Research

Interested in coming to TTU for Grad School? Curious about research opportunities in Writing Studies for graduate students? 

The FYW Program at TTU has an active research agenda and opportunities for graduate student engagement. In addition to collaborative publications and conference presentations (see below), the FYW Program offers a number of other opportunities to get involved in research and scholarship:

• • If you’re interested in doing administrative work within the program, the Assistant  Writing Program Administrator positions are available every academic year for advanced PhD students/candidates. These positions include: developing curriculum, leading workshops, supporting orientations, providing assistance to teachers in the program, conducting research over the program, and more.
  • The FYW Program also has ongoing pilot studies over programmatic initiatives. Prior and current research includes: GPTI experiences, innovative and new FYW assignments, alternate assessment practices, and more.
  • Have an idea for research in FYW you want to present on? Let’s talk about it! Email the Writing Program Administrator, Dr. Callie Kostelich, to schedule an appointment to talk through your ideas: callie.kostelich@ttu.edu.
  • Not ready for a conference presentation yet? There are opportunities to share your expertise via FYW-sponsored workshops and lectures to others in the FYW program at TTU.

These are just some of the ways the FYW Program is supporting graduate student research, but we would love to hear ideas that go beyond those listed above. If you have an idea for research or want to get involved, we’d love to talk!

Publications and Conference Presentations in FYW*

Publications

Kostelich, Callie, Gavin P. Johnson, and Sarah Dwyer. “Together in Texas: Collaboration, Coalition, and Writing Against anti-DEI Policies.” Still Writing Together: Perspectives on Collaborative Scholarship in Rhetoric and Composition, edited by Erica Cirillo-McCarthy, Celeste Del Russo, Amanda Fields, and Beth Leahy, forthcoming.

Krug, Baxter, Callie F. Kostelich, and Sabrina Davis. “Engineering Ethical Communication: Fostering Collaboration and Openness through Student-Centered Pedagogy.” Innovative Open Pedagogy: Humanities and Social Sciences Assessments, edited by Angela McGowan-Kirsch and Kelly Steidinger, Milne, forthcoming.

Kostelich, Callie F., Jacob Weston, Josephine Lawson, and Sam Littman. "Ethics of Inclusion: Piloting Grading Contracts in FYW at Texas Tech University.” Social Justice WPAing, edited by Lilian Mina and Dominic DelliCarpini, forthcoming.

Kostelich, Callie F., Maeve Kirk, Sierra Sinor, Emerson Kurdi, and Michael J. Faris. “Feminist Mentoring of Graduate Instructors through a First-Year Writing Lecture-Discussion Model.” Evolving Writing Studies: Sustainable Graduate Education in the 21st Century, edited by Sarah Henderson Lee and Kirsti Cole, Utah State UP, forthcoming.

Flahive, Michelle. “Testimonio as a Methodology for Examining Marginalized Experiences with Mentorship.” Mentorship and Methodology: Reflections, Praxis, and Futures, edited by Leigh Gruwell and Charlie Lesh, Utah Street UP, 2024.

Kostelich, Callie F., and Michelle Cowan. “Subverting from the Inside: Inclusive Assessment Practices in First-Year Writing.” Addressing The Barriers Between Us and That Future: Feminist Activist Coalition Building in Writing Studies, edited by Lisa E. Wright, Natasha Tinsley, Anna Sicari, and Hillary Coenen, Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, vol. 26, no. 1, 2023, pp. 293–306.

Faris, Michael, Michelle Flahive, Elizabeth Hughes, and Callie F. Kostelich. “Piloting a Language Autoethnography in a First-Year Writing Program: A Study of Five Multilingual Student Writers.” Open Words: Access and English Studies, edited by Jagadish Paudel, The WAC Clearinghouse, 2023, pp. 118–42.

Das, Meghalee, Michelle Flahive, Jiaxin Zhang, and Michael J. Faris. “Integrating the Marginalized and the Mainstream: Women of Color Graduate Instructors’ Experience with Identity, Difference, and Belonging.” Threshold Conscripts: Rhetoric and Composition TAships, edited by W. J. Macauley et al., The WAC Clearinghouse, 2023.

Brawley, Lauren, Morgan Connor, Meghalee Das, Aliethia Dean, Claudia Diaz, Michael J. Faris, Michelle Flahive, Maeve Kirk, Max Kirschenbaum, Joshua Kulseth, Alfonsina Lago, Kristina Lewis, Lance Lomax, Brook McClurg, Zachary Ostraff, Anthony Ranieri, Sierra Sinor, Rebekah Smith, and Yifan Zhang. “Incorporating Multimodal Literacies across a FYW Program: Graduate Instructors’ Preparation and Experiences.” Professional Multimodal Composition: Faculty and Institutional Perspectives, edited by S. B. Pandey and S. Khadka, University of Colorado P, 2023.

Faris, Michael J. “The Circulation of Embodied Affects in a Revision of a First-Year Writing Program.” Our Body of Work, edited by Melissa Nicolas and Anna Sicari, University of Colorado P, 2022, p. 169.

Banks, William P., Michael J. Faris, Collie Fulford, Timothy Oleksiak, Gpat Patterson, and Trixie G. Smith. “Writing Program Administration: A Queer Symposium.” WPA: Writing Program Administration, vol. 43, no. 2, 2020, pp. 11–43.

Faris, Michael. “Administrative Ethical Principles Guiding a Redesign of a First-Year Writing Program.” Journal of the Texas Tech University Ethics Center, vol. 4, no. 1, 2020.

Faris, Michael J., Callie F. Kostelich, Tanner Walsh, Sierra Sinor, Michelle Flahive, and Leah Heilig. "3,000 Podcasts a Year: Teaching and Administering New Media Composition in a First-Year Writing Program." Proceedings of the Annual Computers and Writing Conference, edited by Chen Chen and Lydia Wilkes, The WAC Clearinghouse, 2020.

Faris, Michael J. “Writing and Technology in WPA: Toward the WPA as an Advocate for Technological Writing.” Writing Program Administration, vol. 42, no. 3, 2019, pp. 106–13.

Conference Presentations/Workshops

Tham, Jason and Callie F. Kostelich. “Can I Get a Beat? Or, Collaboration and Publication in the Field.” The Feminist Caucus. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Invited for 2025.

Kostelich, Callie F., Min Yang, Katie Weiss, and Ekom Udeote. “Generative AI and More: Wrestling with Controversial Issues in and around Multilingual Writing.” The Second Language Writing Standing Group. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Accepted for 2025.

Kostelich, Callie F. and Alison Wells. “Our Collaborative Mixtape of Alternate Tracks.” The Untenured and/or Alternative-Academic WPA Standing Group Sponsored Panel. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Accepted for 2025.

Kostelich, Callie F., Michelle Cowen, and Alison Wells. “Innovation at All Stages of Course Design.” Association for Business Communication 2024 Annual International Conference, 2024.

Kostelich, Callie F. and Jacob Weston. “Alternative Assessment: Ungrading Philosophy as Action.” New Faculty Orientation, Teaching Learning and Professional Development Center, August 2024.

Kostelich, Callie F. “Ethics of Inclusion: Alternate Assessment Practices in First-Year Writing.” Ethics in Teaching and Learning Symposium, Texas Tech University, 2024

Kostelich, Callie F., and Baxter Krug. “Engineering Solutions for Everyday Life: Implementing OER in Advanced College Rhetoric at Texas Tech.” All Things Open, 2024.

Kostelich, Callie F., Michael J. Faris, Jacob Weston, and Michelle Cowan. “Incremental Change and Wholesale Reform: Reflecting on and Revising an R1 First-Year Writing Program.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2024.

Flahive, Michelle. “Considering and Addressing the Needs of BIPOC WPAs, Instructors, & Students Who Are Teaching and Learning About Racial Injustice in Writing Studies.” Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), 2023.

Flahive, Michelle. “Researching Graduate Student Instructor Mentorship Collectively: Applying a Chicana Feminist Methodology of Research at a Predominantly White Institution.” The Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric Keynote Panel, Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), 2023.

Kostelich, Callie F. and Michelle Cowan. “Addressing the Barriers Between Us and That Future: Feminist Activist Coalition Building in Writing Studies.” Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference, Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, 2023.

Kostelich, Callie F., Jacob Weston, Josephine Lawson, Sam Littman, and Liz Cozby. “Ethics of Inclusion: Piloting Grading Contracts in FYW at Texas Tech University.” Council for Writing Program Administrators, 2023.

Flahive, Michelle. “Understanding the Experiences of Women of Color Graduate Student Instructors with Mentoring in Writing Programs.” Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication (CPTSC) 2022 Conference, 2022.

Weston, Jacob. “The First-Year Writing Classroom as Affective Place.” American Studies Association of Texas Conference, 2022.

Flahive, Michelle. “Building an Anti-Racist Model of Graduate Instructor Mentorship: Lessons from Marginalized Graduate Instructors at a PWI.” Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), 2021.

Kostelich, Callie F. “Teaching Teachers of Writing: Interrogating the Practices and Places that Serve—or Fail to Serve—Us Well.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2021.

Kostelich, Callie F. “Feminist Teacher Mentoring in a Pandemic.” TTU Women’s and Gender Studies Conference, 2020.

Faris, Michael J., Callie F. Kostelich, Emerson Kurdi, Sierra Sinor, and Michelle Flahive. “Feminist Teacher Mentoring in a Pandemic.” Texas Tech University: Gender and Sexual Identities Virtual Colloquium, Roundtable Presentation, 2020.

Flahive, Michelle. “Disrupting Appropriateness Approaches in FYW with Podcasts.” Computers and Writing Conference, 2019.

Kostelich, Callie F., Maeve Kirk, and Sierra Sinor. “Stronger Together: Feminist Teaching and Mentoring in First-Year Writing at Texas Tech.” Feminisms and Rhetorics, 2019.

Faris, Michael, Callie F. Kostelich, Leah Heilig, et al. “3,000 Podcasts a Year: Teaching and Administering New Media Composition in a First-Year Writing Program.” Computers and Writing, 2019.

Faris, Michael, Monica Norris, Callie F. Kostelich, et al. “Mega-Composition: Performing Teaching and Writing by Delivering First-Year Writing as a Large Lecture.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2019.

Textbooks

Kostelich, Callie F. and Michael J. Faris, editors. Advanced College Rhetoric. Top Hat, 2023.

Kostelich, Callie F. and Michael J. Faris, editors. Essentials of College Rhetoric. Top Hat, 2023.

Faris, Michael J., et al., editors. Rhetoric and Writing for College and Civic Life, McGraw-Hill, 2021.

*Denotes TTU faculty and graduate students