Associate Professor, Department of Literature & Languages
Shannon Carter, Associate Professor of English, is rhetorician who studies the literate lives of local citizens and students, most recently the ways in which local literacies manifest themselves within the broader historical context of the Civil Rights Movement. Her primary teaching and research activities are writing (academic, civic, community, and multimedia), undergraduate research, and, increasingly, research methods and the digital humanities. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in writing and rhetoric, has directed to completion several dissertations and theses on the subject, and has served on a number of dissertation and thesis committees in her own and other departments. She enjoys working with researchers at all levels—from the first-year student to the PhD student. She also loves working closely with the community and is convinced of her university’s value as an “engaged institution”—a campus that works with and for the community to offer better learning experiences for its students and better lives for its citizens.
Dr. Carter scholarship on various aspects of text-use and production has appeared in the field’s top journals. Her book, The Way Literacy Lives (State University of New York Press, 2008) argues for more systematic attention to literacy experiences beyond the university. Dr. Carter is firmly convinced that the local matters, thus she draws from the local in both her scholarship and her teaching. Her current book project, for example, focusing on citizen discourse in the decades after a southern, rural university town began the process of desegregation. Other current work engaging the local includes the national conference Writing Democracy: A Rhetoric of (T)here, held on our campus in March 2011 and jointly sponsored by A&M-C and the Federation of North Texas Area Colleges and Universities, and the conference proceedings scheduled to appear in the Fall 2012 issue of the award-winning Community Literacy Journal (Guest Editors, Carter and Deborah Mutnick).
Since 2007, she has lead the Converging Literacies Center (CLiC), an interdisciplinary research center she established with Dr. Donna Dunbar-Odom to study and support the literate lives of local citizens and students. Accomplishments include recurring “CLiC Talks” presented by local citizens and faculty across the disciplines, multimedia presentations like the recent documentary on the Norris Community, the historically segregated neighborhood in town (The Other Side of the Track, 2011), and outreach efforts like the installation of a historical marker at one of the oldest African American churches in town (Mt. Moriah Temple Baptist Church).
In September 2011, Dr. Carter was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities grant to support Remixing Rural Texas project (RRT). RRT is an interdisciplinary effort to develop a prototype for facilitating the "remixing" of various types of digitized primary sources for Web presentations (video) on rhetorical constructions of race and race relations in rural Texas within the broader historical context of the Civil Rights Movement. The grant period ends December 2012, and she is eager to share the results with the community.
I. Grants (External)
Carter, Shannon (PI). Remixing Rural Texas: Local Texts, Global Context (HD 5139)
National Endowment for the Humanities-Digital Humanities Grant (9/1/2011-12/31/2012)
II. Publications
In Print
Carter, Shannon. The Way Literacy Lives: Rhetorical Dexterity and the "Basic" Writer. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008. (198 pages).
Carter, Shannon and Bump Halbritter, Guest Editors. “(Re)mediating the Conversation: Undergraduate Research in Writing and Rhetoric.” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy (Special Issue). 16.1 (Fall 2011). Web.
Carter, Shannon, Tabetha Adkins, and Donna Dunbar-Odom. “The Activist Writing Center.” Computers and Composition Online (Fall 2010). Web.
Carter, Shannon. “Writing About Writing in Basic Writing.” BWe: Basic Writing e-Journal. 2009/2010 Double Issue. 151-169. Web.
Carter, Shannon and Susan Bernstein. BWe: Basic Writing (2009/2010 Double Issue). Web.
Carter, Shannon. “The Writing Center Paradox: Talk about Legitimacy and the Problem of Institutional Change.” College Composition and Communication. September 2009. 61:1 W133-W152.
Carter, Shannon and Donna Dunbar-Odom. “The Converging Literacies Center (CLiC): A New Model for Writing (Programs).” Kairos: A Journal of Technology, Rhetoric, and Pedagogy. 14.1 (Fall 2009): Web.
Carter, Shannon. “HOPE, ‘Repair,’ and the Complexities of Reciprocity: Inmates Tutoring Inmates in a Total Institution” Community Literacy Journal. 2.2 (Spring 2008): 87-112.
----. "Living Inside the Bible (Belt).” College English. 69.6 (July 2007): 572-595.
---. "Graduate Courses in Basic Writing Studies: Recommendations for Teacher Trainers." BWe: Basic Writing e-Journal. 6.1 (Spring 2007). Web.
---. "Redefining Literacy as a Social Practice" Journal of Basic Writing. 25.1 (Fall 2006): 94- 125.
---. "The Feminist WPA Project: Fear and Possibility in the Feminist 'Home.'" Identity Papers: Literacy and Power in Higher Education. Bronwyn Williams, Ed. Utah State UP, 2006.
Carter, Shannon and Doug Downs, Founders and Co-Editors (2007, 2008). “First-Year Feature.” Young Scholars in Writing: Undergraduate Research in Writing and Rhetoric. [annual]
Under Review
Carter, Shannon and Jim Conrad. “Who Owns Writing Research?” College Composition and Communication, Special Issue on Research Methodologies (September 2012).
In Progress
Carter, Shannon and Deborah Mutnick, Guest Editors. “Writing Democracy.” Community Literacy Journal (Special Issue). 7.1 (Fall 2012). Accepted and Forthcoming.
Carter, Shannon. “Writing for a Change: Race, Activism, and Local Texts in a Southern, Rural University Town” (1964-1980). Monograph.
III. Professional Service
Member, Special Task Force, CCCC Public Comment on the Department of Health and Human Services' Proposed Changes to Human Subjects Research. (2011-present)
Member, CCCC Undergraduate Research Committee (2011-2014)
Member, CCCC Task Force (2010-2011). Undergraduate Research in Writing and Rhetoric.
Member, Editorial Board (2007-present). Young Scholars in Writing: Undergraduate Research in Writing and Rhetoric (YSW)
Member, Editorial Board (2005-2010). BWe: Basic Writing e-Journal
Member, Board of Consultants (2008-2011). Writing About Writing Network
Co-Chair (2008-2011). Council on Basic Writing
Reviewer: College English, Journal of Basic Writing, College Composition and Communication, BWe: Basic Writing e-Journal, Young Scholars in Writing, Pedagogy