Special Editors' Introduction to Issue 3.1

Ben Kuebrich is currently a doctoral candidate in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric at Syracuse University.

His research is motivated by social, civic, and community purpose, whether he's creating a podcast, teaching students to blog and reflect on digital publics, or creating community publications through classroom-community partnerships.

His current research project involves work in a neighborhood with ongoing tensions with police. He studied a community publication on police/resident relationships, which he also edited with a grassroots community publisher.

He is also interested in teaching English as a second language, professional editing, new media, public writing and rhetoric, teacher training, and composition theory and pedagogy.

Jessica is a PhD candidate at Syracuse University in the Composition and Cultural Rhetoric program. Her research examines the ability of self-generated community literacy projects to support working-class and working-poor writers, with a particular emphasis on how the work of such groups also supports broader efforts for social and political change. She is also interested in developing opportunities for youth literacy and publishing.

Steve Parks is Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at Syracuse University. He is also Director of the Graduate Program in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric. His current research involves the ways in which community partnership work has been embedded within a pragmatism that fails to address the educational and political needs of the resource-poor communities. For the past two years, he has been helping to organize a community advocacy group in Syracuse, linked to community publishing efforts, as a way to explore the ways in which writing/narrative can foster direct grassroots activism and change. He is currently writing a series of articles on this work.