INTRODUCTION

As composition and rhetoric pedagogy continues delving into ways that digital environments can offer teachers and students alternate possibilities of (teaching) writing, Writing Spaces opens itself to the possibility of additional (and perpetual) re-inventions of textbooks designed to facilitate collaboration among pedagogues. Published under a Creative Commons license, this "book" series provides essays that "complement other selected readings in writing or writing-intensive courses across the disciplines at any level" ("About") with the option of ordering custom printed copies through Parlor Press. Written for an audience of teachers and students, Writing Spaces, as an experimental project, presents both with accessible "chapters" addressing outcomes common to writing programs (Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2008): Rhetorical Knowledge, Critical Thinking, Processes, Convention of Academic Writing, and Electronic Composition.

Currently, this series includes two published volumes addressing topics in first-year composition (FYC), with a third volume scheduled for release in December 2011—and proposals for a fourth volume are currently being reviewed. Volume 1 includes essays grounding general conventions of academic writing for first-year students, while Volume 2 offers essays discussing critical thinking and research. The two unpublished volumes will address rhetorical knowledge, and visual and multimodal composition. In addition to these formal volumes, Writing Spaces also provides additional resources, including a video project by Elizabeth Woodworth detailing her experience using this series in the Writing Center, and an extensive "Web Writing Style Guide" edited by Matt Barton, James Kalmbach, and Charles Lowe.

The editors of this book series, Charlie Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, implicitly question traditional textbooks by calling for essays that support a pedagogical-sharing of "unique views, insights, and strategies" ("About") and that acknowledge the intricacies of composition pedagogy. One of the most effective elements of the essays in Writing Spaces is its focus on addressing specific aspects of academic writing, such as Kyle Stedman's "Annoying Ways People Use Sources," which (re)formulates academic conventions, not as rules, but as annoyances. Stedman's article presents us with a way to conceptualize one of the central aims of Writing Spaces: to understand academic writing in FYC as a set of conventions for the contexts students are likely to encounter during their college careers. By publishing a series of essays on various topics addressing these contexts, Writing Spaces presents teachers and students with a variety of ways to (re)think academic writing via the proliferation of pedagogical strategies/concepts built through the practice(s) of teaching.