Research

Histories of Writing and Rhetoric

📚 An Imagined America: Language, Literacy, Identity, and Coloniality at Syrian Protestant College, 1866-1920

Arnold, Lisa R. (2025). An Imagined America: Language, Literacy, Identity, and Coloniality at Syrian Protestant College, 1866–1920. The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.37514/INT-B.2025.2678 

This book is freely available through The WAC Clearinghouse website. 

Also featured on the Beyond Conventions: Global Dialogues on Writing Studies podcast (episode 4)

In An Imagined America, I present a historical, transnational, translingual, and decolonial perspective on questions of identity, literacy, and citizenship. This study reveals how rhetorical negotiations at the turn of the twentieth century among Syrian Protestant College (SPC) faculty, students, and administrators, as well as the local and regional community, produced a tenuous and sometimes unsettling vision of “America” for foreigners and locals alike. I argue that examining rhetorical negotiations at SPC allows scholars in rhetoric and writing studies, education, and related fields to consider how constructions of national identity, which are often (re)produced vis a vis literacy education, may uncritically represent that nation and national identity as an unassailable good, while the same constructions work to uphold exclusionary practices that are all too vivid in our world today. This work demonstrates the importance of looking beyond monolingual, Anglocentric contexts of literacy to better understand how literacy in English and in other languages is shaped by multiple forces across borders. This decolonial account of transnational and translingual literacy education expands understandings of the history of rhetoric and writing studies in multilingual contexts to account for the relationship between coloniality, nationalism, and the English language, and to enrich our understanding of this history’s influence on contemporary English-language literacy instruction. Ultimately, this monograph highlights the value of decolonial historiography for the field in its exposure of the complicated geopolitical and rhetorical relations of place, politics, language, identity, history, and even the future. 

📑 "Today the Need Arises" اليوم قد مسّت الحاجة: Arabic Student Writing at the Turn of the 20th Century

Arnold, Lisa R. (2018). “‘Today the Need Arises’ اليوم قد مسّت الحاجة: Arabic Student Writing at the Turn of the 20th Century.” Transnational Writing Education: Theory, History, Practice, edited by Xiaoye You. Routledge, pp. 95-111. 

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This book chapter offers a transnational historical case study that examines student writing in Arabic published between 1900 and 1906 at Syrian Protestant College (today, the American University of Beirut), located in Beirut, Lebanon. As writers and editors of their own newspapers and magazines, students at the college adopted the role of instructing their peers; they wrote about writing to make sense of its power, to facilitate dialogue and critique, to educate and advise their peers, and to negotiate educational, cultural, and linguistic borders. These student publications reveal the practical and pedagogical consequences of a transnational writing education: Students negotiate what it means to be a writer, a moral and ethical being, and someone who strives to promote individual, institutional, and cultural development. This historical, transnational, and translingual view of writing education at the turn of the 20th century allows contemporary scholars and teachers to consider the many ways in which students today might also negotiate educational, cultural, and linguistic borders. All English translations within the chapter are accompanied by the original Arabic text.

📑 An Imagined America: Rhetoric and Identity at Syrian Protestant College

Arnold, Lisa R. (2016). “An Imagined America: Rhetoric and Identity at Syrian Protestant College.” College English 78(6), pp. 578-601.

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In this essay, I consider the “first student rebellion in the Arab world,” a protest that took place in 1882 at Syrian Protestant College (SPC), as a moment of rhetorical negotiation in which (Arab) students construct and deploy what I call an “imagined America” to speak back to (American) faculty and administrators. The documents surrounding this moment of crisis reveal that students were deeply enculturated in American nationalist discourse through their education, but their ability to claim such an identity – to succeed as rhetors in the public sphere – was inherently limited. I argue in this article that this historical account is important in allowing scholars in English studies to critically consider how constructions of “America,” which are often (re)produced vis a vis literacy education, may uncritically represent the nation and national identity as an unassailable good, when the same constructions sustain systems of inequality. This essay’s analysis of the rhetorical practices among students and faculty at SPC helps illustrate the high stakes and implicit promises of transnational knowledge economies today and in the past, as represented in and through the globalization of American-style institutions of higher education and the assumptions about citizenship, and literate practices, that are attached to it. 

📑 "The Worst Part of the Dead Past": Language Attitudes and Pedagogies at Syrian Protestant College, 1866-1902
(Winner, 2015 CCCC Richard Braddock Award)

Arnold, Lisa R. (2014). “‘The Worst Part of the Dead Past’: Language Attitudes and Pedagogies at Syrian Protestant College, 1866-1902.” College Composition and Communication 66(2), pp. 276-300. 

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To underline the value of composition’s international and multilingual history, this article presents an account of language attitudes, policies, and pedagogies at Syrian Protestant College (Beirut) between 1866 and 1902. This article provides a historical dimension to contemporary conversations about international and translingual approaches to writing research and pedagogy.

📑 (Re)Working "Writing" and the History of Composition

Arnold, Lisa R. (2009). “(Re)Working ‘Writing’ and the History of Composition.” JAC 29(1-2), pp. 259-65. 

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In this response essay, I argue that the question of what counts as “writing” raises the question of what counts as composition’s “history”: Because most contemporary disciplinary histories focus on the teaching of English composition in the United States from the late-nineteenth century on, the discipline not only tends to think of and define “writing” as a monolingual, institutionalized, pedagogically produced and reader-oriented practice, but it also takes the material surface(s) of “writing” for granted. I argue that, in (re)working “writing,” the symposium papers expose material and multilingual concerns that necessitate a (re)working of composition’s history and historiographic practices. 

Global & Multilingual Contexts of Writing Pedagogy and Practice

📑 Toward a Dialogic Transnational Exchange in Writing Studies Editorial Work

Arnold, Lisa R., Anna Habib, Joan Mullin, and Terry Zawacki. (Forthcoming). “Toward a Dialogic Transnational Exchange in Writing Studies Editorial Work.” Writing Worldviews: The 2023 International Writing Across the Curriculum Edited Collection. The WAC Clearinghouse; University of Colorado Press.

When published, this book chapter will be freely available on The WAC Clearinghouse website.

Scholars promoting linguistic social justice in Writing Studies and those working within transnational and global contexts of writing share many concerns. However, complications arise in practice and in theory for those working at the intersections. We consider these complications, focusing on three key tensions within the editing and publishing processes that shape these fields: making policy statements that respect language difference while treating different experiences with language as the same; that discuss theoretical but not material dimensions of language; and/or that do not examine whether practices align with or work against neoliberal multiculturalism. We begin with a local example, demonstrating how the International Exchanges on the Study of Writing book series editors grapple with articulating policies that respond to these tensions within the North American context, not the least of which is the assumption that concepts such as race and linguistic social justice in our scholarship are universals. This local perspective leads to a wider consideration of colonial epistemologies, language ideologies, and dominant research traditions underlying academic publishing practices and thus our research and practices. Throughout, we provide actions which organizations, publishers, editors and authors can use to intentionally interrupt English’s privileged position and to build knowledge more inclusively. 

📑 Weighing English: Accounting for Power in Translingual Writing

Arnold, Lisa R. (2021). “Weighing English: Accounting for Power in Translingual Writing.” Reconciling Translingualism and Second Language Writing, edited by Tony Silva and Zhaozhe Wang. Routledge/Taylor & Francis ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series, pp. 189-198. 

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Translingual scholarship promotes an ideological shift in the attitudes of teachers toward language difference in writing; however, this branch of composition scholarship suffers from a lack of recognition of what I call the “weight” of English for multilinguals, a recognition that second-language writing scholarship, along with multilinguals themselves, can provide. In this chapter, I draw from interviews I conducted in Beirut, Lebanon with multilingual university students and teachers to illustrate this “weight,” which means that, for some, translingualism in writing is neither a straightforward nor necessarily desirable practice. While multilingual students and teachers who use translingual practices in everyday life tend to conceive of writing in English and other languages through a monolingual lens, they often articulate reasons for resisting translingualism in school or professional contexts that go beyond internalized ideology. If translingualism is to be an effective pedagogical approach, more needs to be done to bridge the gap between the reality on the ground for multilinguals and the ideals of translingualism. Part of this gap comes from failing to acknowledge the lived experiences, goals, and position of our multilingual students, as well as the resources provided by research in second-language writing. Translingual scholars need to listen to multilinguals themselves, as well as research in second-language writing, in order to qualify their claims and recognize the reality of power in contexts multilinguals must navigate, a reality that often goes unrecognized by native English speakers. Because of its status as a lingua franca, English carries a different value – a heavier “weight” – for multilinguals, which means that translingual practices, too, carry higher stakes for some users than others. This chapter considers how the voices of both multilinguals and second-language writing scholars can help translingual scholarship do a better job of accounting for that weight. 

📑 "Now I don't use it at all.... it's gone": Monolingual Ideology, Multilingual Students, and (Failed) Negotiation Strategies

Arnold, Lisa R. (2020). “‘Now I don’t use it at all…. it’s gone’: Monolingual Ideology, Multilingual Students, and (Failed) Negotiation Strategies.” Research in the Teaching of English 54(4), pp. 318-341. https://doi.org/10.58680/rte202030736 

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The study presented in this essay centers on Canagarajah’s (2011a, 2011b, 2013b, 2013c) work on translingual literacy, in which he provides a workable definition of translingual literacy and identifies a set of translingual negotiation strategies that suggest acquisition of translingual literacy. This study measures the strategies outlined by Canagarajah against the descriptions provided by a group of multilingual Lebanese students about their literacy practices. I then build on Canagarajah’s research by analyzing the way these students talk about their linguistic competence and practices. I argue that these students’ discourse reveals how monolingual ideology shapes perceptions about language and linguistic identity, which in turn may affect students’ readiness to adopt a translingual orientation toward writing. I conclude by sketching out implications for teachers who wish to incorporate translingual literacy as a goal in the writing classroom. I argue that, to accomplish the stated goals of translingualism in the classroom—promoting inclusion and access in literacy education—teachers and scholars must do more than adopt a new ideological approach to the teaching of writing. In addition, we must consider the readiness of students to appreciate and accept translingualism. To help students gain from translingual pedagogy, we must first equip students with the tools and language needed to acquire translingual literacy, with the understanding that such a project will pose challenges that are under-recognized in translingual writing scholarship.

📚 Emerging Writing Research from the Middle East-North Africa Region

Arnold, Lisa R., Anne Nebel, & Lynne Ronesi (Eds.). (2017). Emerging Writing Research from the Middle East-North Africa Region. The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.37514/INT-B.2017.0896 

This book is freely available through The WAC Clearinghouse website. 

While events in the Middle East-North Africa region dominate world news, it is an area little understood by the rest of the world—not only historically, politically, and culturally but also within the discipline of Rhetoric and Composition and Second Language Writing. The editors and contributors to this collection share scholarship that addresses how writing programs and writing-across-the-curriculum initiatives—in the region and outside of it—are responding to the increasing globalization of higher education and contributing to international discussions about World Englishes and other language varieties as well as translingual approaches to writing and writing pedagogy.

📑 "This is a field that's open, not closed": Multilingual and International Writing Faculty Respond to Composition Theory

Arnold, Lisa R. (2016). “This is a Field that’s Open, Not Closed”: Multilingual and International Writing Faculty Respond to Composition Theory.” Composition Studies 44(1), pp. 72-88.  

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This article reports on the results of a qualitative, interview-based study in which multilingual writing faculty based at the American University of Beirut (AUB), in Beirut, Lebanon, read and responded to “core” texts of composition scholarship primarily published in North America, for a North American audience. The writing faculty participating in the study also voluntarily attended a ten-session seminar in which they read and discussed the selected texts. This study is premised on the assumption that composition researchers located in North America can learn a great deal about the culturally and linguistically specific assumptions that form the base of our discipline from listening to the responses of teachers of writing in other geographical, cultural, and linguistic contexts. Participants’ responses highlight, in particular, the contemporary challenges faced by, and the values attached to, the teaching and learning of writing in multilingual, international contexts of higher education.

📑 Recognizing and Disrupting Immappancy in Scholarship and Pedagogy

Arnold, Lisa R., Samantha NeCamp, and Vanessa Kraemer Sohan. (2015). “Recognizing and Disrupting Immappancy in Scholarship and Pedagogy.” Pedagogy 15(2), pp. 271-302. 

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In this article, we employ the concept of “immappancy” – a term coined by Kai Krause, meaning insufficient geographical knowledge – to argue that the mapping metaphors used in our discipline’s scholarship and pedagogy result in the reification of problematic representations of place and space, often ignoring the varied material realities contained within the “global.” We propose practical revisions to place-based pedagogies by offering assignment sequences that will help students and ourselves take a more critical approach when considering the relation between the global and local, particularly when writing about the locations and experiences of others. 

Writing Program Administration

📑 Navigating Chaotic Waters: Collaborative WPA Labor and TA Training during the COVID-19 "Pivot" 

Arnold, Lisa R., and Holly Hassel. (2025). “Navigating Chaotic Waters: Collaborative WPA Labor and TA Training during the COVID-19 ‘Pivot.’” WPAing in a Pandemic and Beyond: Revision, Innovation, and Advocacy, edited by Sheila Carter-Tod and Todd Ruecker. Utah State University Press, pp. 165-177.

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In this chapter, we describe a collaborative effort to "pivot" the First-Year Writing program at North Dakota State University during the COVID-19 pandemic. We collaborated to revise, and in some ways reimagine, core parts of our writing program: a developmental shell that could be used for first-year writing sections; an updated emphasis for new-GTA orientation; and a revised GTA training course in which all new GTAs enroll. We elaborate on our respective strengths and areas of expertise, offer insights gained, and provide recommendations for writing program faculty to consider adopting when facing similar unexpected challenges in the future. 

📑 After Implementation: Assessing Student Self-Placement in College Writing Programs 

Arnold Lisa R., Holly Hassel, and Lei Jiang. (2024). “After Implementation: Assessing Student Self-Placement in College Writing Programs.” Journal of Writing Assessment 17(1), pp. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.5070/W4jwa.1571  

This article is freely available via the Journal of Writing Assessment.

While a growing body of research provides instruction on how to implement student self-placement (SSP) for college writing courses, there is a gap in the literature about how to evaluate SSP after implementation. This article offers strategies and recommendations for assessing SSP processes, based on the authors’ experiences of developing a new SSP mechanism and evaluating its effectiveness over several years. This article presents statistical data from our analysis of our institution’s SSP, which informs a heuristic set o fquestions that others can use to evaluate the effectiveness of their own SSP after implementation. This analysis demonstrates the value of evaluating SSP processes for writing programs, as well as outlining issues that may emerge and should be considered when analyzing SSP.

📑 Forum on the Profession (Special Issue on Contingent Faculty) 

Arnold, Lisa, et al. (2011). “Forum on the Profession.” Special Issue on Contingent Faculty. College English 73(4), pp. 409-427.  

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My contribution to this forum focuses on how discursive gaps produced within composition scholarship can carry material consequences for contingent faculty and exacerbate their already marginalized positions in the academy. My interest in this work stems from my personal experience as a former adjunct instructor who felt excluded from disciplinary conversations and therefore struggled to find meaning in my everyday contributions to the field. I conducted a pilot study in Spring 2009 in which I interviewed contingent faculty at the University of Louisville about their responses to composition’s portrayal of them. Through these interviews, I found that the discipline not only participates in an (inadvertent) demeaning of contingent faculty in characterizing multiple perspectives as a unified group, but it also perpetuates reductive narratives to advance arguments that carry significant material and intellectual consequences, both for the discipline and its workers.

Mentorship

📑 Entering Writing Studies as an International Student: A Joint Autoethnography 

Arnold, Lisa R., and Ghada Seifeddine. (Forthcoming Spring 2027). “Entering Writing Studies as an International Student: A Joint Autoethnography.” Composition Studies 55(1). 

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Because little is known about the specific experiences of international graduate students (IGSs) within rhetoric and writing studies (RWS), it is challenging for faculty mentors to know how best to support this population within their programs, or for incoming IGSs to know what to expect. For these reasons, we present a joint autoethnographic account of the experiences of IGSs in RWS from the perspective of a faculty mentor and an international doctoral candidate. For three months during the Summer of 2023, we wrote memos about our distinct perspectives: Lisa specifically considered my previous and current work with IGSs, especially as she prepared to resume her role as first-year writing director and lead the teaching practicum for a majority-IGS cohort, and Ghada considered her experience as an IGS navigating a doctoral program in RWS. We wrote memos to document our thinking about the following research question: What are the individual and institutional conditions that allow for or inhibit an IGSs to learn about, transition into, and contribute to the discourse of RWS? First, we review the literature on challenges faced by graduate students, including IGSs, both generally and specifically in RWS. Then, we identify emergent themes, concluding with implications and next steps for RWS graduate programs, faculty mentors, and IGSs.

📑 Navigating Mentoring Relationships between International Graduate Students and Faculty: A Joint Autoethnography 

Seifeddine, Ghada, and Lisa R. Arnold. (2025). “Navigating Mentoring Relationships between International Graduate Students and Faculty: A Joint Autoethnography.” Rhetoric Review (Symposium on Intergenerational Graduate Mentorship), pp. 75-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/07350198.2025.2526870 

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A growing number of international students are entering rhetoric and composition graduate programs in the U.S., but faculty do not fully understand the specific needs of and challenges faced by this student population as they explore writing studies for the first time. Scholarship on international graduate student mentoring tends to focus on questions related to students’ language acquisition and culture (Gonzalez, 2004; Hirvela & Yi, 2008; Seonhee, 2009). Additionally, much of the scholarship relies on anecdotal accounts about transitioning from student to scholar (Eble & Gaillet, 2008; Franklin et al., 2023; Guglielmo & Figueiredo, 2019; Liu et al., 2008; Matsuda, 2016). However, this scholarship tends to focus on the student experience rather than the myriad factors that faculty must consider in order to be effective mentors for these students. At the same time, there is not much insight on how international graduate students perceive and form mentoring relationships and networks in rhetoric and writing studies. This article seeks to address these gaps by reporting on the results of a joint autoethnographic study focused on the mentorship role and approach of a faculty member who works with many international graduate students, and one international graduate student’s experience of establishing networks of support. The researchers include an international graduate student currently enrolled in a rhetoric and composition doctoral program and an American faculty member with previous international experience who currently works with international graduate students in a graduate program with emphasis on rhetoric and writing studies. Using critical autoethnography, we jointly discuss the factors that influence how faculty mentors and students develop and maintain effective mentoring relationships.  We conclude by offering a set of implications that international graduate students in writing studies and their faculty mentors need to consider in order to facilitate a smooth transition into rhetoric and writing studies as new scholars and teachers.