Sherry Rankins-Robertson

Department of Writing and Rhetoric

Professor

View CV

Sherry.Robertson@ucf.edu

Phone

407-823-2295

Campus Location

Trevor Colbourn Hall 171D

Biography

Sherry Rankins-Robertson is Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Central Florida. Her passion for student success has fueled her energy to build successful, sustainable higher education programs to improve students’ experiences both on campus and in the community. For the past twenty-five years, Sherry has taught first-year writing; she has taught nonfiction writing and graduate-level theory courses. For more than a decade, she has taught writing in prisons.

Her research has appeared in Kairos, Computers and Composition, WPA: Writing Program Administration, and the Journal of Writing Assessment along with more than a dozen diverse edited collections. She served as co-editor of the journal WPA: Writing Program Administration. With Nicholas Behm and Duane Roen, she edited The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing: Scholarship and Applications (Parlor Press, 2017). Her co-edited collection with Joe Lockard on teaching writing in prisons is titled Prison Pedagogies: Learning and Teaching with Imprisoned Writers (Syracuse University Press, 2018). Sherry is a co-author of McGraw Hill Guide to Writing 5th edition and the 2025 release of the McGraw Hill Guide to Writing with Duane Roen. With Aurora Matzke and Angela Clark Oates, Sherry co-edited the special issue (45.2) of WPA: Writing Program Administration on the legacy of Mike Rose (2022). She and a team of editors released the 2023 special issue of Peitho on Coalition as Commonplace: Centering Feminist Scholarship, Pedagogies, and Leadership.

Sherry served as an officer for the Council of Writing Program Administrators and a member of the Executive Committee of the Conference on College Composition and Communication along with committees and task forces for NCTE, CCCC, and CWPA. Sherry spent eight years as a faculty member and administrator at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock where she worked as Writing Program Administrator, Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, and Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing. Previously, Sherry taught at Arizona State University (ASU) where she worked with colleagues to develop programs in family history writing, business writing, and prison education. Collaboratively, she designed, implemented, and administered the award-winning Writers’ Studio, ASU’s fully online first-year composition program. Sherry served as the department chair of the Department of Writing and Rhetoric from 2020-2025. Currently, Sherry is a faculty fellow for AAC&U's Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum and works on a USDE NISS grant with colleagues at UCF on chatbots in first-year writing.

Education

Ph.D. in English: Rhetoric, Composition, and Linguistics from Arizona State University (2011)

Publications

Books

Roen, Duane, Sherry Rankins-Robertson, and Barry Maid. McGraw Guide to Writing. 5th edition. McGraw Hill (2021).

Edited Collections

Lockard, Joe, and Sherry Rankins-Robertson (Eds.) Prison Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning with Imprisoned Writers. Syracuse University Press.(2018).
Behm, Nicholas, Sherry Rankins-Robertson, and Duane Roen. (Eds.) Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing: Scholarship and Applications. Parlor Press. (2017).

Edited Editions

Aurora Matzke, Louis M. Maraj, Angela Clark-Oates, Anyssa Gonzalez, and Sherry Rankins-Robertson.“Coalition as Commonplace: Centering Feminist Scholarship, Pedagogies, and Leadership Special Issue Practices” Peitho Vol 25, issue 4 (Summer 2023).
Angela Clark-Oates, Aurora Matzke and Sherry Rankins-Robertson, eds. Mike Rose: Teacher and Scholar, Writer and Friend. Special Issue of WPA: Writing Program Administration. Vol 45.2 (Spring/Summer 2022).

Articles/Essays

Rankins-Robertson, Sherry, Angela Clark Oates, and Nicholas Behm. “Reviewing a Career of Scholarly Innovation, Mentorship, and Service: An Interview with Duane H. Roen” WPA: Writing Program Administration at Forty (Special Issue). 42.3: 36-43. (Summer 2019).
Rankins-Robertson, Sherry. "Complex Lives, Complicated Literacies: Writing Programs in Higher Education-Prison Partnerships” WPA: Writing Program Administration. (Spring 2019) 42.2: 166-174.
Bourelle, Tiffany, Andrew Bourelle, and Sherry Rankins-Robertson. “Teaching with Instructional Assistants: Enhancing Student Learning in Online Classes.” Ed. Kristine Blair. Computers and Composition. (Fall 2015) 37: 90-103.
Clark-Oates, Angela, Sherry Rankins-Robertson, Erica Ivy, and Duane Roen. “Moving Beyond the Common Core to Develop Rhetorically Based and Contextually Sensitive Assessment Practices.” Eds. Diane Kelly-Riley and Carl Whithaus. The Journal of Writing Assessment. (2015) 8:1.
Rankins-Robertson, Sherry, Tiffany Bourelle, and Andrew Bourelle. “Multimodal Instruction: Pedagogy and Practice for Enhancing Multimodal Composition Online.” Ed. Cheryl Ball. Kairos. (August 2014).
Behm, Nicholas, Sherry Rankins-Robertson, and Duane Roen. “The Case for Academics as Public Intellectuals.” Academe. (January-February 2014) 100.1: 13-18.
Bourelle, Tiffany, Andrew Bourelle, and Sherry Rankins-Robertson. “Employing a Multiliteracies Pedagogy through Multimodal Composition: Preparing Twenty-First Century Writers.” Computers and Composition Online (Fall 2013).
Rankins-Robertson, Sherry, Tiffany Bourelle, and Duane Roen. “Enhancing Learning and Thinking in Higher Education.” Writing Program Administration Journal. (Spring 2012) 35.2: 196-206.
Lockard, Joe and Sherry Rankins-Robertson. “Right to Education, Prison-University Partnerships, and Online Writing Pedagogy.” Critical Survey Journal (Spring 2011) 23.3: 23-39.
Rankins-Robertson, Sherry, Lisa Cahill, Duane Roen, and Greg Glau. “Expanding Definitions of Academic Writing: Family History Writing in the Basic Writing Classroom and Beyond.” Journal of Basic Writing. 29.1 (2010) 56-77.

Book Sections/Chapters

Khoury, Nicole, Nicholas Behm, and Sherry Rankins-Robertson. “Building an Affective Infrastructure To Lead Writing Programs.” Composition & Rhetoric in Contentious Times. Eds. Rachel McCabe and Jennifer Juszkiewicz. Utah State University Press. (2023). 87-100.
Clark-Oates, Angela, Magdeyln Helwig, Carey Smitherman-Clark, Matzke, Aurora, Bre Garrett, and Sherry Rankins-Robertson. “Making it as a Female Writing Program Administrator: Using Collective Action to Transgress Gendered Boundaries.” Women’s Ways of Making. Eds. Shirley Rose and Maureen Goggin. Utah State University Press. (2021). 245-264.
Beavers, Melvin, Subrina Bogan, Harold Brown, Caleb James, and Sherry Rankins-Robertson. “Cultural Responsible Pedagogies: Underrepresented Student Engagement and Social Cognition via the Framework for Success for Postsecondary Writing” Eds. Michael Rifenburg, Duane Roen, and Patricia Portanova. Pedagogical Perspectives on Cognition and Writing. Parlor Press, 2021, 210-231.
Clark-Oates, Angela, Magdeyln Helwig, Carey Smitherman-Clark, Matzke, Aurora, Bre Garrett, and Sherry Rankins-Robertson. “Making it as a Female Writing Program Administrator: Using Collective Action to Transgress Gendered Boundaries.” Women’s Ways of Making. Eds. Shirley Rose and Maureen Goggin. Utah State University Press. 2021, 245-264.
Rankins-Robertson, Sherry and Nicholas Behm. “Performing Silence, Exhaustion, and Recovery: Articulating Faculty and Administrator Identity by Cultivating Mental Wellness ” Ed. Craig Wayne. Preserving Emotion in Student Writing: Innovation in Composition Pedagogy. Peter Lang Series, Writing in 21st Century, 2021. 239-250.
Rankins-Robertson, Sherry. “Shaped by the (Disciplinary) Past: An Intergenerational Response to Edward M. White” Invited publication for Talking Back: Senior Scholars Deliberate the Past, Present, and Future of Writing Studies. Eds. Norbert Elliot and Alice Horning. Utah State University Press/University Press of Colorado. 2020. 370-375.
Rankins-Robertson, Sherry, Aurora Matzke, and Bre Garrett. “‘Nevertheless, She Persisted’: Strategies to Counteract the Time, Place, and Culture of Academic Bullying for WPAs.” Defining, Locating, and Addressing Bullying in the WPA Workplace. Eds. Cristyn Elder and Beth Davila. Utah State University Press. 2018. 49-68.
Clark-Oates, Angela, Andy Bourelle, Tiffany Bourelle, Sherry Rankins-Robertson, and Duane Roen. “Innovating with Technology in FYC: Developing and Evolving Online Writing Programs.” Beyond the Frontier, Volume II. Eds. Jill Dahlman and Piper Selden. 2018. 198-211.
Garrett, Bre, Sherry Rankins-Robertson, and Aurora Matzke. “Renegotiating the Positionality of MiddleMAN Administrators in Higher Education.” Surviving Sexism in Academia: Strategies for Feminist Leadership. Eds. Kirstie Cole and Holly Hassel. New York: Routledge, 2017. 277-286.
Clark-Oates, Angela, Duane Roen, and Sherry Rankins-Robertson. “Understanding the Narratives of Our Ancestors through Naming.” The Rhetoric of Names and Naming. Ed. Star Medzerian Vanguri. New York: Routledge, 2016. 89-101.
Bourelle, Tiffany, Sherry Rankins-Robertson, Andrew Bourelle, and Duane Roen. “Assessing Learning in Redesigned Online First-Year Composition Courses.” Digital Writing Assessment and Evaluation Eds. Heidi McKee and Danielle DeVoss. Utah State Press and Computers and Composition Digital Press, 2013. < https://ccdigitalpress.org/book/dwae >
Rankins-Robertson, Sherry and Duane Roen. “Textbooks and Their Pedagogical Influences in Higher Education: A Bibliographic Essay.” On the Blunt Edge: Technology in Composition’s Pedagogy and History. Ed. Shane Borrowman. West Lafayette: Parlor Press, 2012: 98-114.
Rankins-Robertson, Sherry. “The Outcomes as Support for Teacher Creativity.” The WPA Outcomes Statement: A Decade Later. Eds. Nick Behm, Duane Roen, Deborah Holdstein, and Greg Glau. Indiana: Parlor Press, 2012: 58-70.

Course #	Course	Title	Mode	Days/Times	Syllabus
83090	ENC4379	Writing and Rhetoric Capstone	Web-Based (W)	7:00 PM - 7:00 PM	Unavailable
83688	ENC5703	Comp His & Theory	Video Livestream (VL)	Th 6:00 PM - 8:50 PM	Unavailable
83870	ENC6952	Rhet Comp Graduate Capstone	Web-Based (W)	7:00 PM - 7:00 PM	Unavailable

Course #	Course	Title	Mode	Days/Times	Syllabus
12176	ENC4379	Writing and Rhetoric Capstone	Video Livestream (VL)	Tu,Th 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM	Unavailable