June 22, 2023
Awards, Research

Rebecca Lorimer Leonard was recently awarded "Best WAC Article or Chapter Focused on Pedagogy, Theory, or Practice" by The Association for Writing Across the Curriculum and the WAC Clearinghouse for her article "Relationality in the Transfer of Writing Knowledge," written with Angela Rounsaville and Rebecca S. Nowacek.

The award recognizes an article or chapter that makes an exceptional contribution to WAC scholarship in the areas of pedagogy, theory or practice. Nominated work primarily offers theoretical ways of approaching WAC work, discussions of program design and operation, or insights regarding pedagogy, even if this work is based in research.

The Selection Committee remarked: In “Relationality in the Transfer of Writing Knowledge,” Rounsaville, Leonard, and Nowacek provide a collaborative transdisciplinary analysis of transfer scholarship. We were impressed with the authors’ focused and expertly handled synthesis of interdisciplinary transfer research, which we believe enriches our field’s understanding of transfer and offers new and refined concepts that will drive future research and teaching in first year composition, writing centers, and writing across the curriculum. It impressively integrates scholarship from aviation, medicine, human resources and many other fields in order to help readers make sense of transfer’s paradoxical nature, which is crucial for WAC scholars and teachers looking to activate transfer in disciplinary courses. It is a great example of what WAC scholars can do to involve themselves in ambitious, theoretically sophisticated, thoughtful argument.

For more on Lorimer Leonard's work, see her faculty profile.