What Makes a Great GWRJ Article?
7 videos from Grassroots Writing Research Journal editors and writers, 2022
Janine Blue
GWRJ Associate Editor 2023-24
PhD Student in Creative Writing
Illinois State University
“What I think makes Grassroots articles so special is that they’re written by students, for students. In the student’s voice. And instead of having a topic and then making some kind of academic statement, it’s like, ‘Well, here’s what I’m doing in my life. Here’s something real that’s happening to me. And these are the ways it’s related to the ISU learning concepts.’”
Chamelia Moore
GWRJ Special Project Coordinator 2021-22
PhD Student in Rhetoric and Composition
Illinois State University
“A good Grassroots article would be engaging in the P-CHAT terms in ways that make me think a bit differently about them, when authors are looking at the things they do in their everyday lives.”
Charley Koenig
GWRJ Managing Editor 2022-24
PhD Student in Creative Writing
Illinois State University
“I feel like a good Grassroots article is one that takes a complicated, more theoretical topic, like literate activity, or CHAT, or discourse communities, and keeps it complicated, keeps it messy, but makes it approachable, accessible, and demonstrates how it comes up in ways you might not expect, or in everyday ways.”
Joyce R. Walker
GWRJ Editor 2010-current
Associate Professor in Writing Studies
Illinois State University
“A really great Grassroots article is innovative in the way that it looks at literate activity. We’ve had some great articles that are about a genre or a particular tool, like greeting cards as a genre, or different kinds of social media tools, like TikTok or Instagram. But what I enjoy personally in a Grassroots article is when somebody takes something that you wouldn’t necessarily think of as a literate activity and then thinks about the literacies involved.”
Kevin Roozen
GWRJ Author
Professor in Writing and Rhetoric
University of Central Florida
“I think the GWRJ articles that rise to the top, my favorites, are the ones that offer really concrete discussions and glimpses of particular texts or descriptions of particular textual practices. So, the more concrete they are, the more I tend to like them, and the more in-depth looks they offer at those things. I tend to use in my own classrooms, as examples, the ones that take a deep dive into a particular textual practice, or a particular text that somebody created, and how they’re using it, or why.”
Madelyn Morrown
GWRJ Assistant Editor 2021-22
Undergraduate student in English Education
Illinois State University alumni
“What I’ve seen be very beneficial for the journal, is when people choose to take up our ‘main terms’ in the way that they see them represented in their everyday lives. So, when connections can be made between really relevant ideas and really relevant activities that are happening in people’s lives.”
Sammy Moe
GWRJ Managing Editor 2020-2022
Assistant Professor in Creative Writing,
University of Alabama - Huntsville
Illinois State University PhD alumni
“I like the intersection between Grassroots teaching me something I never knew before, in a really digestible way, and also using humor. I feel like I’m a really visual learner, so the layout of the journal is really helpful, and also when the article is funny, or interesting, or disturbing. So the intersection of some kind of pop culture with a discussion of how it is engaging in some kind of literate activity.”