The Problem of Academic Writing.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 59, no. 3, 2008, pp. 372-388.
Fulkerson, Richard. “Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 56, no. 4, 2005, pp. 654-687.
Larson, Richard L. “The ‘Research Paper’ in the Writing Course: A Non-Form of Writing,” College English, vol. 44, 1982, pp. 811-816.
Melzer, Daniel, and Pavel Zemliansky. “Research writing in first-year composition and across disciplines: Assignments, attitudes, and student performance.” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, vol. 8, no. 1, 2003.
Perry, William G. “Examsmanship and the Liberal Arts: A Study in Educational Epistemology.” Harvard College: A Collection of Essays by Members of the Harvard Faculty, 1967, pp. 754-765.
“Publications.” Project Information Literacy, 2020.
Russell, David R. “Rhetoric, Research, and Reform.” Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870-1990, Southern Illinois University Press, 1991, pp. 299-307.
Russell, David R. “Writing and the Ideal of Research: Some Tacit Traditions.” Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870-1990, Southern Illinois University Press, 1991, pp. 70-100.
Russell, David R., and Arturo Yañez, “‘Big Picture People Rarely Become Historians’: Genre Systems and the Contradictions of General Education.” Writing Selves/Writing Societies: Research from Activity Perspectives, edited by Charles Bazerman and David R. Russell, WAC Clearinghouse & MCA, 2003. pp. 331-362.
Sidler, Michelle. “Web research and genres in online databases: When the glossy page disappears.” Computers and Composition, vol. 19, no. 1, 2002, pp. 57-70.
Additional Faculty Seminars
- Digital Literacy, Learning, and Citizenship in the Writing Classroom (Fall 2019)
- Reading and Writing with Arithmetic (Spring 2017)
- Making the Most of the Mixed Classroom (Fall 2016)
- Multimodal Writing (Spring 2016)
- ESL Now (III) (Spring 2016)
- Student Engagement and Motivation (Spring 2015)
- Teaching for Transfer (Spring 2015)
- ESL Now (II) (Spring 2014)
- Linguistics, Grammar, and Teaching Writing (Spring 2014)
- The Essay–History and Theory (Fall 2013)
- Literacy and Orality as Lenses on New Media (Fall 2013)
- ESL Now (I) (Spring 2013)
- Learning, Cognition, and the Teaching of Writing (Fall 2012)
- Reading (Spring 2012)
- Genre Theory (Spring 2012)
- Twenty(ish) Classic Articles in Composition Studies (Fall 2011)
- Scholarship in ESL Writing (Spring 2011)