Dear colleagues in Rhetoric, Writing, and Composition Studies,
With an eagerness to read your reflections, we share this call for papers for taking a Documentarian long- or short-view of this moment, as we consider NCTE’s de-chartering of CCCC, our past conference experiences, and our visions for the future of our field.
As facilitators of the CCCC Documentarian Project and editors of the Composition Studies Documentarian Exhibit, we invite tales about this important moment of change in our field. We invite all members of our field to contribute, whether or not they previously served as an official documentarian for CCCC. We also welcome tales from CCCC Newcomers, including those who had anticipated 2027 being their first conference. Tales will be added to our open-access exhibit and will be peer-reviewed. *This is a distinct collection from our CCCC 2026 collection, which we hope to have published on the exhibit as the year closes.
Consider the following:
- What did CCCC, as it was, mean to you? What stories do you have over the years that reflect that meaning?
- What does this moment mean to you? Where were you when you heard the news? What did you do or how did you process it?
- How do you anticipate this move affecting your approach to conferencing? What do you picture for the future, whether realistic or ideal?
Please see the full CFP here. Essays or “tales” should be submitted by October 1, 2026, to the form linked in the CFP.
We welcome work that has been developed from initial reflections submitted elsewhere, such as the National Archive of Composition & Rhetoric’s nationalarchives.comprhet
Send questions to documentarianscccc.
Sincerely,
Adrienne Jankens and Jennifer Grouling
Adrienne Jankens, Ph.D. (she/her)
Associate Professor, Rhetoric and Writing Studies
English Department
Wayne State University
Author, The Talk and Texts of Teacher Development: Values, the Practicum, and Programmatic Change in Writing Studies (Utah State UP, 2026)
Co-chair, Conference on Community Writing, 2027