Acknowledgments
This study would not have been possible without the openness, generosity, and bravery of the students and instructors who agreed to participate. Thank you for trying new ways of learning and teaching, carving out time to talk and reflect with me, and granting me permission to record, edit, and share your experiences. To instructors Angie, Kelly, Merideth, and Philip from the University of Michigan, and Julie, Katie, and Lauren from Oakland University, I am so grateful for your willingness to open your classrooms and your pedagogies to an outside researcher and for sharing your questions, fears, and successes as instructors of writing using video.
Thank you to my mentors, Anne Ruggles Gere and Bump Halbritter. I composed my first academic video in Anne's Composition Theory course at the University of Michigan in 2009, and I am so grateful that she taught me how big composition and literacy are and allowed me to start to learn how to compose with different modes in an academic space. Bump welcomed me into his Multimedia Writing course at MSU as a student in 2010 even though I was enrolled at that nearby rival school. He taught me the basics of interviewing with audio-visual tools, the importance of considering ethics in video work, and the necessity of being informed about copyright law and fair use—and the importance of always wearing headphones when recording! In Bump's course, I composed my first video focused on the learning of a student writer. Anne and Bump also co-mentored me through the process of composing my dissertation and successfully navigating the job market in 2014, and their guidance and wisdom set me on a path toward further exploring transfer and digital composition. Thank you, Anne and Bump, for everything!
Thank you also to mentors Lisa Ede and Vicki Tolar Burton, who introduced me to the field of Rhetoric and Composition when I was studying as a masters student at Oregon State University from 2002 through 2004. I am so fortunate to have gotten a foundation in literacy studies and the history of rhetoric from you both. Considering how to better apply this learning in my teaching was part of what propelled me back to graduate school to further study rhetoric, writing, and education.
In 2017, I received a CCCC Emergent Research/er Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication for this project. I am so grateful to the selection committee members and the leaders and members of CCCC for their support of this award program and my project in particular. The award provided me with resources for purchasing equipment, compensating participants, hiring research assistants, and more. Through the award program, I was also paired with mentor Bill Hart-Davidson, who gave me helpful guidance as I analyzed data and planned for involving undergraduate research assistants in the project.
I hired three undergraduate research assistants to work with me, supported by the CCCC Emergent Research/er Award. Nate Elam and Kevin Gauthier composed many of the introduction videos found in section 0.3 Meet the Participants, and Lauren Karmo wrote the descriptive transcripts throughout the book. Thank you so much for your time, thoughtfulness, and great work, Nate, Kevin, and Lauren!
My colleagues in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at Oakland University, along with the Oakland University Research Committee, have also greatly supported this project, for which I am grateful. My department provided me with recording equipment, editing and coding software, and other funding when needs arose. The University Research Committee twice awarded me a Faculty Research Fellowship, freeing up time in the summer for me to devote exclusively to coding and analyzing data, writing up findings, and composing videos. My colleagues at OU have been always happy to read and give feedback on drafts of chapters and videos and talk with me about moving a book-length work from proposal to completed eBook manuscript.
Thank you to former and current CCDP editors, Patrick Berry, Tim Lockridge, and Melanie Yergeau for pursuing the project, providing feedback on drafts, and offering advice and technical help. Special thanks to Tim, who made many changes to the code when I wanted to do something I didn't know how to do, thought through questions related to accessibility with me as we considered if and how to provide transcripts, and worked on the design of the fantastic-looking header (and much more). Thank you, as well, to CCDP peer reviewers Michael Harker and Kyle Stedman for your detailed and insightful comments on the manuscript. Your feedback made the work better and pushed my thinking in new directions. I am also grateful to Benay Bubar, who copyedited the main chapters of the book swiftly and with skill.
Finally, thank you, thank you to my loving and fantastic family. My parents, Jan and Gerry, and my sister Kara have always been supportive of my work and family life. My mom, Jan, copyedited the descriptive transcripts—thank you, Mom! My precious babies (now kids!), Sabrina and Paul, were both born while I worked on this project. In fact, if you look closely, you might notice either of them (in utero!) in the video data. My loving partner Ben has worked at his own job, cared for our children, cooked fantasic meals, and discussed so many ideas in support of me and this project. You all are my best loves.