News Features / Events

Mikenna Leigh Modesto (neé Sims), a third-year WRaCS Ph.D. student, published the article “Shifting Perceptions of Socially Just Writing Assessment: Labor-based Contract Grading and Multilingual Writing Instruction” in the July 2023 issue of Assessing Writing. Her study presents cases of two instructors to learn more about how labor-based grading contracts are used in sheltered multilingual first-year writing (FYW) courses, as well as how these instructors perceive labor-based contract grading.

Neha Gondra, a second year double major in NPB and Managerial Economics, won 3^rd Place in the 2023 Norma J. Lang Award for Undergraduate Information Research from the UC Davis Library. Her essay, “Evaluating the Influence of the Mediterranean Diet on Reducing Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors in Obese Individuals,” was awarded a monetary prize in the category of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics. Her review of literature was a revision of a research project that emerged from a UWP 104F class taught by Brendan Johnston.

WRaCS Alumna Mary K Stewart has published the article "How and What Students Learn in Hybrid and Online FYC" in the June 2022 volume of College Composition and Communication. Mary and three co-authors conducted a multi-institutional study to examine the difference between students' perceptions of student-teacher relationships in fully online and hybrid first-year composition courses.

Trish Serviss's article co-authored with Julia Voss and Meghan Sweeney, "A Heuristic to Promote Inclusive and Equitable Teaching in Writing Programs," was published in the Spring 2021 edition of the journal Writing Program Administration. The article presents a heuristic WPAs can use to engage their faculty in collaborative, peer-based analysis, dialogue, and revision of writing course design (embodied in syllabi) to study and strengthen the programs’ inclusivity and equity related to literacy standards, assessment, and accessibility.

Dan Melzer has joined John Bean as the coauthor of a new edition of Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, by Jossey-Bass. New to the 3rd edition is a chapter on alternatives to traditional grading, a chapter on student self-assessment and peer response, and increased attention to multilingual student writers.

Natasong Yuan, a student from Jason Hockaday's UWP1 course, won first place in the 2021 UC Davis Library's Lang Prize for student research writing in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Natasong's research project is a discourse community analysis of the American Society of Botanical Artists. You can find her analysis at https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/lang-prize/winners/natasong-yuan/.  

Nathaniel Williams appeared on the American Vandal podcast from the Center for Mark Twain Studies. Host Matthew Seybold invited him to discuss thematic and ideological connections between Twain and the Disney+ Star Wars series The Mandalorian, which was called “Project Huckleberry” while in development.

Brad Henderson's UWP102E: Writing in the Disciplines (Engineering) is featured on the Global Affairs website. Brad's students are highlighted by Global Affairs for their projects working with global industries on communication related to using engineering to solve problems around the world.

Steve Thompson's third edited reference book on emerging tech, Machine Law, Ethics, and Morality in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, has been published by IGI Global. The book is a collection of innovative research that presents holistic and transdisciplinary approaches to the field of machine ethics and morality and offers up-to-date and state-of-the-art perspectives on the advancement of definitions, terms, policies, philosophies, and relevant determinants related to human-machine ethics.

Routledge has just published the new 4^th edition of A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to the Modern United States, co-edited by UWP emeritus professor Chris Thaiss and emeritus professor James J. Murphy, formerly of the English Department and the Department of Communication and Rhetoric.

Melissa Bender and Karma Waltonen have published the textbook Who's Your Source? A Writer's Guide to Effectively Evaluating and Ethically Using Resources with Broadview Press.

UWP Director Dana Ferris and DE PhD student Amy Lombardi published the article "Collaborative Placement of Multilingual Writers: Combining Formal Assessment and Self-Evaluation" in volume 13.1 of The Journal of Writing Assessment. They examines the results of a collaborative placement study involving students in UWP EMS courses. 

Sasha Abramsky's twice weekly column, "Signal:Noise," is being published  in the Nation magazine at 

Scott Herring's book Yellowstone's Lost Legend: "Uncle" Billy Hoffer, Renaissance Man of the Early Park, has been published by Riverbend Publishing. The book is a biography of the wilderness guide, wildlife census taker, explorer, and expert skier, tracker, and naturalist Billy Hofer.

Sasha Ambramsky was interviewed on the MIchael Slate show on KPFK in Los Angeles. Ambrasky discussed Donald Trump and war crimes. You can listen to the interview at https://archive.kpfk.org/mp3/kpfk_200117_100000michaelslate.mp3  

Marit MacArthur published the essay "John Ashbery's Reading Voice" in the Paris Review on October 29, 2019. The essay is part of the series "75 on 75," a special project from the 92nd Street Y in celebration of the Unterberg Poetry Center's seventy-fifth anniversary. The project invites contemporary authors to listen to a recording from the Poetry Center's archive and write a personal response. The essay can be found at https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/10/29/john-ashberys-reading-voi...

Sasha Abramsky was interviewed by Marc Steiner of the Real News Network on October 10th in response to an article published by Sasha in The Nation. Sasha spoke with Steiner about Trump's threat to democracy and the way he is restructuring and undermining the country. The interview can be found at https://therealnews.com/stories/trump-alters-us-impeachment

Karma Waltonen, along with her co-editor Denise Du Verney, has published the edited collection The Simpsons' Beloved Springfield: Essays on the TV Series and Town That Are Part of Us All with McFarland & Company.  This collection of new essays explores the many ways in which The Simpsons reflects everyday life through its exploration of gender roles, music, death, food politics, science and religion, anxiety, friendship and more.

Associate Professor Sarah Perrault has been elected to the Council of the Pacfiic Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). As a council member, she is responsible for helping shape the division's policies, develop activities, and organize and promote the annual conference. She was nominated and elected on the basis of her scholarly and pedagogical work on science writing, especially public science writing.

A news article about Prized Writing's 30th anniversary can be found on the Arts and Letters website at https://lettersandscience.ucdavis.edu/news/30-years-student-writing-cele.... A celebration event, open to the public, will begin at 6 p.m. in AGR Hall at the Walter A. Buehler Alumni Center. Chancellor Gary S. May will speak along with faculty and students. The most recent issue will be for sale ($17.72) at the event and at the campus bookstore.

Sasha Ambrasky's article "Trump is Dumping Asylum Seekers on American Streets..." appears in the The Nation's July 15-22 issue. The article is available at https://www.thenation.com/article/immigrant-detention-trump-solidarity/ 

Sasha Ambramsky has launched a subscription-based weekly political column, The Abramsky Report, at http://www.theabramskyreport.com. Each month Sasha will write four articles focused on social justice issues, including poverty, immigrants rights, voting rights, access to housing and healthcare, and environmental issues. The yearly subscription fee is $19.95.  

Sarah Perrault published the article "New Metaphors for New Understandings of Genomes" with co-author Meaghan O'Keefe in the Winter 2019 edition of the journal Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. Perrault and O'Keefe offer a conceptual framework for developing, analyzing, critiquing, and choosing new metaphors of how genomes and bodies work that will help improve communication about genomes and genomic research.

Program enables students to unlock new interests and career goals. Read the full article in the Aggie.

Marity MacArthur led a workshop on tools for analyzing recording of performative speech, from poetry readings to political speeches to podcasts, for the UC Berkeley D-Lab on April 8th. Marit also gave an invited lecture on an analysis of a corpus of recordings from the poet John Ashberry.  

Amy Irvine wrote Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness for the 50th anniversary of Edward Abbey's iconic conservationist book, Desert Solitaire. In it, Irvine conducts a posthumous conversation with Abbey about issues of climate disruption, white privilege,  sexism, racism, and some possible solutions to the tribalism of our current political situation.

Dan Melzer's co-authored article with Michelle Cox and Jeff Galin, "Building Sustainable WAC Programs: A Whole Systems Approach," has been published in the most recent volume of The WAC Journal. The article can be accessed at https://wac.colostate.edu/journal/

This guide helps educators write for the rhetorical situations they will face as students of education, and as pre-service and practicing teachers. It provides clear and helpful advice for responding to the varying contexts, audiences, and purposes that arise in four major written categories in education: classroom, research, credential, and stakeholder writing.

Lisa Klotz's chapter "Legal Proof and Probability in Early Modern England" appears in the book Evidence in the Age of the New Sciences, edited by Lancaster and Raiswell. The chapter explores issues of probability versus certainty in the conviction of criminals in early modern England. 

UC Davis emeritus professor and former UWP director Chris Thaiss spent three weeks in August as visiting professor in Argentina to lead workshops for faculty and graduate students. A consortium of universities (RAILEES) had received a grant from the Fulbright Commission and the U.S. State Department to bring in Thaiss to work with them in three areas of writing studies: writing program development, teaching writing across the curriculum and in disciplines (WAC/WID), and development of writing research projects. 

Sasha Abramsky's article, "The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting is the Inevitable Result of Trump's Vile Nationalism" has been published in The Nation at https://www.thenation.com/article/pittsburgh-shooting-result-trump-nationalism/.

Sasha Abramsky will be one of two Nation debaters in a C-Span televised debate on immigration. from Georgetown University on November 29th. Sasha is also writing a twice-a-month Sunday column for the Sac Bee, and recently his articles have appeared in The Nation, The Los Angeles Times, and other venues. His latest article for The Nation can be found at https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-latest-assault-on-immigrants-sh...

UC Davis emeritus professor and former UWP director Chris Thaiss spent three weeks in August as visiting professor in Argentina to lead workshops for faculty and graduate students. A consortium of universities (RAILEES) had received a grant from the Fulbright Commission and the U.S. State Department to bring in Thaiss to work with them in three areas of writing studies: writing program development, teaching writing across the curriculum and in disciplines (WAC/WID), and development of writing research projects.

The interdisciplinary Writing Ambassadors (WA) program provides K-12 classrooms with UCD undergraduate student interns from a range of majors, many of whom plan on becoming K-12 teachers themselves.

Karma Waltonen has been elected President of the Margaret Atwood Society. The Margaret Atwood Society is an international association of scholars, teachers, and students who share an interest in Atwood’s work. The main goal of the Society is to promote scholarly exchange of Atwood’s works and cultural contributions by providing opportunities for scholars to exchange information. 

Marit MacArthur's article "Beyond Poet Voice: Sampling the (Non-) Performance Styles of 100 American Poets" has been published in the Journal of Cultural Analytics. The article is coauthored with Georgia Zellou and Lee M. Miller.

Dan Melzer's book Sustainable WAC, coauthored with Michelle Cox and Jeff Galin, has been published by NCTE. The book draws on theories of complexity, systems, and sustainability to present a methodology for building sustainable WAC programs.

Routledge has published a second edition of Dana Ferris and John Hedgcock's Teaching Readers of English. Teaching Readers of English is a comprehensive manual for pre- and in-service ESL and EFL educators

Students in Cassie Hemstrom's first-year seminar, Save the Puppies, Save the World: Composition Strategies for Non-Profit Promotion on Social Media, created footage for the Facebook page of the Yolo County Animal Services Shelter (https://www.facebook.com/YCAS.Shelter/). In Save the Puppies, Save the World, students study how to create effective branding and promotional posts, then compose and revise and visuals, bios, videos, which are then posted on the shelter or rescue's socia

            Scott Herring’s essay, “When the Water Meets the Road: The Return of the Westslope Cutthroat,” was published in the Fall 2017 issue of Western American Literature. The essay tells the story of Herring’s hunt for a rare and extraordinarily elusive fish hidden in the backcountry in Yellowstone National Park. The photograph of the fish on the University Writing Program website is a photo of the very same fish described in the journal, a westslope cutthroat trout, just before it swam away.

Teachers on the Edge: The WOE Interviews, 1989–2017 collects the voices of 39 significant figures in modern writing studies, forming an accessible survey of the modern history of rhetoric and composition. This remarkable group of teachers and scholars tell the stories of their influences and interests, with scholarly introductions that trace their varied contributions to the field.  Invaluable for writing students, writing teachers, and scholars of writing studies. http://bit.ly/toerout

In August, Rebekka Andersen chaired SIGDOC 2017, the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on the Design of Communication Conference, held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. SIGDOC 2017 featured keynotes by Dr. Karel Vredenburg, lead designer at IBM, and Rigo award winner Dr. Karen Schriver, President of KSA Communication Design & Research, and author of the foundational text Dynamics in Document Design.