2024–2025 Call for Proposals
As teachers and scholars within the discipline and within CCCC undertake increasingly complex research projects, the nature of grant applications submitted to CCCC for research funding has changed. A greater number are submitted each year. But more important, the quality of these applications has improved considerably, and the types of projects for which funding is being sought are more diverse. As an organization, CCCC is committed to supporting the diversity of applicants, projects, and research strategies included in these awards.
The CCCC Emergent Researcher Awards reflect this commitment and are intended to invest in our organization’s members by rewarding and supporting early-career researchers, especially
- faculty/instructors who have not had the opportunity to engage in funded research, and
- faculty/instructors who do not have support for research within their institutions.
Only researchers who have not received previous funding from CCCC for research are eligible to apply for these awards. In addition to research funding, the Emergent Researcher Awards provide mentoring support. All selected recipients (or recipient teams) will be matched with research mentors on their projects. These established scholars will have a successful record of mentoring and publication experience. Mentoring pairs will determine procedures through which they collaborate. However, the expectation is that the mentor will be available to consult with the researcher(s) at each stage of selected projects on issues ranging from design to methodology, writing to circulation.
Application Procedures
As with the CCCC Research Initiative, the Emergent Researcher Awards are intended to contribute to CCCC’s efforts for the organization and its members to become a clear, trusted public voice on issues of writing and writing instruction. To this end, we invite proposals for projects that can contribute to or influence discussions about literacy and writing instruction in and out of formal education. The initiative also asks recipients to clearly address the impact their research might have on these conversations, conveying the implications of their work in at least two final products: one that is addressed to a scholarly audience of researchers and teachers in the field, and one that is addressed to a specifically identified more public audience.
Particular topics and areas of interest are those that advance the mission and vision of CCCC, which include but are not limited to the following broad areas:
- Research that produces knowledge about language, literacy, communication, rhetoric, and the teaching, assessment, and technologies of writing at the postsecondary level and beyond
- Social, racial, and linguistic justice and counterstory as research method and genre in approaches to instruction in rhetoric, language, and literacy
- Writing in organizations, communities, and/or cultures
- Transfer of writing ability across contexts
- Disciplinarity of writing studies and composition, including
- critical praxis of the discipline’s growth,
- development of teachers or researchers, and
- professionalization or mentoring of undergraduate or graduate students joining the discipline
- Historiography
- Assessment of writing and literacy
- Development of writers or writing abilities
- Material and working conditions for writing instruction and their influence on teaching and learning
We invite proposals for research that employ diverse perspectives and methodologies, including historical, archival, rhetorical, qualitative, quantitative, ethnographic, and textual.
We welcome proposals for research that have value to the field in several ways: for example, they may be innovative in question or design, they may collect more data in the service of existing research questions, they might explore known phenomena in new locations, or they might synthesize existing research to offer insights into what is known and what is yet to be learned or discovered. Equally valuable are research project proposals that seek to confirm or replicate prior findings that are important to composition and rhetoric scholars. For example: https://library.ncte.org/journals/ccc/issues/v72-3/31162
Proposals should include the following:
- Cover page that contains the title of the proposal, the names and full contact information of the investigator(s) (institution, address, phone, email), and, in the event of multiple investigators, the designation of a principal contact (maximum: 1 page).
- Narrative of no more than 5 single-spaced pages (12-point font, 1-inch margins) that
a. describes how the proposer(s) fulfill(s) the criteria of emergent researcher(s);
b. defines the project and articulates specific research questions;
c.explains the significance of the project and identifies the gaps in knowledge it seeks to fill;
d. situates the project in relevant scholarly conversations about the subject to be studied;
e. carefully describes the proposed methodology and methods, including potential challenges or limitations;
f. communicates how and why the research is relevant to writing instructors and/or researchers;
g. describes the personnel and financial resources needed to complete the project, arguing why they are necessary and relevant; and
h. describes what the project will add to existing conversations among academic and public audiences and identifies at least two final products—one that is addressed to a scholarly audience of researchers and teachers in the field and one that is addressed to a specifically identified more public audience. Academic products should be submitted to CCCC or NCTE publications (e.g., CCC, Studies in Writing and Rhetoric series) for first review prior to submission to other publications (though receipt does not guarantee acceptance by CCC or Studies in Writing and Rhetoric). In addition to introducing the review committee to your proposed research, your narrative will guide the identification of potential mentors, so the proposal may explicitly address mentoring the emergent researcher hopes to receive, including any questions or concerns you have about the project. - One-page description of the credentials and expertise the investigator(s) brings to the project (relevant details about positions and teaching/research experience is sufficient) (maximum: 1 page).
- Detailed budget with specific rationale for all expenses. Funds may be used for direct costs associated with the research, such as reassigned time/course buyout, student assistance, software, stipends for research subjects, etc. If student assistance is included in the budget, proposals should explain how the assistance will provide a learning/mentoring opportunity for the students involved. Please note that this grant may not be used to pay overhead, indirect costs, or travel to the CCCC Annual Convention. Equipment costs are allowable if justified (maximum: 1 page).
Maximum proposal length, including all components described above, is 8 pages.
CCCC plans to fund proposals of up to $5,000 each. The principal investigator(s) must belong to CCCC at the time of proposal submission. Proposed projects are expected to last up to two years but can run for shorter periods of time. Proposals are to be submitted no later than 11:59 p.m. CT on September 1, 2024, as a single email attachment to the CCCC Liaison at cccc@ncte.org. Proposals are reviewed by a joint committee comprising CCCC Executive Committee members and members selected from the CCCC Research Committee. Decisions will be announced by January 30, 2025. A mid-project report will be due by May 1, 2026. (This will be the final report date for projects lasting up to one year.) Projects should be completed and a final report submitted by May 1, 2027, for projects lasting two years. A summary version of the final report will be hosted on the CCCC website.
Eligibility
Researchers may submit only one research proposal per award cycle for either the CCCC Research Initiative or the CCCC Emergent Researcher Award—researchers cannot submit to both. Additionally, CCCC research grant recipients may not apply for CCCC research funding in the three years following the initial grant year (e.g., if the initial funding term begins in 2025, researchers may not apply again until the 2028 award cycle).
Emergent Researcher Award Recipients
2023-2024
An Investigation of First-Year Composition Instruction in Two-Year Colleges In Belize, Central America
Felicita Arzu-Carmichael, Oakland University
Making a Way: Black Women Navigating Graduate School and Early Careers in Rhetoric and Writing Studies
Talisha Haltiwanger Morrison, University of Oklahoma
2022-2023
National Trends in First-Year Writing Curricula: Assignments and Readings
Enrique Paz, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Cynthia Johnson, University of Central Oklahoma
Leveraging Our Expertise: A Digital Archive of WAC Work outside of Higher Education
Will Chesher, Miami University
Teaching and Learning about Privacy and Surveillance: Creating Coalitions Through the Digital Rhetorical Privacy Collective
Charles Woods, Texas A&M University–Commerce
Morgan Banville, East Carolina University
Gavin P. Johnson, Texas A&M University–Commerce
Chen Chen, Utah State University
Cecilia Shelton, University of Maryland–College Park
Noah Wason, Binghamton University
2021-2022
Black Women’s Rhetoric(s): Collective Stories to Articulating a Rhetorical Genre, Discipline, and Community
Ronisha W. Browdy, North Carolina State University
Tutors’ and Spanish-Speaking Students’ Dispositions Toward Literacy and the Effect of Their Dispositions on Tutoring Sessions
Marina Ellis, University of Maryland, College Park
The ‘STEM-minded’ Writer: Individualized Outcome-based Writing Instruction for Students at STEM Institutions
Jossalyn G. Larson, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Antiracist Challenges to Whitewashed Pedagogy: Deploying African American Rhetoric in First-Year Writing Classrooms
Angela Morris, University of Memphis
Understanding how basic coding pedagogy influences attitudes and competencies of rhetoric and composition educators
Stephen Quigley, University of Pittsburgh, PA
Adjusted Localities: Actionalizing Anti-Racist Writing Pedagogy through a Partnership between Brown University Writing Center and Providence Public Schools
Brittney Threatt, Brown University, RI
Charlie Carroll, Brown University, RI
A Rhet/Comp Digital Sound Collection: An Open-Access Resource for Teaching and Research
Shane A. Wood, University of Southern Mississippi
2020–2021
Assessing Online Writing Instruction to Move from Crisis to Sustainability
Bethany Ober Mannon, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
Closing the gap between WID and WIP: ePortfolio as evidence of professional identity
Jonathan Torres, Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT
Marissa McKinley, Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT
2019-2020
Trauma-Informed Writing Pedagogy: A Pilot Study of an Evidence-Based Training Initiative
Michelle L. Day, University of Louisville, KY
Sara M. Williams, University of Louisville, KY
Reconsidering a Vexed Question: Localizing the Writing Class Size Argument
Mellisa Huffman, Angelo State University, San Angelo, TX
Cheri Lemieux Spiegel, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale
Intersecting Genres, Transforming Modes: Feminist Writers’ Transfer Across Academic and Non-Academic Domains
Anna V. Knutson, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA
Understanding the Design, Delivery, and Impact of Multimodal Advocacy Projects: A Study of Instructors, Students, and Community Partners in Social Justice Writing Pedagogy
Jason Tham, Texas Tech University, Lubbock
Jialei Jiang, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Developing Strategies for Designing New Media Projects and Webtexts for Long-term Access and Preservation
John Paul Walter, George Mason University, Silver Spring, MD
2018-2019
Writing Knowledge Transfer from Basic Writing to Workplace Writing
Melissa Bugdal, Salisbury University
Making the English-Only Movement: Writing, Scaling, and Resisting Language Policy
Katherine S. Flowers, Mississippi State University
An Ideology of Apologia: Hedging Racial Discourse in Scholarly Conceptions of Critical Pedagogy
Mara Lee Grayson, California State University, Dominguez Hills
Exploring Practice, Praxis, and Value in Professional Collaborative Writing in Rhetoric and Composition
Jenna Morton-Aiken, Massachusetts Maritime Academy
Christina Santana, Worcester State University
2017-2018
Early 20th Century Women Physicians Use of Print-Based Social Media: A Digital Humanities Study of the Women’s Medical Journal
Patricia Fancher, University of California Santa Barbara
Techno-Ecologies and Professional Development: Profiles from CCCC Certificate of Writing Excellence Awardees
Kerri Hauman, Transylvnia University, Alison Witte, Trine University, and Stacy Kastner, Brown University
Outsourced Writing: Transnational Literacy in the Conceptual Age
Eileen Lagman, University of Colorado Boulder
The Archive of Workplace Writing Experiences
Jessica McCaughey, The George Washington University and Brian Fitzpatrick, George Mason University
Archiving Class Identities: Re-circulating Transnational Working-Class Community Writing Through Augmented Reality
Jessica Pauszek, Texas A&M University
Archival Research in the Global South: International Feminist Historiography
Emily Petersen, Weber State University and Breeanne Matheson, Utah State University
Cross-Institutional Study of Communities of Inquiry in Blended and Online Composition
Mary Stewart, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Jennifer Cunningham, Kent State University at Stark, Lyra Hilliard, University of Maryland College Park, and Natalie Stillman-Webb, University of Utah
2016-2017
Intranationalism: Conceptualizing New Intersections Between US-Based Higher Education Models and Students in Middle East and North African Nations
James P. Austin, Fort Hays State University
Becoming an insider: Exploring the development of discursive identity in science by women of color in an undergraduate research program
Heather Falconer, Northeastern University
Remediating Culture: A Rhetorical History of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School
Sarah Klotz, Butte College
Toward Data-Driven Support for Graduate and Faculty Writers: Two Inter-Informative Research Studies
Shannon Madden, University of Rhode Island, and Sandra L. Tarabochia, University of Oklahoma
“Raising Hell”: African-American Literacy Instruction in the Jim Crow South
Sue Mendelsohn, Columbia University
Distant Readings of Disciplinarity: Knowing and Doing in Composition/Rhetoric Dissertations
Benjamin Miller, University of Pittsburgh
Reports of Agency: Retrieving Indigenous Professional Communication in Indian Bureau Agency Documents, 1902-1916
Julianne Newmark, University of New Mexico
Looking and Listening for Multiple Literacies and Transfer through Video in the Writing Classroom
Crystal VanKooten, Oakland University
Considering the Context: A Study of Early College and College in the High School Programs
Erin Wecker, The University of Montana, and Patricia Wilde, Washington State University, Tri-Cities
