2018 Conference

Submissions Are Closed

 

Writing Partnerships:
Collaboration & Community in Composition

 

UNC Charlotte 5th Annual Conference on Writing Studies
Center City Campus
October 19, 2018
Keynote Speaker: Ashley J. Holmes

Call for Proposals

It has been more than thirty years since Kenneth Bruffee challenged compositionists to embrace a more collaborative pedagogy, arguing that “in every instance writing is an act, however much displaced, of conversational exchange,” and thus students should be made “aware that writing is a social artifact.” Since then, the social turn in composition—both in theory and in classroom practice—has been so dramatic that not only do Bruffee’s arguments now seem quaintly self-evident, but the scope of collaborative writing pedagogies has far exceeded the boundaries of the classroom and campus. Community is now often figured in the most inclusive way, and partnerships imply public engagement. In Public Pedagogy in Composition Studies, for instance, Ashley J. Holmes calls on writing faculty to “choose to forge new pathways through public engagement that moves beyond armchair criticism from the classroom . . . [by] designing assignments and creating administrative structures that relocate student experiences to new or unfamiliar publics outside the relative safety of the classroom.” She and many others see this public move in writing as essential engagement with and critique of social forces that threaten foundational democratic institutions, including education itself. If so much is indeed at stake, we might rightly ask ourselves, what are we seeking to accomplish when we teach community-oriented and collaborative approaches to writing? And where do we go from here?

The University Writing Program invites proposals on these and related questions for the UNC Charlotte 5th Annual Conference on Writing Studies (formerly, the UWP Conference at UNCC). Proposals for individual presentations, panels, workshops, and lightning talks may address questions such as:

  • As we seek to move our writing pedagogy beyond the classroom and integrate a more spiral model of writing pedagogy to build writing partnerships with programs across campus, how do we build the alliances needed to accomplish this work? In turn how do we move beyond campus in partnering with a variety of community organizations to take our students’ writing public?
  • How do we promote writing partnerships in our classes? What pedagogical and assessment considerations does this work entail? What does effective instruction in collaborative and/or public writing look like in the 21st century?
  • How has the turn to public writing affected our curricula? How might it be in tension with some of the more traditional ways we have approached collaboration in a classroom-only setting?
  • Do the writing partnerships we facilitate in and beyond our classrooms question, challenge, or reaffirm dominant ideologies?
  • What of our own writing partnerships? As faculty, do we model collaborative writing for our students? When and why do we engage in writing partnerships ourselves, and how do these partnerships affect our pedagogy?
  • With whom do we, as writing faculty, tend to partner? Why? How might diversifying our partners—reaching beyond the expected disciplinary or organizational boundaries—affect our writing? Our pedagogy?
  • How has technology facilitated and complicated our notions and practices of collaborative writing and/or going public with writing?

Please submit a 250-500 word abstract (100 – 200 words for lightning talks) via the UNC Charlotte Writing Studies Conference Proposal Submission Site by August 31, 2018. Descriptions of presentation options are available on the submission site. Successful proposals will make clear how the presentation will address issues of community, collaboration, or public writing at the secondary, post-secondary, and/or professional level.

Proposals will be blind-reviewed by a committee of readers. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified no later than September 12, 2018 and must register for the conference no later than September 21, 2018, to confirm their intent to present.

Computers, laptop connections, and projectors will be available in presentation classrooms. Please specify any additional support needed on the submission form.

If you have any questions, please contact Jon Pope at uwpconference@uncc.edu