Research

Research statement (updated June 2022)

CURRENT PROJECTS

Stories at Work: A Longitudinal Narrative Study of New College Writing Teachers’ Identity Learning

  • Artifact-based interview study eliciting stories of teaching and learning from new college writing teachers during the early years of their professional teaching careers
  • Continuing longitudinal study currently in its seventh year of data collection and analysis
  • Emerging emphasis on the role of students in mediating evolving teaching identities and a disciplinary need for additional newcomer support in situated  talk about writing in the college writing classroom  

PAST PROJECTS

Radiant Figures: Visual Rhetorics in Everyday Administrative Contexts, Computers and Composition Digital Press, 2021

Is Teaching ‘Just’ a List? Teacher-Research on Equity as a Framework for New College Writing Teachers’ Identity Learning, Fall 2018

  • Teacher-research pilot study of 2-week orientation and 15-week graduate-level teaching composition course for new graduate student writing instructors
  • Foregrounding issues of educational equity and social justice in the enculturation of new college writing teachers

Dissertation: “Stories at Work: Restorying Narratives of New Teachers’ Identity Learning in Writing Studies,” 2015-18

  • Year-long interview study eliciting new graduate student teachers’ stories of teaching and learning to trace their professional identity learning and development over time
  • Relying on feminist methodologies and theories of narrative, learning, and identity from writing studies, education, psychology, and anthropology
  • Committee: Mary P. Sheridan (chair), Dr. Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Dr. Bronwyn T. Williams, Dr. Tatjana Soldat-Jaffe, Dr. Jessica R. Restaino

Nothing about Me without Me, 2016-17

  • Workshop participant: recorded and assisted during free art and digital media workshops with adults and children with developmental disabilities in Kentucky
  • Team leader: collaborated on video production and viewing for Louisville Council on Developmental Disabilities, supported by Louisville Metro Government and Metro United Way

Art as Memory, 2014-15

Digital Media Academy, 2014

  • Camp designer and teacher: designed curriculum for digital media summer camp; taught middle school girls digital image manipulation, video editing, and collaborative digital text creation and presentation
  • Collaborative researcher: participated in collaborative graduate research project resulting in online publication

Web site

UofL Today article about graduate student teachers, July 11, 2014

UofL Today video with camper interviews, July 10, 2014:

Louisville Courier-Journal article & video with campers, June 23, 2014:

Newspaper page1

WFPL article on Louisville & women in STEM, June 20, 2014

UofL Today article about summer camp, June 9, 2014

PUBLICATIONS

PEER REVIEWED

Gramer, Rachel, Mueller, Derek, & Bearden, Logan (Eds.). (2021). Radiant figures: Visual rhetorics in everyday administrative contexts. Computers and Composition Digital Press. https://ccdigitalpress.org/radiant-figures

Gramer, Rachel. (2021). Is teaching just a list? Toward feminist-humanistic visual representations of teaching writing. In Rachel Gramer, Derek Mueller, & Logan Bearden (Eds.), Radiant figures: Visual rhetorics in everyday administrative contexts. Computers and Composition Digital Press. https://ccdigitalpress.org/book/radiant-figures/ch-list.html

Gramer, Rachel, & Sheridan, Mary P. (2021). Making mobility work for writing studies. In Bruce Horner, Megan Faver Hartline, Ashanka Kumari, & Laura Sceniak Matravers (Eds.), Mobility work in composition (pp. 223-30). Utah State University Press.

Gramer, Rachel. (2018). The figured worlds of digital mediation in schools. In Mary P. Sheridan, Megan J. Bardolph, Megan Faver Hartline, & Drew Holladay (Eds.), Writing for engagement: Responsive practice for social action (pp. 29-42). Lexington Books.

Chamberlain, Elizabeth, Gramer, Rachel, & Hartline, Megan Faver. (2015). Mess, not mastery: Encouraging digital design dispositions in girls. Computers and Composition Online, Fall-Spring. http://cconlinejournal.org/fall15/dma/

Journet, Debra, O’Keeffe, Anthony, Cohen, Stephen, Gramer, Rachel, Hartline, Megan, Mathis, Keri, Sheehan, Kendra, & Winck, Jessica. (2015). ClarissaBlogs: Narrative, writing, and the self. Kairos, 19(2). https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/19.2/praxis/journet/index.php

Gramer, Rachel. (2014). Responsivity as a stance. (Response) Journal of Advanced Composition, 34(1-2), 199-208.

EDITORIAL REVIEWED

Brewer, Elizabeth, & Obermark, Lauren E., with contributions from Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Patricia Dunn, Rachel Gramer, Chad Iwertz, Christopher Krentz, Ryann Patrus, Margaret Price, Katherine Sherwood, Eddie Singleton, & Shannon Walters. (2018). Passageways and betweenity: A Brenda Jo Brueggemann retrospective. Composition Forum, 39(Special Issue: Composition in the Presence of Disability). http://compositionforum.com/issue/39/brueggemann.php

Brueggemann, Brenda Jo, & Gramer, Rachel. (2017). Review essay: No day at the beach: Women ‘making it’ in academia. College English, 79(3), 297-316. https://library.ncte.org/journals/CE/issues/v79-3/28895

Gramer, Rachel, & Sheridan, Mary P. (2016). How might we make mobility work for writing studies?(Response) Working Paper Series on Mobility Work in Composition: Translation, Migration, Transformation. Louisville: Thomas R. Watson Conference on Rhetoric and Composition.

FORTHCOMING

Gramer, Rachel. (forthcoming 2022). Putting learning first: Challenges and possibilities for new writing teacher research. In William J. Macauley, Jr., Leslie Anglesey, Brady Edwards, Kathryn M. Lambrecht, & Phillip Lovas (Eds.), Threshold conscripts: Rhetoric and composition TAships. WAC Clearinghouse/Colorado State University Open Press.

IN PROGRESS

Gramer, Rachel. Stories at work: Restorying new writing teachers as learners and composers book proposal in progress for submission to WAC Clearinghouse Practice and Possibilities Series.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Nichols, Amy, & Gramer, Rachel, with Mary P. Sheridan. (2017, February 8). Charter schools not just for K12 advocacy. Policy Analysis Initiative, National Council of Teachers of English.

Matravers, Laura, & Gramer, Rachel, with Mary P. Sheridan. (2016, June 16). Lingering questions: The delay of free two-year college tuition in KY.” Policy Analysis Initiative, National Council of Teachers of English.

Echols, Khirsten L. & Gramer, Rachel, with Mary P. Sheridan. (2016, March 22). Supporting diverse students on campus, post-college readiness.” Policy Analysis Initiative, National Council of Teachers of English.

Alvarez, Sara P., & Gramer, Rachel, with Mary P. Sheridan. (2016, March 18). “Higher education support for Latin@ students in Kentucky.” Policy Analysis Initiative, National Council of Teachers of English.

Gramer, Rachel, with Mary P. Sheridan. (2016, February 22). Higher ed in KY faces budget cuts, outcomes-based funding.” Policy Analysis Initiative, National Council of Teachers of English.

Gramer, Rachel, with Mary P. Sheridan. (2015, November 8). Kentucky two-year college funding. Policy Analysis Initiative, National Council of Teachers of English.

Gramer, Rachel, with Mary P. Sheridan. (2015, October 14). Kentucky appoints Stephen Pruitt as new education commissioner. Policy Analysis Initiative, National Council of Teachers of English.

Gramer, Rachel, with Mary P. Sheridan. (2015, May 6). Gap in higher ed funding legislation in Kentucky. Policy Analysis Initiative, National Council of Teachers of English.

Gramer, Rachel, with Mary P. Sheridan. (2015, February 10). Kentucky’s CPE/Commonwealth college collaboration. Policy Analysis Initiative, National Council of Teachers of English.

Gramer, Rachel, with Mary P. Sheridan. (2015, February 10). The state of funding in Kentucky. Policy Analysis Initiative, National Council of Teachers of English.

POETRY

Gramer, Rachel. (2003). Bilingual. Our Time Is Now 1(2).

Gramer, Rachel. (2000). Across the Sabula Bridge. Brushing: Rollins College Literary Magazine.

Gramer, Rachel. (2000). No such thing as Atlanta. Brushing: Rollins College Literary Magazine.