Call for Papers

BWe Special Issue

Theme: Basic Writing, Community Engagement, and Interdisciplinarity

Guest Editor:
Tom Peele, Associate Professor, Long Island University, Brooklyn

Click here for a PDF version of this CFP.

How does community engagement serve basic writers, and how do basic writers participate in their communities?

Research from across the discipline of rhetoric and composition demonstrates that a wide variety of students—English language learners, basic writing, mainstream, and honors—have the potential to benefit from community-based writing. Scholars note that students benefit from exposure to a wide range of rhetorical situations and the sense that writing addressed to an audience outside the classroom often seems more immediate and more personal than traditional classroom writing. Writing that stems from community engagement has the potential to increase students’ sense of agency.

For the Fall 2014 issue of BWe, we seek articles that investigate the uses and effects of community engagement in basic writing coursework. Our concept of “community engagement” is conceived very broadly, and includes concepts covered by umbrella terms such as service-learning, community based learning, and community literacy. In addition, we’re interested in interdisciplinary collaborations from any perspective. How has your basic writing course worked with the library, the writing center, or other disciplines? We welcome submissions not only from basic writing faculty, but also faculty from other disciplines or from community partners who have collaborated with basic writing classes.

Submission guidelines for formatting print essays and webtexts appear on the BWe website.

Article submissions will be accepted through December 28, 2013. BWe submissions will be responded to no later than March 1, 2014. If revision is requested, a final revision from a BWe author must be submitted to Guest Editor Tom Peele May 1, 2014.

BWe is a peer-reviewed online journal that welcomes both traditional and multi-modal texts. Submission guidelines for formatting print essays and webtexts appear on the BWe Web site: http://bwe.ccny.cuny.edu/. Please direct submissions and further questions to Tom Peele (thomas.peele@liu.edu).