Recollections from an Uncommon Time: 4C20 Documentarian Tales

Recollections from an Uncommon Time: 4C20  Documentarian Tales is the latest title published in the Studies in Writing and Rhetoric. Edited by Julie Lindquist, Bree Straayer, and Bump Halbritter, this collection of original essays was occasioned first by the 2020 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Annual Convention, and then, later, by the cancellation of it.

As originally planned, Documentarians (attendees in a newly created role) would share their experiences of the CCCC Convention. After the meeting was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the collection became a means for the Documentarians to share a common experience in this uncommon time.

As the volume editors write, “Expect to have some of the tales resonate with your experiences and others to depict a process of sensemaking that might not align with your own. Some of the tales, and the learning they depict, are still in process—they’re still happening. All of this is to say that this collection of Documentarian Tales might challenge your sensibilities . . . it might not fall together quite how you expect or even how you hope it may. But really—given its mission, its diverse sites of origin and diverse authorship—how could it? We ask you to take a moment, read, and listen to each other.” The essays in this collection relate the shared experience of disruption in our work lives—which, as it turns out, also teaches us how deeply the terms of our work are implicated in our experiences of home, family, and everyday routines.

In addition to being available in digital open access editions, Teachers Talking Writing is available in a print edition from NCTE.