My scholarship is situated at the intersection of literacy studies, composition/rhetoric, and applied linguistics, where it informs critical approaches to language diversity in writing and writing education. I engage with fields and subfields such as second language writing, community literacy studies, and transnational literacy. My research develops theories about how writing practices move across linguistic and geographic boundaries, using qualitative methods to shift understandings of writing away from multilingual writers’ failings and toward their existing and future literate expertise.
My first monograph, Writing on the Move: Migrant Women and the Value of Literacy (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017), describes the everyday literacy lives of multilingual migrants and the ways their savvy writing practices are recognized or ignored as they move around the world. My second co-written book, Transfer: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research and Pedagogy (Parlor Press and the WAC Clearinghouse, July 2023), shows how writers transfer their writing-related knowledge among contexts or languages more generally. My current book interrogates the question the previous two have left me with: how literate movement—multilingualism, migration, transfer—creates a distinct kind of awareness in writers. I offered one response to this question in my article “Multilingual Writing as Rhetorical Attunement” (College English, 2014), arguing that many multilingual writers are especially “tuned” to difference by virtue of writing among languages in their everyday lives. My in-progress second monograph, Literate Mending: Writing Relations in Immigrant Families, offers empirical grounding for that theory by examining multilingual heritage in immigrant families.
Books
- Writing Knowledge Transfer: Theory, Research, Pedagogy with Rebecca Nowacek and Angela Rounsaville. Parlor Press, October 2023.
- Writing on the Move: Migrant Women and the Value of Literacy. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017.
- Reviews in Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition (2019); Journal of Second Language Writing (2020); Adult Literacy Education (2021); College English (2022).
Articles and Essays
- Rounsaville, Angela, Rebecca Lorimer Leonard and Rebecca Nowacek. “Relationality in Writing Transfer Research.” College Composition and Communication 74.1 (2022): 136–163.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca and Danielle Pappo. “The Rules of the Road: Negotiating Literacies in a Community Driving Curriculum.” Community Literacy Journal 16.2 (2022): 47–62.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “The Role of Writing in Critical Language Awareness.” College English 84.2 (2021): 175–198.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca and Caroline Gear. “Curriculum Case Study: Teaching Driving Literacies in a Community Language School.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 65.3 (2021). https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.1204.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca, Shanti Bruce, & Deirdre Vinyard. “Finding Complexity in Language Identity Surveys.” Journal of Language Identity & Education. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2020.1863152.
- Britton, Emma and Rebecca Lorimer Leonard. “The Social Justice Potential of Critical Reflection and Critical Language Awareness Pedagogies for L2 Writers.” Journal of Second Language Writing. Vol. 50 (2020).
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca, Danielle Pappo and Kyle Piscioniere. “Course Design: English 391ml, Multilingualism and Literacy in Western Massachusetts.” Composition Studies 48.1 (2020): 103–114.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca and Rebecca Nowacek. “Transfer and Translingualism.” College English 78.3 (2016): 258–264.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Writing through Bureaucracy: Migrant Correspondence and Managed Mobility.” Written Communication 32.1 (2015): 87–113.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Multilingual Writing as Rhetorical Attunement.” College English 76.3 (2014): 227–247.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Traveling Literacies: Multilingual Writing on the Move.” Research in the Teaching of English 48.1 (2013): 13–39.
Book Chapters
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Writing to Mend Literate Fragmentation.” Writing on the Wall: Writing Education and Resistance to Isolationism. Eds. David Martins, Brooke Schreiber, and Xiaoye You. Utah State University Press, 2023: 89–105.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Feeling ‘Whole-some’: How Transnational Writing Can Mend Literate Fragmentation.” Teaching and Studying Transnational Composition. Eds. Bruce Horner and Christiane Donahue. Modern Language Association, 2022: 190–206.
- Bruce, Shanti, Rebecca Lorimer Leonard, & Deirdre Vinyard. “Locating Linguistic Justice in Language Identity Surveys.” Linguistic Justice on Campus: Pedagogy and Advocacy for Multilingual Students. Eds. Brooke Schreiber, Eunjeong Lee, Jennifer T. Johnson, and Norah Fahim. Multilingual Matters, 2021: 19–40.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Managing Writing on the Move.” Mobility Work in Composition. Eds. Megan Faver Hartline, Bruce Horner, Ashanka Kumari, and Laura Matravers. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2021: 67–81.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Literate Resources and the Value of Language.” Economies of Writing: Revaluations in Rhetoric and Composition. Eds. Bruce Horner, Brice Nordquist, and Susan Ryan. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2017: 161–171.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Writing across Languages: Developing Rhetorical Attunement by Negotiating Difference.” Literacy as Translingual Practice: Between Communities and Classrooms. Ed. A. Suresh Canagarajah. New York, NY: Routledge, 2013. 162–169.
- Lorimer, Rebecca. “The Rhetorical Potential of Translation.” Rhetoric: Concord and Controversy. Eds. Antonio de Velasco and Melody Lehn. Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press, 2011. 210-216.
Edited Special Issue
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca, Shawna Shapiro, Eds. “Special Issue on Critical Language Awareness in Second Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing. Vol. 60 (June 2023).
- Shapiro, Shawna and Rebecca Lorimer Leonard. “Introduction: Critical Language Awareness (CLA) as a lens for looking backward, outward, and forward in Second Language Writing.”Journal of Second Language Writing. Vol. 60 (June 2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2023.101004
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca, Kate Vieira, and Morris Young, Eds. “The Transnational Movement of People and Information.” Literacy in Composition Studies 3.3 (2015).
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca, Kate Vieira, and Morris Young. “Principles of Transnational Inquiry for Literacy in Composition Studies.” Literacy in Composition Studies 3.3 (2015).
Reviews and Short Essays
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Critical Distance in Composition Studies.” Composition Studies 50.1 (2022.) (Invited)
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Literate Mending in Multilingual Families.” Community Blog of the International Language Institute (2022). https://ili.edu/2022/03/17/literate-mending-in-multilingual-families/.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Literacy as Parable: An interview with Tomás Mario Kalmar and review of Illegal Alphabets and Adult Biliteracy: Latino Migrants Crossing the Linguistic Border.” Community Literacy Journal. 14.1 (2019): 95-110.
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Symposium on the Global Turn in Composition and Rhetoric: Beyond Methodological Nationalism.” Composition Studies. 44.1 (2016).
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca. “Inquiry Groups as Tutor Education: Writing from Below.” Another Word (2015).
- Lorimer Leonard, Rebecca and David Stock. “’All Things to All People’: The Expanding Role of Writing Centers.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 37.2 (2014): 157-179. (Invited)
- Lorimer, Rebecca. “Review of Writing Home: A Literacy Autobiography by Eli Goldblatt.” Community Literacy Journal 7.1 (2012): 161-163.
- Lorimer, Rebecca. “Review of Decolonizing Literacy: Mexican Lives in the Era of Global Capitalism by David Hernandez Zamora.” Composition Studies 39.1 (2011): 126-129.
- Lorimer, Rebecca. “Writing Centers and Academically Adrift: Why We Might Have to Start Reading These Books.’” Another Word (2011).
- Lorimer, Rebecca and Andrea Olinger. “Review of CCCC Session ‘(Re)Defining Translingual Writing.’” Kairos 16.1 (2011).
- Lorimer, Rebecca and David Stock. “Service Learning Implementation and Administration.” (2010). No. 13. WPA-CompPile Research Bibliographies.