Casey McArdle is the co-winner of the 2020 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award for the book he co-wrote with Jessie Borgman, titled Personal, Accessible, Responsive, Strategic: Resources and Strategies for Online Writing Instructors.
McArdle is an Academic Specialist and Director of Undergraduate Programs in MSU’s Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures. He teaches in the Writing Program, the Professional and Public Writing Program, and Experience Architecture Program at Michigan State University. Borgman is an Instructor in the Writers’ Studio at Arizona State University where she teaches English 102. She is also an Adjunct Instructor at Lake Michigan College where she designs and teaches English 101 and 102.
Together, McArdle and Borgman created The Online Writing Instruction Community, a website and social media group dedicated to collecting and sharing online writing instruction resources.
Their award-winning book explores the complexities and anxieties associated with online writing instruction, offering an innovative way to support online instructional efforts by providing many examples of how to create assignments, syllabi, and accessible, productive learning spaces.
The recognition of this award speaks to our efforts to support every teacher who wants students to have an engaging online learning experience.
Casey McArdle, Academic Specialist and Director of Undergraduate Programs
“It is an honor to win this award with Jessie Borgman. The book is the culmination of our work around The Online Writing Instruction Community, an open web resource we created in 2015 to support contingent faculty and others who are looking for support when it comes to teaching writing online,” McArdle said. “The recognition of this award speaks to our efforts to support every teacher who wants students to have an engaging online learning experience.”
Drawing on work in the design of user experiences, the book explores how to design online writing courses with student experiences in mind, encouraging instructors to plan online writing courses strategically while reinforcing the importance of iterating course design and teaching practices with the goal of creating a better user experience for everyone involved with the course.
McArdle has several publications and conference presentations that focus on online interaction via academic, professional, and social spaces. His research interests examine digital rhetoric, social media, leadership, online writing instruction, web development, experience architecture, user experience, rhetorical theory, and instructional design.
The Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award is presented each year to honor book-length works that contribute in substantial and innovative ways to the field of computers and composition.
The 2020 award recipients will be announced at the Computers and Writing Conference scheduled for May 19-22, 2022, at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. The conference originally was planned for 2020 but was postponed to 2021 and now moved to 2022 due to the COVID pandemic.
