deadline for submissions:
June 7, 2024
full name / name of organization:
Matthew Horton / University of North Georgia
contact email:
matthew.horton
SAMLA 96: CFP for “Teaching Writing in College” Session
November 15–17, 2024
Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront, Jacksonville, FL
The “Teaching Writing in College” session welcomes all submissions about writing instruction, particularly ones related to the conference theme: “Seen and Unseen.” Teaching college writing, from first-year composition to intensive writing courses, distills the challenges that instructors and students regularly face in detecting the extent of learning. Learning, as a process, tends to become more obscure as we more exclusively assess products meant to show that it has occurred. In the end, students and instructors are likely to pay most of their attention to the visible, quantifiable, and measurable product. Both also know that a product taken to show achievement can hide or misrepresent that learning has happened. This problem arises when students pretend to move toward learning outcomes by leveraging gradable products and when students do move toward learning outcomes but struggle to demonstrate that effort through available measures.
Of course, the theme of “Seen and Unseen” applies to writing classrooms in numerous ways that influence how we think about and practice teaching: impact of non-cognitive factors on learning fitness, attitudes toward reading and writing as practices of learning, perceived value of liberal education, future outcomes of current pedagogies, levels of effort and motivation, reliance on generative AI. What instructors need to know about students the most might precisely be what remains hidden, immune to data measures that commonly inform state policy and publishable research. If we cannot know the particulars, we can at least imagine the obstacles they might construct. This pedagogical problem invites revision not only of assessment and grading methods but also of instructional content itself. Some topics that might address the “Seen and Unseen” in writing instruction include, but are not limited to, the following:
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Amplifying student engagement in instructional spaces
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Interplay of reading and writing practice in building composition skills
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Ungrading: assessing labor, engagement, and time on task
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Pedagogies of civic engagement, service learning, and social justice
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Reading and writing about reading and writing
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Modeling exigency in the classroom
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Online, hybrid, and traditional classroom pedagogies for writing instruction
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Feedback practices, feedback literacy, feedback engagement
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21st-century modes, technologies, and tools in writing courses
Presentations that foreground student work and promote interaction with audience members are welcome and encouraged. Please submit, in a Word document, an abstract (250-400 words), a brief bio, and A/V requests to Matthew Horton, Chair, at matthew.horton. Deadline: June 7, 2024.