The CASDW Annual Award for the Best Article or Chapter in Writing and Discourse Studies

2025

Winning Article:

Natarajan, S. (2024). New Tropes for Old: Changing the Conversation in Canadian Writing Centres. Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie, 34, 157–182. https://doi.org/10.31468/dwr.1095

Dr. Srividya Natarajan’s paper analyzes discursive practices common to Canadian Writing Studies and Writing Center contexts from a radical lens. Anyone in the field can apply the analytical tools provided in this article for curricular review and instructor training. Not only is the article actionable in a variety of contexts, the form and content complement each other.  The writing style reflects the central argument that the figurative language common to our work needs transformation in order to meet the multivalent needs of postsecondary student populations.

Honourable Mention:

Toorenburgh, L., & Gaudet, L. (2024). Doing our work in a good way: a framework of collaboration and a case for Indigenous-only writing classrooms. Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie, 34, 200–225. https://doi.org/10.31468/dwr.1049

Lydia Toorenburgh and Dr. Loren Gaudet’s article engages the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls to Action by presenting an inclusive and decolonial model for First Year Composition (FYC) courses. The theory and praxis are well developed in the article. The paper is a pleasure to read in structure and clarity. Committee members agreed that the paper opened an honest and poignant conversation about delivering a course for Indigenous students by a non-Indigenous instructor.  The details the authors shared about decolonial course design and implementation provides readers with a roadmap for implementation at their own institutions.

2024

The 2024 annual Doreen Starke-Meyerring Award for the best article or chapter in writing and discourse studies in 2023 are: Katja Thieme and Jennifer Walsh-Marr, for their manuscript entitled “First Year International Students and the Language of Indigenous Studies.”

Thieme and Walsh-Marr’s article advocates for the inclusion of Indigenous studies in first-year international writing courses as a means of highlighting local, and international, Indigenous issues while simultaneously engaging in language instruction. Their article invites readers to consider how to integrate Indigenous studies into writing classrooms in a compelling and approachable way that also accounts for diverse approaches to writing pedagogy, which is itself especially relevant given the number of Canadian institutions that have made commitments to implement TRC recommendations. In addition to being a highly applicable and transferable article, especially for writing teachers, Thieme and Walsh-Marr highlight the tensions and dissonance that can accompany the actual practice of teaching writing and consider how engagement with Indigenous studies helps make these tensions more overt in order that we might better grapple with them.

Honourable Mention

The committee also wishes to recognize, as an honourable mention, Kim Mitchell’s article, “Language as a Proxy for Race: Language and Literacy for the Nursing Profession.” Mitchell’s article brings a fresh and critical perspective to how writing studies scholarship, and scholars, can position themselves as viable interdisciplinary partners for fields like nursing. Mitchell’s approachable overview of how a critical writing studies perspective might inform nursing education brings into sharp focus some of the problematic implications of teaching so-called Standard English to nursing students. The actionable recommendations Mitchell discusses, while directly related to nursing, are also clearly applicable across disciplines.

2023

The 2023 Annual Award for Best Article or Chapter published in 2022 by a member of CASDW-ACR was awarded to Brittany Amell for her chapter entitled, “Getting Stuck, Writing Badly, and Other Curious Impressions: Doctoral Writing and Imposter Feelings.”

The chapter brings to light a rarely discussed, but commonly felt, reality for many doctoral writers: how imposter feelings can impact individual writers and how such feelings serve to reinforce systemic issues surrounding doctoral writing. In an approachable and engaging voice, Amell moves away from discussing imposter feelings as an individual issue, and instead focuses on how imposter feelings might point to systemic ruptures where “feeling outside” is a strength rather than something to be stigmatized. In addition to shedding light on a topic not often discussed in writing and discourse studies, the chapter offers several practical and pedagogical strategies for grappling with imposter feelings.

Honourable Mention

The committee also wishes to recognize, as an honourable mention, Katja Thieme’s article, “A Play on Occlusion: Uptake of Letters to the University President.”

In this paper, Thieme presents both a compelling empirical account of how a particular genre—the letter to the university president—functions and advances theoretical ideas about genre uptake and occlusion. Of particular note is how the paper grapples with explorations of power and hierarchy through considering how genre occlusion is constructed and uptake made, at times, unavailable, impacting the degree to which individuals might participate in genre activities.

2020

The 2020 Annual Award for Best Article or Chapter published in 2019 by a member of CASDW was awarded to two articles:

Fogarty-Bourget, C. G., Artemeva, N., & Fox, J. (2019). Gestural silence: An engagement device in the multimodal genre of the chalk talk lecture. In C.S. Guinda (Ed.), Engagement in professional genres (pp. 277-295). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

Rachul, C. (2019). Digesting data: Tracing the chromosomal imprint of scientific evidence through the development and use of Canadian dietary guidelines. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 33(1), 26-59.

Fogarty-Bourget, Artemeva, and Fox’s chapter, which used a joint multimodal and genre studies framework to explore “gestural silences” in mathematics teaching was an original and compelling contribution to writing and discourse theory and pedagogy.

Rachul’s article, which explores the genre of Canada’s Food Guide, offers an innovative hybrid genre and multimodal approach to document analysis. Writing specialists, especially those in medical and health rhetoric, should find this article holds meaningful implications for how health and science knowledge is mobilized in an everyday genre like the Food Guide. The innovative topics and scholarly rigour of these two publications, delivered in engaging and eloquent writing styles, impressed the committee.

Honourable Mention

Honourable mention was awarded to Laura Dunbar for “Cross-border teaching experiences in Canada and the US: A writing teacher reflects” in Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing, 29, 173-183 (2019). The committee would like to recognize Dunbar’s autobiographical article tracing her experiences in Canadian and American Writing Centres. In a compelling and engaging discussion, Dunbar offers valuable insights into how issues in writing centres and writing programs transcend national borders, while also pointing to how these issues are realized and addressed in Canadian and American contexts.

2019

The 2019 Annual Award for Best Article or Chapter published in 2018 by a member of CASDW goes to James Corcoran, Antoinette Gagné, and Megan McIntosh for “A conversation about ‘editing’ plurilingual scholars’ thesis writing” in Canadian Journal for the Study of Discourse and Writing 28 (2018).

Honourable Mention was awarded to Katja Thieme and Mary Ann S. Saunders for “How do you wish to be cited? Citation practices and a scholarly community of care in trans studies” in Journal of English for Academic Purposes 32 (2018).

2018

The 2018 Annual Award for Best Article or Chapter published in 2017 by a member of CASDW goes to Lianne M. Lefsrud, Heather Graves, and Nelson Phillips for “Dirty Oil or Ethical Oil? Visual Rhetoric in Legitimation Strugglesˮ in Multimodality, Meaning, and Institutions, edited by Höllerer, Daudigeos, and Jancsary.

Honorable mention was awarded to Katja Thieme and Shurli Makmillen for “A Principled Uncertainty: Writing Studies Methods in Contexts of Indigeneityˮ in College Composition and Communication (68:3).

2017

The 2017 Annual Award for Best Article or Chapter published in 2016 by a member of CASDW goes to Janna Fox, John Haggerty, and Natasha Artemeva, for a book chapter entitled, “Mitigating Risk: The Impact of a Diagnostic Assessment Procedure on the First-Year Experience in Engineering.”

Honourable mention was awarded to Sibo Chen for an excellent article on “Selling the environment: Green marketing discourse in China’s automobile advertising”.

2016

The 2016 Annual Award for Best Article or Chapter published in 2015 by a member of CASDW goes to Janet Giltrow for her book chapter, “Form alone: The Supreme Court of Canada reading historical treaties,” published in Genre studies around the globe: Beyond the three traditions, edited by Natasha Artemeva and Aviva Freedman (Inkshed Publications).

Colleen Derkatch and Philippa Spoel have been awarded an Honourable Mention for their journal article, “Public health promotion of ‘local food’: Constituting the self-governing citizen-consumer,” Health (London), 1-17.

2015

The 2015 Annual Award for Best Article or Chapter published in 2014 by a member of CASDW goes to Doreen Starke-Meyering, Anthony Paré, King Yan Sun, and Nazih El-Bezre for their article “Probing normalized institutional discourses about writing: The case of the doctoral thesis,” published in the Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 8(2), A13-A27. Criteria for the award focus on the article’s potential significance to the field, originality, and depth of research, as well as on the general quality of the writing.

Three articles received Honourable Mentions for the 2014 best article award:

Kelly, P. A. (2014). Textual Standardization and the DSM-5 “Common Language.” Journal of Medical Humanities, 35,171–189.

Spoel, P., Roma, H., & Henwood, F. (2014). Rhetorics of health citizenship: Exploring vernacular critiques of government’s role in supporting healthy living. Journal of Medical Humanities 35 (2), 131-147.

Spoel, P., & Den Hoed, R.C. (2014). Places and people: Rhetorical constructions of ‘community’ in a Canadian environmental risk assessment. Environmental Communication 8(3), 267-285.