English Department instructor co-authors book tracing writing development

February 13, 2017

Anoka-Ramsey Community College is home to many talented instructors in all departments. English Faculty member Joe Erickson has been co-writing a digital book for the last several years with his partner Kevin Roozen. Utah State University Press recently released this book, which can beaccessed online for free at ccdigitalpress.org/ebooks-and-projects/expanding.

The book titled, Expanding Literate Landscapes: Persons, Practices, and Sociohistoric Perspectives of Disciplinary Development, uses text, videos and images to trace the writing development of five students from different academic fields.

In the book, the authors emphasize ways in which each student draws upon skills seemingly unrelated to academic writing. For example, the students made engineering tables, crafted 2-D designed projects, and wrote fan fiction or creates fan arts to support the development of their academic writing skills.

Based upon Erickson and Roozen’s case study research, the authors argue that the development of academic skills ought to be considered in relation to, rather than separate from, learners’ broader literate lives.

“I am absolutely thrilled that my writing partner Kevin Roozen and I were able to produce and publish this born-digital, multimodal book together,” said Erickson. “We believe that it makes a significant contribution to the field of writing studies, and we are especially proud that we have published it with Computers and Composition Digital Press who afforded us the opportunity to present our research in a media-rich format and make it freely available online.”

For more information about Anoka-Ramsey’s English Department and more exciting news visit: AnokaRamsey.edu/academics/departments-faculty/english/