Elizabeth Wardle

Introduction

Elizabeth Wardle has served as the Roger and Joyce Howe Distinguished Professor of Written Communication and the Director of the Howe Center for Writing Excellence since 2016. In the HCWE she takes primary responsibility for faculty development initiatives. She is interested in working with colleagues across the university to promote deep change around teaching and learning.

Research Interests

• writing across the curriculum
• threshold concepts
• transfer of knowledgeprogram design
• changing public conceptions of writing
• change and sensemaking

Courses Taught

• Rhetoric and Writing Capstone
• Grantwriting
• Composition Theory
• Writing Program Administration
• Transfer and Threshold Concepts
• Teaching Disciplinary Writing
• Institutional Rhetorics

Education

• Ph.D., Rhetoric and Professional Communication, Iowa State University (2003)
• M.A., English, University of Louisville (1999)
• B.A., University of Louisville

Publications

Books

• Writing Rediscovered: Nine concepts to Transform Your Relationship With Writing. Wiley, 2025.
• Changing Conceptions, Changing Practices: Innovating Teaching Across Disciplines. Utah State University Press, 2022.
• Writing Expertise: A Research-Based Approach to Writing and Learning Across Disciplines. WAC Clearinghouse, 2022.
• Writing about Writing, 5th ed. Bedford/St. Martins,2022.
• (re)Considering What We Know: Learning Thresholds in Writing, Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy. Utah State University Press, 2019.
• Composition, Rhetoric, and Disciplinarity. Utah State University Press, 2018.
• Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. Utah State University Press, 2015.

Recent Articles and Book Chapters

• "Boundary-Crossing During Challenging Political Times: An Exhortation and Heuristic for WAC as Site of Deep Change." With Caitlin Martin, Mandy Olejnik, and Angela Glotfelter. In Writing Worldviews. WAC Clearinghouse. Forthcoming.
• "Learning at the Boundaries: Feminist Invitational Rhetoric and Sensemaking toward Deep Change." Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: A Collaborative Syllabus for Higher Education Leadership. Forthcoming.
• "Working with Faculty Partners to Change Conceptions of Writing Beyond University Walls.” With Mandy Olejnik, Jennifer Maher, Will Chesher, and Angela Glotfelter. WAC Journal, March 2023.
• “Writing-Related Faculty Development for Deep Change: An Introduction and Overview.” With Angela Glotfelter, Caitlin Martin, Mandy Olejnik and Ann Updike. In Changing Conceptions, Changing Practices: Innovating Teaching Across Disciplines. 2022. 5-26.
• “Changing Conceptions, Changing Practices: Effects of the Howe Faculty Writing Fellows Program.” With Angela Glotfelter, Caitlin Martin, Mandy Olejnik and Ann Updike. In Changing Conceptions, Changing Practices: Innovating Teaching Across Disciplines. 2022. 27-45.
• “Deep Change Theory: Implications for Educational Development Leaders.” With Caitlin Martin. In Changing Conceptions, Changing Practices: Innovating Teaching Across Disciplines. 2022. 2022. 46-60.
• “Principles for Enacting an Integrated Vision of Teaching and Learning.” With Angela Glotfelter, Caitlin Martin, Mandy Olejnik and Ann Updike. In Changing Conceptions, Changing Practices: Innovating Teaching Across Disciplines. 2022. 261-273.
• Afterword: Tracing the Rise of the Disintegrative View of Education and Imagining Challenges Ahead.” With Angela Glotfelter, Caitlin Martin, Mandy Olejnik and Ann Updike. In Changing Conceptions, Changing Practices: Innovating Teaching Across Disciplines. 2022. 275-289.
• “ ‘Something Invisible… Has Been Made Visible for Me’: An Expertise-Based WAC Seminar Model Grounded in Theory and (Cross) Disciplinary Dialogue.” With Angela Glotfelter and Ann Updike. In Diverse Approaches to Teaching, Learning, and Writing Across the Curriculum: IWAC at 25. Lesley Bartlett, Sandra Tarabochia, Andrea Olinger, and Margaret Marshall, eds. WAC Clearinghouse, 2020. 167-92.
• “Naming What We Know (In Writing Studies): Engaging Troublesome Trends in Educational Policy and Practice.” With Linda Adler-Kassner. Threshold Concepts on the Edge. Ray Land, and Julie Rattray, eds. Sense Publishers, 2019. 313-26
• “Using a Threshold Concepts Framework to Facilitate an Expertise-Based WAC Model for Faculty Development.” In (re)Considering What We Know: Learning Thresholds in Writing, Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy. Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle, eds. Utah State University Press, 2019. 297-312.
• “Recognizing the Limits of Threshold Concept Theory.” With Linda Adler-Kassner, Jonathan Alexander, Norbert Elliot, James Hammond, Mya Poe, Jacqueline Rhodes, and Anne-Marie Womack. In (re)Considering What We Know: Learning Thresholds in Writing, Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy. Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle, eds. Utah State University Press, 2019. 15-35.

Public-Facing Work

• “Don’t Let AI Do Your Writing For You.” Entrepreneur Magazine. September 2025.
• “Writing has Changed. It’s Time Higher Ed Got the Support to Change, Too.” Dayton Daily News, August 7, 2025.
• “Watch This Before You Write With AI.” The Rise Podcast. June 26, 2025.
• “Students Aren’t Cheating Because They Have AI, but Because College is Broken.” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 18, 2025.
• Create and Resonate Podcast. March 27, 2025.
• “It’s Never Too Late to Realize You’re a Writer.” Inside Higher Ed, September 28, 2022
• “Why People Can’t Write, and How to Fix That.” Build For Tomorrow Podcast. January 2022.
• “The Time for Small Ideas is Over.” With Nkosi Shanga. Inside Higher Ed. March 25, 2020.
• “What Critics of Student Writing Get Wrong.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. August 30, 2019.
• “You Know More Than You Think about Teaching Writing.” Inside Higher Ed. January 31, 2019.

Additional Academic Information

• $300,000 Lumina Foundation Grant, Sensemaking for Student Success, 2024
• Council of Writing Program Administrators Outstanding Scholarship Award, 2022
• Miami University Distinguished Scholar Award, 2020
• Council of Writing Program Administrators Outstanding Contribution to the Discipline Award, 2016
• Iowa State University Distinguished Alumni Award, 2012
• NCTE Best Article of the Year in Teaching of Technical and Scientific Communication, 2006

Work in Progress

• The Informed WPA: Navigating Higher Ed as a Principled Leader. Book project with Kelly Ritter and Melissa Ianetta. [Under advanced contract with Utah State University Press, September 2025.]