Liminal Spaces of Writing in Adolescent and Adult Education

Mellinee Lesley is professor in the Language, Diversity & Literacy Studies program in the College of Education at Texas Tech University.René Saldaña, Jr. is associate professor of Language, Diversity & Literacy Studies in the Department of Curriculum and instruction at Texas Tech University.Julie Smit is associate professor of Language, Diversity & Literacy Studies in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas Tech University.Jin Kyeong Jung is assistant professor of Language, Diversity & Literacy Studies in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas Tech University.

• PrefaceMellinee Lesley, René Saldaña, Jr., Julie Smit, Jin Kyeong JungIntroduction: The Role of Liminality in Developing Useful Writing René Saldaña, Jr., Mellinee Lesley, Julie Smit, Jin Kyeong JungChapter One: More than the Second ‘R’: Revisiting Writing Instruction for Young AdultsKristine E. Pytash and Mellinee LesleyChapter Two: Why We Write: The Scribal Identities of Adolescents Working against StandardizationR. Joseph RodriguezChapter Three: The Shifting Identities of Literacy Graduates: From Learners of Writing Instruction to Novice Teachers of Adolescent WritersThea Yurkewecz-Stellato, Shelby Erhard, and Richard RappoldChapter Four: In Search of the Aesthetic: An Arts-based Approach to Writing Up Our ResearchElizabeth Stewart and René Saldaña, Jr.Chapter Five: Literacy LegaciesStephanie MilletChapter Six: Creating a Liminal Writing Class for Multilingual Adolescent WritersJin Kyeong JungChapter Seven: Video Games in the Middle School Reading Classroom: A Cultural Canon

Gathering the voices of literacy scholars and youth writers themselves, Saldaña, Lesley, Smit, and Jung invite a range of conversations about thresholds and transitions, about forming and revising one's identity through writing. With contributions that explore topics ranging from the role of video games in English class to the nuanced work of autoethnography, each of the contributions in Liminal Spaces of Writing in Adolescent and Adult Education demands that readers rethink what counts as writing instruction, pushing educators to cross boundaries of their own. In doing so, the editors and their contributors encourage us to reimagine the complexities of genre, audience, and purpose so that we can create new spaces for our students as they, too, develop their writerly voices both in the classroom and beyond.