CFP: Policy Work in Writing Studies

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Dear Colleagues,

Please consider submitting to this policyworkinwriting

Best,
Annie Mendenhall

Call for Proposals

Policy Work in Writing Studies: Past, Present, Futures

We invite submissions for an edited collection exploring the themes of policy work in writing studies. All educational work is shaped by policy, but writing studies grapples with the unique impacts of policy on its content, delivery, and material conditions. Scholars in our field have approached policy from a number of perspectives, from language policy (Flowers; Smitherman; Wible), to historical influences (Branson; Epps-Robertson; Lueck; Lyons; Mendenhall), assessment (Gallagher; Hammond and Garcia), standardized testing (Addison and McGee; Perelman), placement (Estrem et al.), general education (Ritter), and accreditation (Skinnell). In fact, J.N. Hook’s 1979 history of NCTE argued that the entire organization’s inception was a “meeting of protestors” who were concerned about the strained policies impacting coordination between the nation’s high schools and colleges (506). A strong advocate for policy work, Geneva Smitherman argued in 1987 in College English that the field’s goals of influencing public policy remained unrealized time and again. Smitherman warned that if the field refused to engage in policy work, outside groups would remake policy for us: “A language leadership vacuum has been created by the absence of national policy action from the professions and from political progressives. Into that vacuum has stepped reactionary and counter-progressive forces and movements.” (30-31). Today, Smitherman’s prediction has become reality.

Moreover, in spite of Smitherman’s warning, the study of policy remains fraught. How should writing studies “go public” with its knowledge and practices (Mortenson; Welch; Mathieu; Holmes; Webber)? Why does policy rarely account for our disciplinary expertise, and why do policymakers rarely offer our field a seat at the policymaking table (Adler-Kassner; Wardle; Burns; Mason; Webber)? After all these years, researchers in writing studies are still grappling with what it means to articulate what we know about writing in addition to advocating for that disciplinary expertise in institutional and policymaking arenas. Given this history, we invite proposals for a collection on policy work that will articulate, theorize, historicize, or reimagine ways of engaging in policy work during a time when such work is perhaps more challenging and important than ever.

Drawing from Chris Gallagher, we conceive of “policy” in terms of “laws (and other judicial decisions, regulations, funding priorities, and other courses of action promulgated by federal, state, and local government bodies and officials)” (87). This definition invites us to consider not just legislation but also the "priorities" and “courses of action” taken by government entities to produce policies. In political science, scholars like Patrick McGuinn describe policies in terms of the “governing arrangements,” or rather, the shared ideas that contribute to a policy’s ideological justifications. This means the study of policy needs to include a "wide variety of actors and factors at work in American politics and the ways in which they interact to produce policy" (19). Therefore, for this edited collection, we invite proposals that go beyond analysis of specific policies to include the “ideas, interests, and institutions” that shape writing policy. We hope these contributions help our field understand the ways writing policy shapes our institutions, departments, and writing classrooms such that we might imagine new policy paradigms, or forge new policymaking arrangements in whatever contexts we inhabit as writing studies practitioners. For instance, what federal, state, local, or institutional policies have shaped writing and writing instruction as practiced today? Who has influenced these policies? How are policies developed, approved, and implemented? How can our field better understand these arrangements? Where and how could our field become involved in the process of policymaking? How do rules, mandates, implementation agencies, or other routines serve to legitimize and/or institutionalize policies? What responses might writing studies experts have to these practices? What paradigms shape the way people understand and apply certain policies that impact writing and writing instruction?

Suggested topics for policy work might include:

  • Accreditors’ influence on writing programs, including new accrediting bodies

  • Dual enrollment and high school articulation agreements

  • Disability law and accommodation policies and practices

  • Nationalism and educational content in writing programs and/or rhetorical education

  • Professional organizations’ role in policy making, including these organizations’ policies and bylaws

  • Affirmative action and DEI policies and their dismantling

  • Histories of language policies

  • Placement and assessment policies at the state or federal level

  • Felt experiences of policies by writing faculty, students, and programs

  • Student loan policies, including efforts to enact student loan forgiveness or regulate student loan providers

  • Regulation of composing technologies (GenAI, Social media) and writing instruction

  • State and institutional policies for workload, tenure and/or promotion, hiring, etc.

  • National policies across a global composition instructional context

  • Examples of effective policy work at the institutional, local, state, or federal levels

  • Theories of processes and approaches for effective public policy workHistorical policies and their impact writing and writing programs

  • Alternative histories and speculative futures with different policies (what could be and what could have been)

Proposals

Proposals should be 500-750 words and describe the content, contribution, and format of the proposed full-length submissions.

We encourage proposals for contributions in different formats, including the following:

  • Research and theoretical essays (5,000 words)

  • Narratives of policy work (3,000 words)

  • Draft policy language (2,000 words)

Timeline

Proposals (500-750 words) due: August 1, 2026

Notifications to accepted contributors: September 15, 2026

Full drafts for accepted proposals due: December 1, 2026

Contact

Submit proposals to Google Forms: https://forms.gle/JLyAYMpGcwH8CwoBA

Any questions may be directed to policyworkinwriting

References:

Addison, Joanne, & Sharon James McGee. Writing and School Reform: Writing Instruction in the Age of Common Core and Standardized Testing. The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado, 2016. https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2016.0773

Branson, Tyler S. Policy Regimes: College Writing and Public Education Policy in the United States. Southern Illinois UP, 2022.

Burns, Leslie David. “On Being Unreasonable: NCTE, CEE, and Political Action.” English Education, Vol. 39, No. 2, 2007, pp. 120-145.

Epps-Robertson, Candace. Resisting Brown: Race, Literacy, and Citizenship in the Heart of Virginia. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018.

Estrem, Heidi. “Where We Are: From On-Campus to Behind-the-Capitol: Transitioning from Academia to State Educational Policy Work.” Composition Studies, vol. 52, no. 2, 2024, pp. 145-148.

Estrem, Heidi, Dawn Shepherd, and Lloyd Duman. “Relentless Engagement with State Educational Policy Reform: Collaborating to Change the Writing Placement Conversation.” WPA: Writing Program Administration, vol. 38, no. 1, 2014, https://wpacouncil.org/aws/CWPA/asset_manager/get_file/381950?ver=21

Flowers, Katherine S. Making English Official: Writing and Resisting Language Policies. Cambridge UP, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009278058

Gallagher, Chris W. Reclaiming Assessment: A Better Alternative to the Accountability Agenda. Heinemann, 2007.

Gallagher, Chris W. “At the Precipice of Speech: English Studies, Science, and Policy (Ir)relevancy.” College English, Vol. 73, No. 1, 2010, pp. 73-90.

Hammond, J. W., and Merideth Garica. “The Micropolitics of Pathways: Teacher Education, Writing Assessment, and the Common Core.” Journal of Writing Assessment, vol. 10, no. 1, 2017. DOI:

Hook, J. N. A Long Way Together: A Personal View of NCTE’s First Sixty-Seven Years. National Council of Teachers of English, 1979. https://cdn.ncte.org/nctefiles/centennial/alongwaytogether.pdf

Lueck, Amy J. A Shared History: Writing in the High School, College, and University, 1856-1886. Southern Illinois UP, 2020.

Lyons, Scott Richard. “Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writing?” College Composition and Communication, vol. 51, no. 3, 2000, pp. 447-468, https://doi.org/10.58680/ccc20001387

Mason, Curtis. The National Council of Teachers of English and Cold War Education Policies. Information Age Publishing, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-64113-947-2

McGuinn, Patrick. No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005. University of Kansas Press, 2006.

Mendenhall, Annie S. Desegregation State: College Writing Programs after the Civil Rights Movement. Utah State UP, 2022.

Perelman, Les. “Construct Validity, Length, Score, and Time in Holistically Graded Writing Assessments: The Case against Automated Essay Scoring (AES).” in International Advances in Writing Research: Cultures, Places, Measures, edited by Charles Bazerman, Chris Dean, Jessica Early, Karen Lunsford, Suzie Null, Paul Rogers, and Amanda Stansell. The WAC Clearinghouse; Parlor Press, 2012, pp. 121-132. https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2012.0452.2.07

Ritter, Kelly. From Liberation to Remediation: The Rhetoric of General Education. Utah State University Press, 2026.

Skinnell, Ryan. Conceding Composition: A Crooked History of Composition’s Institutional Fortunes. Utah State University Press, 2016.

Smitherman, Geneva. “Opinion: Toward a National Public Policy on Language.” College English, vol. 49, no. 1, 1987, pp. 29-36. https://doi.org/10.58680/ce198711503

Webber, Jim. Toward an Artful Critique of Reform: Responding to Standards, Assessment, and Machine Scoring. College Composition and Communication, vol. 69, no. 1, 2017, pp. 118-145. https://secure.ncte.org/library/nctefiles/resources/journals/ccc/0691_sept2017/ccc0691toward.pdf

Wible, Scott. “Composing Alternatives to a National Security Language Policy.” College English, vol. 71, no. 5, 2009, pp. 460-485. https://doi.org/10.58680/ce20097141