Below are the committee's collective comments on the book:

 

Recognizing the unique expertise offered by two-year college writing instructors, who often work without a formal WPA, Materiality and Writing Studies focuses on the ways that contingency and material realities shape pedagogies and classrooms. The committee appreciated the inclusion of instructor voices narrating the effects of institutional changes and material stressors on their work and the work of their students.

 

The book included a combination of data driven explanation and anecdotal evidence, including the interludes from various instructors at the institution. The authors employ a mixed methods design to explore the visibility of scholarship on writing curriculum/programs in the field through the analysis of journals, centering an autoethnography conducted by two of the authors about their experiences teaching in the UW system and the evolution and dissolution of that program. The patterns it revealed and the holes in scholarship it identified are telling and important to the field in terms of identifying priorities for future research and intervention. The authors connect this study strongly to other conversations (graduate curricula, labor market in higher education, defunding and divestment in public higher education in the US) and make those connections coherent.

 

The book has an integrated focus on DEI -- especially as it relates to students served in community colleges and their social mobility. This book tells a compelling, persuasive story about the necessity of investing the field's energy into first year writing students, teachers, programs, curricula.

 

I'd like to thank the Best Book Award Committee members for their time and labor on that committee:

• Christina Saidy (Chair), Arizona State University, Christina.saidy@asu.edu
• Beth Boswell, University of Alabama in Huntsville, brb0035@uah.edu
• Lynda Dexheimer, Rutgers University, lynda.dexheimer@rutgers.edu
• Amy Hodges, University of Texas at Arlington, amy.hodges@uta.edu
• Jennifer Kepka, Lance Community College, kepkaj@lanecc.edu
• Kim Lacey, Saginaw Valley State University, krlacey@svsu.edu
• Laura J. Panning Davies, SUNY Cortland, laura.davies@cortland.edu
• Lynn Reid, Fairleigh Dickinson University, lreid@fdu.edu 

Best,

Lilian