"Literacy today is in the middle of a tectonic change… [T]hese are structural changes — global, educational, technological… How is it that what we teach and what we test can be so different from what our students know as writing?" —Kathleen Blake Yancey (2004)
"Situations (contexts) do not just exist...[but] are actively created, sustained, negotiated, resisted, and transformed moment-by-moment through ongoing work." —James Paul Gee (2000)
The Center for Writing and the Office of Undergraduate Education at the University of Minnesota are delighted to announce a call for proposals for the 12th International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference (IWAC 2014), to be held in the Commons Hotel on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, June 12–14, 2014.
The conference theme, "Shifting Currents/Making Waves," references the lively Mississippi River (a few blocks from our on-campus conference hotel), WAC's history as a progressive pedagogical movement, and its current activity in an era of accelerated change.
Among the shifts and waves we will discuss are those occurring in…
To facilitate constructive discussion of these and other field-relevant shifts, we will encourage innovative formatting in concurrent sessions and will extend particular welcome to sessions that include interaction and discussion. We enthusiastically encourage proposals for sessions that include instructors from diverse academic disciplines and international settings. Proposals will require a short, one- or two-sentence description of the presentation along with an abstract. Presenters will select from among the following formats:
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Pre-conference workshop (165 minutes) |
Proposals for these Thursday morning sessions will include session choreography and a set of participant outcomes. If desired, sessions can be scheduled into wired, active-learning classrooms. Proposal abstract: 350 words or fewer; Program abstract: 75 words or fewer. |
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5 X 10 talks |
Five slides, ten minutes. This innovative alternative to the poster session provides a venue suited for brief, general-audience talks accompanied by visual props. The 5 X 10 is particularly well-suited for profiling institutional programs or drawing attention to a single issue or innovation. Presented live, 5 X 10s will be also videorecorded for looped airing later at the conference. Proposal abstract: 125 words or fewer; Program abstract: 50 words or fewer. |
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Individual presentations |
Individual presentations will be grouped into three-person panels by shared topic, and a session chair will be assigned. Individual presenters are asked to limit presented segments to 15 minutes in order to allow for substantial discussion at the end of the panel. Proposal abstract: 250 words or fewer; Program abstract: 50 words or fewer. |
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Multi-presenter panel or discussion |
Proposals for structured discussions (or full panels) will identify sequence of activity, opportunities for interaction, session timing, and a session chair. Possibilities here include point-counterpoint discussions, choreographed roundtables, fishbowl discussions, and intentionally sequenced panels. Proposal abstract: 350 words or fewer; Program abstract 75 words or fewer. |
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Teaching demonstrations (20 minutes) |
Brief, interactive demonstrations of writing instruction from any academic discipline. These will be grouped by discipline or strategy, and a session chair will be assigned. Proposal abstract: 125 words or fewer; Program abstract: 50 words or fewer. |
Multiple Submission Policy
We are pleased to offer a variety of innovative presentation and discussion formats. Conference participants may submit up to two proposals; however, those proposals may not both come from the same category where category 1 comprises pre-conference workshops and 5 x 10 talks, and category 2 comprises individual presentations, multi-presenter panel or discussion, and teaching demonstrations.
Proposals will be judged against the following criteria: