Editor's Note

This time last year, I was nearing the end of my final class as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI). My experiences as a GSI, which spanned across two institutions in two degree programs over 15 years, were formative to my development as a scholar and thinker. It was my time as a GSI that led me down an entire career path. These times were also riddled with questions of legitimacy, issues of labor and pay, and endless anxiety. Anyone who does now or has occupied this role knows that to be both a student and a teacher is a position of liminality that comes with unique insight into the classroom. It was from this vantage that we developed the call for Xchanges’s Graduate Teaching Symposium.

The editorial team at Xchanges wondered about the current state of Graduate Student Teaching, noting a tumultuous and decidedly anti-intellectual political landscape taking hold, the leftover and continued fatigue from the Covid-19 pandemic, and a series of geopolitical atrocities as our backdrop. Our call was well received by current GSIs; nearly 40 proposals were submitted, from students representing 25 graduate degree programs covering a broad range of issues including GSI labor, emotional well being, identity formation, use of technology, pedagogical support and development, and more.

The overwhelming interest and diversity of viewpoints from GSIs has driven us to create two issue releases from this call. In this first issue, we are excited to include 10 different pieces from 17 different graduate student authors. These authors have engaged in a range of important and timely questions about the state of graduate teaching, highlighting the urgent need to address systemic issues while celebrating innovative approaches to teaching and professional development and reminding us of the endless creation and invention that GSIs offer.

Several authors have asked: how do graduate students innovate and thrive despite the fundamental tension inherent in GSIs' dual position as both students and instructors? In their piece “Experienced Teachers, Emergent Researchers: Graduate Students Developing Scholarly Identities,” Jaclyn Ordway, Rachel Smith Olson, and Stacie Klinowski from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, argue that liminality, rather than being purely restrictive, can serve as a generative space for pedagogical innovation and identity formation, particularly as GSIs develop scholarly research identities. Authors have also explored how this unique positioning enables GSIs to develop transgressive teaching practices and build meaningful coalitions with their students, particularly in writing instruction contexts. The essay “Tactically Transgressive Teaching: Dis/Empowerment as Graduate Student-Instructors” by Alex Mashny and Nicole Golden of Michigan State University, describes how the liminality of their identities operates as a productive tension in the classroom that allows them to forward social-justice-oriented teaching.

This collection also foregrounds critical conversations about equity and identity in graduate student instruction. “Precarity and Negotiations of Racialized Identities of Two POC Grad Instructors in a PWI,” by Matthew Louie and Sujash Purna of University of Wisconsin, Madison, examines how racial identity fundamentally shapes GSIs' experiences, adding layers of complexity to their professional development and classroom authority. This attention to racial dynamics builds upon existing scholarship while offering new insights into how racialized identities influence both student and instructor roles. Continuing critical conversations around instructor identity and pedagogy development, Virginia Tech’s Molly Ryan provides a powerful narrative in “Teaching Boldly, Teaching Queerly: Embracing Radical (Un)Growth and Possibilities as a Graduate Instructor in First-Year Writing.” Using autoethnography and pedagogical reflexivity to help GSIs develop practical strategies for radical pedagogy, Ryan details her own journey of embracing “a bold, queer approach” to teaching writing in order to “light the way.”

Others have focussed on issues of equity through thinking through specific teaching practices and approaches. Alexandria Jennings, from the University of Pittsburgh, offers in “Chat(GPT)-ing about the Affordances Generative AI Tools Offer for ADHD Writers” a discussion of how neurodiversity and disability emerge as crucial considerations, particularly in the context of writing instruction and the integration of generative AI tools, suggesting new pathways for supporting diverse learner needs. Jainab Banu from North Dakota State University provides a sample classroom assignment in this vein, furthering the field’s conception of the Literacy Narrative assignment. In “Identity Narrative Assignment: How Writing About Students’ Identities Shapes Their Writerly Voice,” Banu emphasizes how reflective writing focussed on student identity works to highlight their often obscured voices, offering a step-by-step approach to this teaching strategy.

Wellbeing and care are threaded throughout these contributions, with particular attention to how institutional structures and training programs can better support GSIs. “Local Assessment Design and Graduate Student Wellbeing” describes the implementation of targeted assessment tools, as demonstrated in the University of Wisconsin-Madison case study. In this piece, UW Madison student Taylor Dickson provides a model for evidence-based approaches to improving GSI support systems. Further, Olivia Rowland’s “Redistributing Care Work: Toward Labor Justice for Graduate Instructors” highlights how GSIs' unique position often leads to disproportionate emotional labor. Rowland, from The Ohio State University, offers both theoretical frameworks and practical strategies for redistributing this care work while maintaining pedagogical effectiveness.

Finally, these pieces highlight issues of professional development and access. “Digital Interference: Challenges in Teaching Multimodal Projects in First-Year Composition,” by University of Tennessee-Knoxville’s Greg Gillespie, describes a graduate student's journey in finding and developing their own professional development pathway around teaching multimodality. This illuminates broader discussions about how graduate programs can better facilitate the integration of teaching and research identities, suggesting structural changes to enhance professional development opportunities. Finally, “The TPC Contact Zone: Preparing Graduate Student Instructors for Students’ Writing Realities,” by Alex Evans, Anna D'Orazio, Brooke Boling, Katie Monthie, of the University of Cincinnati, uses instructor narratives to understand a gap in teaching between first-year writing and technical and professional communication classes. Their work provides instructors and administrators with ways to consider professional development for GSIs.

Collectively, these essays advance our understanding of GSI experiences while offering concrete strategies for improvement at both individual and institutional levels. Throughout, they foreground equity and invention, demonstrating the importance of considering multiple factors– from racial identity to administrative burden, from technological change, to emotional labor– in supporting GSI success. As higher education continues to rely heavily on graduate student instruction, these insights provide crucial guidance for creating more equitable, sustainable, and effective teaching and learning environments.

We publish this now as diversity, equity, and inclusion become targeted terms and as higher education faces new budget challenges beyond previous scope. The papers here collectively demonstrate how GSIs' simultaneous habitation of learner and teacher roles can push our thinking around teaching, learning, and equity further. More importantly, the contributions in this special issue not only document current challenges but also point toward future directions for research and practice in graduate student writing instruction.

--Jennifer Burke Reifman
Co-Managing Editor
San Diego State University