Contact Information

Biography

Dr. Anna V. Knutson serves as Assistant Professor of English and Director of First-Year Writing. Dr. Knutson received her PhD in the Joint Program in English and Education at the University of Michigan, where she worked as a researcher in the Sweetland Center for Writing. Her research interests include writing program administration, learning transfer, extracurricular learning, and digital literacies.

She has collaboratively authored articles published in Across the Disciplines, College English, Composition Forum, Kairos, The WAC Journal, and WPA: Writing Program Administration, and book chapters in the edited collections Class in the Composition Classroom: Pedagogy and the Working Class and Developing Writers in Higher Education: A Longitudinal Study. With her co-authors, she won the 2016 Computers and Composition Ellen Nold Award for "Sites of Multimodal Literacy: Comparing Student Learning in Online and Face-to-Face Environments," published in Computers and Composition.

In her current research, Dr. Knutson analyzes interviews and writing samples to explore how feminist college students negotiated the relationship between their reading/writing experiences on social media and in their classes. She is particularly interested in 1) how writers' knowledge of genres in one domain may guide their writing in another domain, and 2) the ways in which writers transform their prior genre knowledge to meet the demands of a new or unprecedented situation. She is currently working on an article project exploring these writers' uses of social media platforms as tools for preserving personal and rhetorical information that can support their efforts to make connections between their online reading and their academic writing.

Education

  • Ph.D., English and Education, University of Michigan, 2018
  • M.A., English/Rhetoric and Writing, University of New Mexico, 2013
  • B.A., English and Women Studies, University of Washington, 2010

 

 

School

  • Undergraduate
    University Core 101: Thinking & Writing Across the Curriculum
    University Core 102: Imaginative Literature
     
  • Graduate
    English 591: Teaching College Writing
    English 598: Social Media Literacies & Rhetorics
Refereed Articles:
  • Gold, D., Garcia, M., Knutson, A.V. (2019). Going public in an age of digital anxiety: How students negotiate the topoi of online writing environments. Composition Forum, 41.
  • Gere, A.R., Knutson, A.V., Limlamai, N., McCarty, R., & Wilson, E. (2018). A tale of two writing prompts: New perspectives on writing-to-learn assignments. The WAC Journal, 29, 147-167.
  • Gere, A.R., Knutson, A.V., & McCarty, R. (2018). Rewriting disciplines: STEM students' longitudinal approaches to writing in (and across) the disciplines. Across the Disciplines, 15(3).
  • Davila, B., Bourelle, T., Bourelle, A., & Knutson, A.V. (2017). Linguistic diversity in online writing classes. WPA: Writing Program Administration, 41(1), 60-81.
  • Gere, A.R., Hutton, E., Keating, B., Knutson, A.V., Silver, N.E., & Toth, C.M. (2017). Mutual adjustments: Learning from and responding to transfer student writers. College English, 79(4), 333-357.
  • Bourelle, A., Bourelle, T., Knutson, A.V., & Spong, S. (2016). Sites of multimodal literacy: Comparing student learning in online and face-to-face environments. Computers and Composition, 39.
  • Bourelle, T., Bourelle, A., Spong, S., Knutson, A.V., Howland-Davis, E., & Kubasek, N. (2015). Reflections in online writing instruction: Pathways to professional development. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, 20(1).

Book Chapters:
  • Knutson, A.V. (2019). Grace: A case study of resourcefulness and resilience. In A.R. Gere (Ed.), Developing writers in higher education: A longitudinal study (pp. 193-216). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
  • Schiavone, A., & Knutson, A.V. (2017). Pedagogy at the crossroads: Instructor identity, social class consciousness, and reflective teaching practice. In W. H. Thelin, & G. Carter (Eds.), Class in the composition classroom: Pedagogy and the working class (pp. 19-39). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Policy Briefs:
  • Gere, A.R., Burke, A., Garcia, M., Gibson, G., Hammond, J., Harris, J., Knutson, A.V., Parsons, C., Parsons, M., Schiavone, A., Tucker, B., & Uzogara, C. (2014, March). Censorship now: Revisiting The Student's Right to Read. Council Chronicle, 23(3), 17-19.
  • Gere, A.R., Burke, A., Gibson, G., Hammond, J., Knutson, A.V., McCarty, R., Parsons, C., Parsons, M., Tacke, E., Tucker, B. (2014, November). How standardized tests shape-and limit-student learning. Council Chronicle, 24(2), 13-15.
  • Conference Presentations
    Knutson, A.V. (2019, March). Feminist college students' writing knowledge transfer across online and academic domains. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Pittsburgh, PA.
  • Knutson, A.V. (2018, October). "I keep on adding in identities": Experiential knowledge in academic writing assignments. Thomas R. Watson Conference, Louisville, KY.
  • Knutson, A.V. (2018, March). Feminist college students' strategy of leveraging content knowledge learned through online reading in the context of academic writing. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Kansas City, MO.
  • Gere, A.R., Knutson, A.V., McCarty, R., & Wilson, E. (2017, July). A tale of two writing prompts: "Authentic" assignments and student engagement in a large undergraduate statistics class. Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Knoxville, TN.
  • Knutson, A.V. (2017, July). Integrating the NSSE into a longitudinal study of student development: Reflections on program research and methodological development. Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Knoxville, TN.
  • Gere, A.R., Knutson, A.V., & McCarty, R. (2016, July). Beyond two cultures? Writing minors navigating disciplinarity in their STEM majors. Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Raleigh, NC.
  • Cohn, J., Pugh, M., Knutson, A.V., & Schiavone, A. (2016, April). Locating the "learner" in learning transfer: (How) does identity facilitate or impede transfer between academic and non-academic domains? Conference on College Composition and Communication, Houston, TX.
  • Gere, A.R., Toth, C., Keating, B., Knutson, A.V. (2015, July). Exploring the role of transfer students in a university's writing culture. Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Boise, ID.
  • Bourelle, A., Knutson, A.V., Bourelle, T., Davila, B. (2015, March). Cross-cultural composition: The rewards of addressing linguistic diversity in online writing classes. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Tampa, FL.
  • Bourelle, A., Bourelle, T., Knutson, A.V., Kubasek, N., Speidel, Z. (2014, November). Professional development in online writing instruction. Western States Rhetoric and Literacy Conference, Reno, NV.
  • Homan, E. C., Knutson, A.V., & Schiavone, A. (2014, July). Enabled vs. integrated digital pedagogies in the postsecondary writing classroom: A framework for reflective teaching practice in the 21st century. Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Normal, IL.
  • Bourelle, A., Bourelle, T., Knutson, A.V., & Spong, S. (2014, March). Opportunities for access in online education: Assessing and comparing a multimodal curriculum in online versus face-to-face classes. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Indianapolis, IN.
  • Knutson, A.V. (2013, March). Negotiating metacognition in a digital landscape: Multimodal reflection in the 21st century classroom. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Las Vegas, NV.
  • Knutson, A.V. (2012, July). Digital bridges: Multimodal connections across communities. National Consortium for Writing Across Communities Summit, Santa Fe, NM.

Sessions Chaired:
  • Knutson, A.V. (chair), Tucker, B., Head, S., & Otemuyiwa, C. (2017, March). Rhetorics of literacy and social justice: Definitions and consequences. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Portland, OR.
  • Knutson, A.V. (chair), Gere, A.R., Hammer, B., Keating, B., Whittig, E., & Silver, N.E. (2016, April). (Transfer) student-centered assessment. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Houston, TX.
Invited Presentations:
  • Knutson, A.V., & Garcia, M. (2019, April). Ethics in digital research methods. Lecture presented in English 508: Researching and Teaching Digital Literacies, taught by David Gold. Department of Language and Literature, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
  • Knutson, A.V., & Gold, D. (2018, April-May). Conference proposal workshop. Workshop series. Joint Program in English and Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
  • Knutson, A.V. (2015, October). Leveraging the potential of eportfolios and multimodal composition for transformative learning in the composition classroom. Lecture presented in English 6376: Teaching College Composition, taught by Mellisa Huffman. Department of English and Modern Languages, Angelo State University, San Angelo, TX.
  • Knutson, A.V. (2013, April). Reflection in first-year composition: Challenges and strategies. Core Writing Colloquia Series, Core Writing Program, Department of English, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM.