We’ve decided to extend the submission deadline for the 2024 in-person Writing Through the Lifespan conference to be held July 24-26 in Charleston, IL, USA. We’ll keep the submission portal open until February 16. The Writing Through the Lifespan conference is a welcoming group with a variety of presentation options for people who are just learning about lifespan writing approaches to research. If you are interested in lifespan writing research but got a little overwhelmed coming out of the winter break, we hope you’ll take some time in the next few weeks and put together a proposal. In addition to formal presentations, we’ll also be doing some work as an organization and we’d love to have your input.
best,
Talinn Phillips
Growing a Radical Research Agenda: The Recent Past and Possible Futures of Lifespan Writing Research
The 3rd Conference on Writing Through the Lifespan
July 24-26, 2024 | Charleston, IL, USA
Call for Proposals
In 2024, the Writing through the Lifespan Collaboration will be in its eighth year of existence. In that time, there has been considerable development of lifespan writing research, what it is, and how it might be accomplished. In their recent chapter, Dippre & Phillips (2023) argue:
Lifespan writing research is, at heart, deeply radical and … it is radical in multiple ways. We use radical here first as the Middle English origins of the word suggest, referencing the “roots or origin.” Lifespan writing research is committed to understanding and revealing the roots that underlie writers’ changes over time—both the large, obvious, trip-over- able roots and those that are more hidden and more subtle, perhaps only becoming evident over decades or generations. But lifespan writing research is also radical in particular ways: in its attention to context and to the durations of engagement researchers have with writers. Thus, as a phenomenon of interest, lifespan writing offers longitudinal writing researchers a useful framework for thinking in what we refer to as radically longitudinal and radically contextual ways. Drawing on more contemporary meanings of radical as “extreme” (or “at the limits of control”), we use the term radically longitudinal to describe taking longitudinal research to its extreme by studying writing from cradle to grave and, where appropriate, across generations….
As this “radical research agenda” that the Collaboration is pursuing then closes in on its first decade, a number of questions about lifespan writing research remain. Where should we focus our energies next to foster new growth in the field? Who else might join this work? Are there aspects of lifespan writing research that now need pruning? How should we best translate our research findings into policy? In short: How shall lifespan writing research grow? We thus invite contributions from new and established lifespan writing researchers from all disciplines to share research findings and to help consider what the future of lifespan writing research might be.
For our third conference, we seek proposals for presentations, panels, workshops, or works-in-progress that address the following questions:
How should lifespan writing research grow?
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What are the most pressing issues facing LWR? How might we address them?
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What other approaches and disciplinary knowledge should be informing our work?
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What new audiences need to hear about lifespan writing research? How might we invite them to join our work?
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How can we foster and inform the development of future education or other important policies?
What do we know now/new about lifespan writing?
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What new findings can we share?
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What did the pandemic teach us about writing through the lifespan?
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What do lifespan writing researchers need to know? Particularly with so many researchers situated in North America and in English/writing programs, what are important findings from other fields, traditions, and contexts?
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How should LWR choose methodologies? What methodological choices are generating success in conducting LWR? Are there any methods or methodologies that seem particularly problematic or less successful?
What are some of the primary challenges facing lifespan writing research and how might we address them? What might we need to articulate in order for other researchers to see how to join lifespan writing research work?
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How do we see the relationship between literacy and writing? Between print and multimodality? While some of these issues are settled in some disciplines where lifespan writing research happens, they aren’t (or are even contentious) in others. What questions are so essential that we must consider them and perhaps develop some consensus?
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How does LWR intersect with the transfer research that is so forefront to much research in North American writing studies?
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What other hindrances do we need to wrestle with as we move lifespan writing research forward? What ideas do we have for addressing them?
What Is Lifespan Writing Research and the Writing Through the Lifespan Collaboration?
Writing Through the Lifespan (www.lifespanwriting.org) is a collaboration of dozens of scholars around the world who are in the early stages of sharing related and complementary research studies focused on key conceptual and developmental aspects of writing across one’s life. The collaboration has defined lifespan writing research as part of an effort to more clearly define this research agenda and, by extension, strengthen and expand the lifespan writing research happening around the globe.
Lifespan Writing Research examines acts of inscribed meaning-making, the products of it, and the multiple dimensions of human activity that relate to it in order to build accounts of whether and how writers and writing may change throughout the duration and breadth of the lifespan. (Writing Through the Lifespan Collaboration, 2019)
Lifespan writing research requires diverse expertise from a wide variety of disciplines. All researchers who investigate writing within and across any population and who adopt (or seek to adopt) a lifespan perspective in their research are encouraged to submit proposals. For more information about the collaboration or the Lifespan Writing Research agenda, visit our website or our book series at the WAC Clearinghouse. For examples of the diversity of previous presentations, please see the program of our inaugural conference at https://www.lifespanwriting.org/2018-conference.
Proposal Submission
Submissions must be received at https://forms.gle/CgaQ6QkXggAwEKZM6.
Priority Submission Deadline: January 5, 2024 (will receive early notification)
Final Submission Deadline: February 16, 2024
We seek proposals for individual research presentations, panel presentations, work-in-progress presentations, or workshops. Each participant may propose an Individual Research Presentation or as part of a Panel Presentation. All participants are also eligible to submit a Work-in-Progress proposal and/or a Workshop proposal. All presenters and affiliations must be entered at the time of submission. We encourage international attendees to submit by the priority deadline of January 5 in order to have maximum time to arrange visas.
Acceptance notification will be sent in sent in early March. Early Bird registration opens in late March.
Submissions are not editable after submitting and must include:
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names of all presenters
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presenters’ contact information and institutional affiliation
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title of presentation
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abstract of presentation for the program (50 words max)
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keywords (e.g. that describe your theoretical orientation, methodology, and/or conversations you’d like to contribute to in the field)
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presentation proposal as a PDF document (300 words for Individual, Workshops, or Work-in-Progress Presentations; 850 for Panel Presentations)
Individual Research Presentations (300 words):
This category is for oral presentations on individual research projects. Individual research presentations will be grouped thematically to specific topics or by broad conference theme by conference committee members during the review process. Individual research presentations allow researchers to propose new ideas grounded in the literature or to report on findings from either in-progress or completed research projects. Presenters will have 20 minutes (20 minutes speaking with 5 minutes for questions).
Panel Presentations (850 words including 100 for a session description):
This category allows multiple researchers to examine one topic or question from a variety of perspectives or from an in-depth perspective. Panel presentations should be submitted by a team of researchers (3+) and should be focused on a specific linking theme or topic. Submissions should include a brief statement concerning how the panel session will be structured (i.e., three separate presentations, presentations of different lengths, two presentations with a discussant, etc.). Panels will have 75 minutes (60 minutes for all speakers with 15 minutes for questions).
Work-in-Progress Presentations (300 words):
This category is for projects in the early stages that would benefit from discussion and insights from colleagues. Work-in-progress presentations will be done in roundtable formats grouped thematically to allow for discussion. Proposals should include sufficient information about the project and identify questions that the researcher is seeking feedback or further insights about. Presenters may share empirical findings in this format as well, and we encourage discussions around preliminary findings that might spark future research trajectories. Presenters will have 25 minutes (10 minutes for speaking with 15 minutes for discussion).
Workshops (300 words):
A workshop teaches participants a new skill related to lifespan writing research. Possibilities include teaching a new method for data collection, sharing strategies for building collaborative data sets or coordinating multi-institutional IRB protocols, introducing new tools for data analysis, etc. Workshop proposals must be clearly hands-on, involve substantial audience participation, and include clear learning outcomes for participants. Presenters will have 75 minutes.
Submit proposals at https://forms.gle/CgaQ6QkXggAwEKZM6 by February 16, 2024.
Contact lifespanwriting with questions.
Talinn Phillips, PhD (she)
Professor, English Rhetoric & Composition
Co-Chair, Writing Through the Lifespan Collaboration
Series Co-Editor, Lifespan Writing Research | WAC Clearinghouse
Series Co-Editor, Practice, Pedagogy, and Programming for Graduate Communication | University of Michigan Press
Ellis Hall 351
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701
tiller