J. Michael Rifenburg – författare

Drawing from in-depth interviews with alumni across the disciplines, this book explores the benefits of undergraduate research: meaningful intellectual engagement, a sense of belonging in the campus community, and vocational clarity and career success after college.What matters to alumni about their research experience is often not what is represented in scholarship. The compelling stories featured in this text describe intellectual and emotional uncertainty and excitement; deeply personal mentoring relationships; and the powerful ways in which undergraduate research shapes and directs career paths. The book brings a novel perspective that begins during the research experience and extends into the years after college, offering practical insight into program design, mentoring, and research-to-career practices that are flexible enough to be implemented in the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.This book speaks to faculty, staff, and administrators at a wide range of institutions, regardless of experience or comfort level with undergraduate research. Supplemental resources—including discussion questions for each chapter, short videos of dialogue between undergraduate researchers and their mentors, and more—are available at www.centerforengagedlearning.org/books/a-long-view.

Drawing from in-depth interviews with alumni across the disciplines, this book explores the benefits of undergraduate research: meaningful intellectual engagement, a sense of belonging in the campus community, and vocational clarity and career success after college.What matters to alumni about their research experience is often not what is represented in scholarship. The compelling stories featured in this text describe intellectual and emotional uncertainty and excitement; deeply personal mentoring relationships; and the powerful ways in which undergraduate research shapes and directs career paths. The book brings a novel perspective that begins during the research experience and extends into the years after college, offering practical insight into program design, mentoring, and research-to-career practices that are flexible enough to be implemented in the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.This book speaks to faculty, staff, and administrators at a wide range of institutions, regardless of experience or comfort level with undergraduate research. Supplemental resources—including discussion questions for each chapter, short videos of dialogue between undergraduate researchers and their mentors, and more—are available at www.centerforengagedlearning.org/books/a-long-view.

Perspectives on Writing seriesCo-Published with CSU Open Press  Since the 1980s, even as international writing scholars have embraced cognitive science, the number of studies building on research in writing and cognition has decreased in the United States. Despite this decline, significant interest and ongoing research in this critical area continues. Contemporary Perspectives on Cognition and Writing explores the historical context of cognitive studies, the importance to our field of studies in neuroscience, the applicability of habits of mind, and the role of cognition in literate development and transfer. These works—each of which offers a timely contribution to research, teaching, and learning in the composition classroom—are book-ended by a foreword and afterword by cognition and writing pioneers John Hayes and Linda Flower. This collection, as a result, offers a historical marker of where we were in cognitive studies and where we might go.

Drilled to Write offers a rich account of US Army cadets navigating the unique demands of Army writing at a senior military college. In this longitudinal case study, J. Michael Rifenburg follows one cadet, Logan Blackwell, for four years and traces how he conceptualizes Army writing and Army genres through immersion in military science classes, tactical exercises in the Appalachian Mountains, and specialized programs like Airborne School.Drawing from research on rhetorical genre studies, writing transfer, and materiality, Drilled to Write speaks to scholars in writing studies committed to capturing how students understand their own writing development. Collectively, these chapters articulate four ways Blackwell leveraged resources through ROTC to become a cadet writer at this military college. Each chapter is dedicated to one year of his undergraduate experience with focus on curricular writing for his business management major and military science classes as well as his extracurricular writing, like his Ballroom Dance Club bylaws and a three-thousand-word short story.In Drilled to Write, Rifenburg invites readers to see how cadets are positioned between civilian and military life—a curiously liminal space where they develop as writers. Using Army ROTC as an entry into genre theory and larger conversations about the role higher education plays in developing Army officers, he shows how writing students develop genre awareness and flexibility while forging a personal identity.