Kathleen Blake Yancey

Emerita Professor
Composition studies, writing assessment, and literacies and technologies

KATHLEEN BLAKE YANCEY, Kellogg W. Hunt Professor of English and Distinguished Research Professor, focuses her research on composition studies generally; on students' transfer of writing knowledge and practice; on creative non-fiction; on cultural studies of everyday writing; on writing assessment, especially print and electronic portfolios; and on the intersections of culture, literacy and technologies.

In addition to co-founding the journal Assessing Writing and co-editing it for seven years, she is the immediate past editor of College Composition and Communication, the flagship journal in the field. She has also authored, edited, or co-edited sixteen scholarly books and two textbooks as well as over 100 articles and book chapters.

Yancey has recently published several edited collections. Her most recent collection, ePortfolio-as-Curriculum: Models and Practices for Developing Students’ ePortfolio Literacy (2019), defines ePortfolio literacy and identifies multiple curricula, integrated into a traditional course or designed into a portfolio-specific course, for fostering such literacy. Her co-edited Composition, Rhetoric, and Disciplinarity, released in 2018, outlines different models of disciplinarity as it inquires into whether, and how, Composition and Rhetoric constitutes a discipline with historically unique characteristics and challenges. Assembling Composition, edited with Stephen McElroy for the CCCC SWR series and released in 2017, examines and illustrates assemblage through three lenses-- theory, school, and the world. And her edited A Rhetoric of Reflection, released in 2016, considers reflection from multiple perspectives, including transfer, multimedia, assessment, and race and language.

In 2014, her co-authored Writing across Contexts: Transfer, Composition, and Sites of Writing was published; it demonstrates the efficacy of a new writing curriculum, Teaching for Transfer (TFT), and articulates a new theory of prior knowledge located in theories of assemblage, remix, and critical incidents; it won both the 2015 CCCC Research Impact Award and the 2016 Council of Writing Program Administrators Best Book Award. It has also provided the foundation for two CCCC-sponsored research grants supporting a first-of-its-kind study of the efficacy of TFT curriculum across 8 diverse institutional sites.

She has served as president or chair of several scholarly organizations: the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE); the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC); the NCTE College Section and the College Forum; the Council of Writing Program Administrators; and the South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA). She serves on several boards, including the National Board for Miami University's Howe Center for Writing Excellence and on the Executive Board for the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL), and she is serving as a mentor for WASC's Community of Practice for Advancing Learning Outcomes Visibility. She also serves on editorial boards for several journals, including for College English; Kairos; Computers and Composition; and Double Helix. Earlier boards she has served on include the Steering Committee of the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Steering Committee for the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) VALUE project focused on electronic portfolios.

Yancey is also the recipient of several awards, including the Florida State Graduate Mentor Award, the FSU Graduate Teaching Award (twice), the Donald Murray Prize, the CWPA book award (twice), the CCCC Research Impact Award, the South Atlantic Review Best Essay Award, the Purdue University Distinguished Woman Scholar Award, and the CCCC Exemplar Award, considered by many to be the highest honor in Rhetoric and Composition. In 2019, she received the National Council of Teachers of English Squire Award, “given to an NCTE member who has had a transforming influence and has made a lasting intellectual contribution to the profession.”

Her current research includes two book projects: The Way We Were: A Cultural History of Everyday Writing in the 20th Century United States; and a second book project, The Art of Composing in Writing: Lessons in Assemblage and Materiality. In addition, she is the lead PI for an 8-site study of the TFT writing curriculum supported by CCCC and CWPA Research Grants (http://writingacrosscontexts.blogspot.com/)

SCHOLARLY BOOKS

  • ePortfolio-as-Curriculum: Models and Practices for Developing Students' ePortfolio Literacy, published by Stylus Publishing (edited, 2019)
  • Composition, Rhetoric, and Disciplinarity, published by Utah State University Press (co-edited, 2018)
  • Assembling Composition, CCCC SWR Series, published by NCTE (co-edited, 2017)
  • A Rhetoric of Reflection, Utah State University Press (edited collection:2016)
  • Writing across Contexts: Transfer, Composition, and Sites of Writing, (co-authored with Liane Robertson and Kara Taczak: 2014)
  • Electronic Portfolios 2.0 (edited collection: 2009)
  • Delivering College Composition: The Fifth Canon (edited collection: 2006)
  • Teachers Writing Groups: Collaborative Inquiry and Reflection for Professional Growth (co-edited collection:2006)
  • Teaching Literature as Reflective Practice (2004)
  • Electronic Portfolios: Emerging Practices in Student, Faculty and Institutional Learning (co-edited collection: 2001)
  • Self-Assessment and Development in Writing: A Collaborative Inquiry (co-edited collection: 2000)
  • Reflection in the Writing Classroom (1998)
  • Assessing Writing across the Curriculum: Diverse Methods and Practices (co-edited collection: 1997)
  • Situating Portfolios: Four Perspectives (co-edited collection: 1997)
  • Voices on Voice: Perspectives, Definitions, Inquiry. (edited collection: 1994)
  • Portfolios in the Writing Classroom: An Introduction (edited collection:1992)

RECENT AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS

  • “The Teaching for Transfer Curriculum: The Role of Concurrent Transfer and Inside-and-Outside School Contexts in Supporting Students’ Writing Development” (with Matthew Davis, Liane Robertson, Kara Taczak, and Erin Workman). College Composition and Communication 71.2, forthcoming December 2019.
  • "Expanding the Inquiry: What Everyday Writing with Drawing Helps Us Understand about Writing." In Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle, eds., Considering What We Know. Utah State UP. In press, 2019.
  • Electronic Portfolio (a curated exhibit). In Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities. MLA. Forthcoming 2019.
  • “Writing across College: Key Terms and Multiple Contexts as Factors Promoting Students’ Transfer of Writing Knowledge and Practice” (with Matthew Davis, Liane Robertson, Kara Taczak, and Erin Workman). The WAC Journal, Fall 2018.
  • "'Even if it’s just Writing Letters': Networking Japanese Americans in World War II." In Jeff Rice and Brian McNely, eds., Networked Humanities. Parlor Press, 2018.
  • "With fresh eyes": Notes toward the Impact of New Technologies on Composing." In Jonathan Alexander and Jackie Rhodes, eds., Routledge Companion to Digital Writing & Rhetoric, 2018.
  • "Tombstones, QR Codes, and the Circulation of Past Present Texts." In Laurie Gries and Collin Brooke, eds., Circulation in Writing and Rhetoric. Utah State UP, 2018.
  • "Mapping the Prior: A Beginning Typology and Its Impact on Writing." In Duane Roen et al., eds., Contemporary Perspectives on Cognition and Writing, University of Colorado, 2017.

CURRENT PROJECTS

  • The Way We Were: A Cultural History of Everyday Writing in the 20th Century United States
  • “Greater than the Sum of Its Parts: Enacting an Editorial Philosophy at College Composition and Communication."  In Greg Giberson, Megan Schoen, and Christian Weisser, eds., Editors In Writing: Behind the Curtain of Scholarly Publishing in Writing Studies.

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP

  • Chair, NCTE Task Force on Assessment, 2014-2016.
  • Second Vice-President, First Vice-President, President, and Past President, SAMLA: 2011-2014.
  • Vice-President, President-Elect, President, and Past President, National Council of Teachers of English: 2005-2009.
  • Assistant Chair, Associate Chair, Chair, and Past Chair, Conference on College Composition and Communication: 2001-2005.
  • Vice President, President, and Past President, Council of Writing Program Administrators: 1999-2005.
  • Chair, College Forum, National Council of Teachers of English: 1998-2001.
  • Chair, College Section, National Council of Teachers of English: 1998-2001.

Publications By This Author
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