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GRADUATE ADMISSIONS

Research Support and Professional Activities

Graduate students are encouraged to pursue both independent and collaborative research. The department and the university support graduate student travel for purposes of research, and the John C. Hodges Better English Fund provides students with annual funding to attend regional, national, and international conferences. Graduate students may also apply for fellowships and editorial, administrative, and research assistantships. 

The department is host to several nationally recognized journals, including The Journal of Second Language Writing, edited by Ilona Leki. Both the First-Year Writing Program, directed by Mary Jo Reiff, and the Writing Center, directed by Kirsten Benson, invite graduate students to work as administrative assistants, positions that offer valuable experience in writing program administration. Faculty participation in national organizations and major research projects also affords graduate students opportunities to work as research assistants in areas of professional interest.

Professional Publications and Organizations

Journal of Second Language Writing, Editor, Ilona Leki (co-editor Tony Silva, Purdue University): An international journal publishing theoretically grounded reports of research on all aspects of writing in second languages.

American Society for the History of Rhetoric, President 2005 Janet M. Atwill; Graduate Assistant, Chris Minnix

Graduate Student Special Interest Group (SIG), Conference on College Composition and Communication. Cofounder (2004) and Faculty Mentor (2005), Jenn Fishman.  Participants (2005): Heather Palmer, lecturer, and Stacey Pigg, graduate student.

Collaborative Research Projects

Writing Across the Disciplines: Faculty researchers, Mary Jo Reiff and Kirsten Benson. Research on practices in writing-intensive courses.

Embodied Literacies and College Writing Research: Faculty researchers, Jenn Fishman and Mary Jo Reiff. Graduate researcher, Stacey Pigg. Collaborative classroom research examining the relationship between embodying language and effective first-year college writing teaching and learning.

Campus Writing Outreach: Faculty researcher, Mary Jo Reiff. Graduate students may participate in writing outreach across campus through new general education writing-intensive initiatives, described in Communicating through Writing initiatives at UT and WAC Clearinghouse: Scholarly Exchange about Communication Across the Curriculum.

Writing and Technology: The Innovative Technology Center awards grants to graduate students doing classroom-based research on writing and technology. Graduate student researcher: Kasey Baker.

Research in Second Language Writing in English from 1985-2005: Faculty Researcher Ilona Leki with Alister Cumming (University of Toronto) and Tony Silva (Purdue University). A critical review of the research published on L2 writing for the years indicated, covering studies of students, texts, teaching methodologies in North America and abroad.

Undergraduates in a Second Language: Faculty researcher, Ilona Leki: A long-term qualitative research study of four L2 students during their entire academic careers focusing literacy development and students' socioacademic relationships with domestic students and teachers.

The Culture of College: Faculty researcher, Ilona Leki: A qualitative interview- and observation-based study of how L2 undergraduate students are received in their courses across the curriculum.

Responding Practices: Faculty researcher, Ilona Leki: An interview- and text-based study of responses to their writing received by L2 graduate students in their disciplinary courses.