Greetings!
The National Advanced Writing Symposium organizing committee out of the University Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University is pleased to share the call for papers for the 3rd annual virtual conference, to be held on Friday, January 30, 2026. We hope the conference CFP (attached & copied below) interests you and those at your institution.
Please feel free to forward this email as we’d like to spread the word of this opportunity for sharing scholarship and professionalization to as many folks as possible. If you have any questions, please reach out to our conference email: Naws32026.
My best,
Laura Hartmann-Villalta
NAWS3 Committee Co-Chair
NAWS 3 — Continuous Collisions: Writing, Publics, Pedagogy
Friday, January 30, 2026 – Virtual Conference
One after the other: we are living in a time of continuous collisions, where we must teach through seemingly insurmountable institutional and political challenges.
The theme for our advanced writing symposium this year, Continuous Collisions: Writing, Publics, Pedagogy, is intentionally broad. It may call to mind the challenge of teaching through a collision of incompatible perceptions of the goals of higher education. Or it may evoke productive collisions, where there is a misalignment of expectations and reality—when students encounter diverse texts and perspectives, for example. And there are the challenges of collisions in the classroom—between students and between students and instructors.
We define “advanced writing” as any teaching that addresses material beyond the first-year composition class, such as rhetoric courses aimed at writing studies majors; WAC/WID courses; technical, science, business, or health writing courses; or community-engaged courses. We would love to hear about classes that take place online or asynchronously and the challenges or affordances therein.
We also want to acknowledge that advanced writing can cover programmatic concerns, like capstone projects or the thesis, or writing program adjacent spaces, such as writing centers.
Below are some suggestions to begin (but not limit) the conversation:
- What should we do when we witness collisions in public and community-engaged writing in 2025/2026? How should we balance concerns about students’ agency with contemporary risks in advanced writing?
- How do we respond to collisions between values in the classroom? How can we best balance writing program goals in the face of unprecedented moments?
- How do we facilitate or support productive collisions? For example, when students encounter diversity of texts, disciplines, assignments, and voices in advanced writing classes.
- How do we teach through continuous collisions? How do we remain resilient in the face of unprecedented challenges? How do we reach students through the distractions of the present?
- How do we frame assignments across the disciplines that emphasize student agency and encourage individual creativity as we prepare our student writers for the next level?
- What collaborative, inventive modalities can we learn from and build on?
- How might we engage with each other about how recent innovations support and/or challenge the learning outcomes in our advanced writing classes?
- What collaborative, inventive modalities can we learn from and build on?
- What alternative modes of assessment practices (collaborative grading; ungrading; unilateral, labor-based, and empathy-based grading contracts; specification grading) best align with the needs of students and teachers in 2025/2026?
- What innovative advanced writing assignments can we integrate into the classroom to promote student participation, inclusivity, and agency?
We also welcome presentations on pedagogical concepts or practices that are still in their creation phase, including, but not limited to an idea you have brewing for publication, or a larger conference, or the beginning stages of an IRB study that you’d like feedback for. We also welcome open conversations involving group dialogue around a central theme or subtopic, such as case studies, problem-solving scenarios, or practical applications that benefit from group discussions. Responses to published think pieces related to our field or provoking questions that help usher meaningful reflection are also invited.
Session Types:
Panel proposal – 3-4 speakers presenting on an issue or topic related to the conference theme
Individual presentation – 1-2 speakers delivering a single talk or presentation
Open conversation proposal – propose co-leading an open conversation on a topic of your choice in order to create a space of professionalization and solidarity with your peers
Workshop proposal – sessions focused on audience participation, with the goal that audience members leave the session with applicable take-aways for their teaching practices
What to Submit:
We ask for proposals of 200-500 words along with a title and abstract (no more than 400 characters or spaces).
Proposal Deadline:
Friday, November 14, 2025
How to Submit:
Please complete the submission form.
Contact and More Information:
Naws32026
https://linktr.ee/naws32026
Laura Hartmann-Villalta (she/hers)
Senior Lecturer | University Writing Program
Affiliated Faculty | Program in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies
Editor of the new feature From the Feminist Classroom, for Feminist Modernist Studies
Inaugural Co-Organizer | Modernism & Pedagogy Special Interest Group (MSA, 23-26)
Member | Advisory Board for The Space Between: Literature & Culture 1914-1945
Member | Editorial Board for Feminist Modernist Studies
Krieger School of Arts & Sciences
Johns Hopkins University
12 Gilman Hall, Baltimore, MD 21218