This article reports on a cross-institutional, mixed-methods research study designed to gather data on first year writers' language backgrounds at three North American universities. Researchers administered a language survey to 1,870 first year writing students and led follow-up focus groups with 32 participants. Researchers utilized three methods…

In this article, we discuss three cross-cultural memoirs used in three different university courses that introduced students to the complex identities that form both inside and outside of language classrooms. In arguing for the value of using such memoirs as content in university courses, we provide a detailed thematic analysis of Peter Hessler's…