Complete Program
A Note About Time Zones. Please note that all times provided in our program are Mountain Daylight Time (MDT). To convert a time on our program to your local time, you can use a time zone converter, such as the one found at WorldTimeServer.com (https://www.worldtimeserver.com/current_time_in_US-CO.aspx). Please keep the international date line in mind as you determine how the days and times map to your time zone.
Special Pre-Conference Workshops
We are offering two free workshops a few days prior to the start of the conference. These workshops are sponsored by Bedford/St. Martin's and PowerNotes. In addition to providing timely discussions of key issues relevant to WAC and, more generally, writing instruction, these workshops will provide conference attendees with experience using the online platform that we are using for the conference. You can view these workshops by visiting the conference Whova app on the web at https://iwac15.events.whova.com or by using the Whova mobile app (available through your favorite app store).
Thursday, July 29th 10:00 am
Free Pre-Conference Workshop
Preconference Workshop: How to Encourage Deep Reading Online
Type of Session: Preconference Workshop (No Registration Required)
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Workshop Leaders:
Jenae Cohn, California State University, Sacramento
Jimmy Fleming, PowerNotes
Abstract: After a year of emergency remote instruction, instructors and students alike are increasingly aware of how experiences of teaching and learning online impact their engagement with reading and writing in digital spaces. In this workshop, we will focus on how we encourage focus and engagement with digital reading across the curriculum. By the end of this workshop, instructors will learn about a digital reading framework and some possible activities for helping students think with and through the work of reading on-screen.
This workshop is sponsored by PowerNotes. It is available to all who have registered for the IWAC Conference. A recording of the workshop will be available later in the conference.
This workshop is sponsored by PowerNotes. It is available to all who have registered for the IWAC Conference. A recording of the workshop will be available later in the conference.
Friday, July 30th 12:00 pm
Free Pre-Conference Workshop
Preconference Workshop: How to Teach WID in First-Year Writing Without Being an Expert in Every Discipline
Type of Session: Preconference Workshop (No Registration Required)
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Workshop Leaders:
Susan Miller-Cochran, University of Arizona
Vivian Garcia, Bedford/St. Martin's (Macmillan Learning)
Abstract:This workshop will address how and why first-year writing instructors should prepare students for discipline-specific writing. The session considers that first-year writing instructors are not necessarily experts in writing disciplinary genres, such as lab reports or theory response papers, and suggests strategies for helping students write in multiple genres. Among the strategies considered are equipping students with special rhetorical lenses through which they can view the genres and conventions they will be expected to read and produce in other courses.The workshop will also provide instructors with a rhetorical toolkit for teaching writing in the disciplines to first-year writing students.
This workshop is sponsored by Bedford/St. Martin's. It is available to all who have registered for the IWAC Conference. A recording of the workshop will be available later in the conference.
This workshop is sponsored by Bedford/St. Martin's. It is available to all who have registered for the IWAC Conference. A recording of the workshop will be available later in the conference.
Monday, August 2nd
9:00 to 11:00
Workshops
Note: Workshops require pre-registration. Please do so when you register for the conference. If you wish to add a workshop following registration, please contact CSU Conference and Events Services at (970) 491-6222 or conferences@colostate.edu.
W.1 WAC Mentoring Workshop
Type of Session: Preconference Workshop
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live. Pre-registration required.
Workshop Leaders:
Amy Cicchino, Auburn University
Lindsay Clark , Sam Houston State University
Justin Nicholes, University of Wisconsin, Stout
Abstract: The WAC Mentoring Workshop, presented by members of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum Mentoring Committee, will provide attendees guidance from experienced WAC leaders in a small-group setting. Attendees will be able to choose among breakout groups on various topics related to WAC programs: launching a new program, further developing an existing program, preparing graduate writers across disciplines, conducting WAC program assessment, supporting multilingual writers and WAC, strengthening WAC/writing center connections, bringing WAC into K-12 settings, growing WAC in two-year colleges, engaging in WAC research. Attendees will share their experiences and questions in small groups and receive feedback from their peers and the group leader. We hope providing this opportunity for friendly, cross-institutional mentoring will begin conversations that can continue throughout IWAC. The workshop will be run in two rounds, with each topic repeated so that attendees may choose two topics of interest to them: the first round of discussions will run from 9:00-9:55 and the second will run from 10:05-11:00.The workshop will be facilitated by AWAC Mentoring Committee members Lindsay Clark, Justin Nicholes, and Amy Cicchino. Each breakout group will be led by an experienced WAC leader from AWAC.
W.2 "All I know about assessment came from Assessment Clear and Simple!:" A Workshop for WAC Beginners
Type of Session: Preconference Workshop
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live. Pre-registration required.
Coordinator: Rick R. Fisher, University of Wyoming
Abstract: This workshop is designed for beginners and those who would benefit from reviewing some of the basic issues that shape programmatic assessment. This session will invite attendees to revisit their larger institutional needs, pressures, and resources; map relationships among course, program, and institutional-scale assessment activity; identify objects and objectives of their local efforts; and discuss strategies for "closing the assessment loop." Attendees will have multiple opportunities to share ideas with others during the workshop and will go home with action items for short- and long-term progress.
W.3 Enhancing the Development of Students' Disciplinary Discourse and Content Learning in Science and Engineering through a Focus on Writing
Type of Session: Preconference Workshop
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Live. Pre-registration required.
Coordinator: Magnus K. H. Gustafsson, Chalmers University of Technology
Abstract: Collaboration between two European universities allowed participants to share practices and articulate approaches for how we support the development of students' disciplinary discourse in science and engineering. We arrived at seven shared dimensions that we needed to be able to negotiate and adjust in each situation. The seven dimensions are 'Developing or revising pedagogy'; 'Developing or revising instructions'; 'Developing or revising rubrics'; 'Feedback design and focus'; 'Focus and division of labor for work with texts'; 'Focus and division of labor in marking'; 'Mandate'. The workshop invites participants to explore the dimensions of the approaches and try them on for their own sites irrespective of what discipline they are in. The objective of the workshop is for participants to get a sense of a strategy and first steps toward a longitudinal WID-approach.
W.4 Incorporating Private Writing Digitally: Ownership, Autonomy, and Flow
Type of Session: Preconference Workshop
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live. Pre-registration required.
Coordinator: Anna Alexis Larsson, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Workshop Leaders:
Rachael Benavidez, Queens College CUNY
Anna Alexis Larsson, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Abstract: We created a web application called BlabRyte to capture the labor of private writing and will introduce the variety of ways it can be used in writing-intensive classes across the disciplines. Emphasizing frequency and exploration, BlabRyte gives structure to Peter Elbow's advice that writers sometimes ignore their audience, and it promotes an assessment model that values the labor of writing (Inoue). In this hands-on workshop, we will review the benefits of private writing and offer a variety of disciplinary uses for BlabRyte, giving participants pedagogical strategies to successfully integrate private writing that go beyond assigning a private journal. We will explore the ways in which BlabRyte addresses common writing and discussion challenges across the curriculum in conversations with students, instructors, and tutors from diverse disciplines. The facilitators will present specific examples from US History, Science, Technical Writing, and Film courses, along with potential applications for any course. Participants will experience student and instructor modes and practice using the tool, including developing community writing prompts to understand modes of student experiences. Participants will leave with numerous diverse ideas for low-stakes assignments that mix and remix forms of audience and response.
W.5 Using Interdependent Roles and Tasks to Increase Learning in Collaborative Writing Teams
Type of Session: Preconference Workshop
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live. Pre-registration required.
Coordinator: Jason C. Tham, Texas Tech University
Workshop Leaders:
Joe Moses, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
Jason Tham, Texas Tech University
Abstract: Our workshop on interdependent roles and tasks for collaborative writing teams helps attendees address calls for improved career readiness by providing resources for increasing student learning in writing teams. This session is for faculty and graduate instructors who are 1) thinking about using team writing projects in their courses, 2) have used team writing projects in the past and would like to make them more effective, or 3) would take advantage of team writing projects if they had tools for creating effective assignments and supporting team productivity.
W.6 The R Word: Challenges and Opportunities of Rhetoric Across the Curriculum
Type of Session: Preconference Workshop
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Live. Pre-registration required. This workshop will be offered with an ASL interpreter.
Coordinator: Sarah Pittock, Stanford University
Workshop Leaders:
Kathleen Tarr, Stanford University
Abstract: WAC has experimented with various rebrands, among others, WEC, CAC, and LAC. This workshop will explore why in a moment when cultural rhetorics, digital rhetoric, and political rhetoric are so prominently at issue, WAC practitioners' theory, practice, and self presentation to institutional, faculty, and national partners do or do not invoke rhetorical concepts. The conversation will make explicit the affordances and limitations of what we might call RAC: Rhetoric Across the Curriculum. What do we lose, if anything, when we minimize the history and critical vocabulary of rhetoric in our work? What might we gain if we make rhetorical education an explicit goal of undergraduate education? To answer these questions, we will briefly reflect on how we bring in rhetorical concepts and theories to our work as writing specialists in spite of the resistance we face. We will then lead you through a series of exercises to surface how your current practice names rhetorical concepts, what rhetoric helps you achieve programmatically and in terms of student learning, and what challenges it raises. Our goal is to spark a lively conversation and facilitate the sharing of new strategies. Note: This workshop will provide ASL interpretation.
W.7 Creating Innovative Teaching Tools: Integrating Disciplinary and Rhetorical Knowledge with Disciplinary Reasoning Diagrams
Type of Session: Preconference Workshop
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live. Pre-registration required.
Coordinator: Suzanne Lane, MIT
Workshop Leaders:
Malcah Effron, MIT
Leslie Roldan, MIT
Michael Trice, MIT
Abstract: We have designed a visual tool that helps students learn to communicate disciplinary knowledge to a variety of audiences and in a variety genres. The tool, which we call a "Reasoning Diagram," maps central concepts in a discipline, as well as the reasoned relationship between them, and thus reveals communication pathways that a speaker/writer can take through the material. These diagrams are discipline-specific, and we have developed a methodology (which includes structured interviews with experts in the discipline as well various forms of textual coding) that allows us to create them in many disciplines. This workshop will introduce the theory and methodology that led us to create the diagrams, which we now have completed in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Comparative Media Studies, Computer Systems, Materials Science and Engineering, Mathematics, and Mechanical Engineering. We will also explain how we use these diagrams with students, and provide assessment data on their effectiveness. Participants will gain hands-on experience with the methodology and in-class activities, as well as a complete set of our reasoning diagrams.
W.8 Exploring Approaches to Supporting Graduate Writers across Disciplines, Demographics, and Diverse Institutional Contexts
Type of Session: Preconference Workshop
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live. Pre-registration required.
Workshop Leaders:
Susan Lawrence, George Mason University
Terry Myers Zawacki, George Mason University
Abstract: Graduate student writers are increasingly becoming part of the scope of WAC initiatives, as research uncovers the complexity of graduate writing and the need for support. We briefly review the research before leading participants in thinking through ways to provide graduate-level writing support on their campuses. Participants will be introduced to a framework for understanding the complexity of graduate-level writing, the writing support needs of different demographics of graduate students (i.e. professional masters students, doctoral students, international students), and graduate-writing support models and approaches to faculty development. With this context, participants will map the state of graduate writing support on their campuses (if any), identify potential campus allies, and generate a list of feasible approaches for their institutions for building and/or expanding WAC/WID student and faculty support. In the concluding "gallery walk" activity, participants will share their maps, the potential campus allies they've identified, and a list of programmatic practices that may be achievable at their institutions, either within existing programs and budgets or through other means. The goal is that participants will leave with an understanding of the possibilities and some viable steps for increasing graduate writing support within WAC/writing center programs or through WAC-informed programming.
11:30 to 1:30
Opening Plenary (Welcome and Plenary Presentation)
WAC Fearlessness, Sustainability, and Adaptability over Five Decades
Carol Rutz and Chris Thaiss
Carol Rutz concentrated her education in Minnesota with a B.A. in English from Gustavus Adolphus College, an M.A. in liberal studies from Hamline University, and a Ph.D. in English (Rhet/Comp specialty) from the University of Minnesota. She served Carleton College for 20 years as director of the Writing Program, which involved teaching writing courses, providing faculty development in a WAC context, and writing assessment. Her research interests include response to student writing, WAC pedagogy, writing assessment, and assessment of faculty development. She has served on the boards of both CCCC and WPA. In addition to a 16-year series of interviews of WAC luminaries for The WAC Journal (soon to be republished by the WAC Clearinghouse as a collection), she has published in journals including CCC, WPA, Assessing Writing, Numeracy, Composition Studies, Change, and Peer Review; provided a batch of book chapters; and, most recently, co-authored with Bill Condon and others, Faculty Development and Student Learning (Indiana UP, 2016).
Chris Thaiss is Professor Emeritus of Writing Studies at the University of California, Davis, where he served as the first permanent director of the independent University Writing Program. He also directed UCD’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and coordinated the cross-disciplinary First-Year Seminar Program. He chaired the Ph.D. emphasis in Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition Studies until 2016. Active in developing WAC programs since 1978, he coordinated the International Network of WAC Programs, 2005-2015. He is a member of the International Collaborations committee of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum and works on the editorial board of the WAC Clearinghouse. Until 2006, he taught at George Mason University, where he directed the composition and WAC programs and the university writing center. He served as chair of the English Department. In 2005, Thaiss received the University’s David King Award for career contributions to teaching excellence. Thaiss has written, co-written, or edited fourteen books, of which his newest are Writing Science in the Twenty-First Century (Broadview, 2019), based on his years of teaching writing to STEM majors at UC Davis, and the fourth edition of A Short History of Writing Instruction (Routledge, 2020), co-edited with James J. Murphy.
2:00 to 3:00
Session A
A.1 The Challenges of Text Recycling Across the Curriculum
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Susanne Hall, California Institute of Technology
Presenters:
Michael A. Pemberton, Georgia Southern University
Susanne Hall, California Institute of Technology
Chris M. Anson, North Carolina State University
Abstract: This panel will present and discuss the latest research findings of the Text Recycling Project, a five-year, NSF-funded investigation into the ethics and practice of text recycling (sometimes pejoratively referred to as "self-plagiarism") in academic writing. In this session, the panelists will report on disciplinary gatekeepers' beliefs and attitudes toward text recycling, based on analyses of 21 interviews with academic journal editors in multiple disciplines, and on the extent and nature of such recycling in academic texts, based on a text analytic study of 400 published research papers. Audience members are invited to discuss these findings and help the panelists develop materials that will be of help to them and their students in classroom settings.
A.2 A Writing Center's STEM Writing Courses and Research into Elements of their Success
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Enrico Sassi, North Dakota State University
Presenters:
Drew Taylor, North Dakota State University, "Part A: Academic Writing in the Engineering Disciplines—Using a Denigrated Writing Genre as a Tool to Transfer Engineers' Analytical Abilities to Writing"
Enrico Sassi, North Dakota State University, "Part B: Writing Personal Statements for STEM Fellowship Applications—Writing Center Consultants Evoke Applicants' Researcher Identities"
Respondent: Enrico Sassi, North Dakota State University
Abstract: We will describe how our writing center developed two graduate STEM writing courses and discuss research conducted in each. Writing in Engineering: This course has three components: our class jointly creates rubrics to assess sections of published papers; students apply these rubrics to papers in their field; and students draft sections of their own papers for publication. The students' assessments when applying the rubrics are conveyed in five-paragraph essays. The five-paragraph essay is often denigrated as form-first writing instruction, but its simple formula lends itself to express specific analytical claims. We will report on our research into how the essay may help engineers learn the rhetorical moves of successful academic papers. STEM Fellowship Applications: The highest rated component of this successful course is the weekly one-on-one sessions with writing consultants; they help students craft personal statements whose stories must persuade reviewers that the applicant will be a future research leader. Preliminary qualitative research investigating the effectiveness of personal stories changed when coding pointed to the importance of applicants' perception of their own identities. We will report on further research into how writing consultants help students develop the self-awareness needed to successfully project the identity of a capable researcher.
A.3 Writing in the Disciplines: Business
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A (Sherri Craig will present live)
Chair: Sherri Craig, Virginia Tech University
Writing Executive Narratives: Students Think Critically about Communication in Business
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Presenter: Lindsay Clark, Sam Houston State University
Abstract: This presentation discusses a writing-to-engage course design created by two faculty members from different departments in a business college (Management and Communication) to prepare students for careers in business professions. The course is organized around a speaker series, in which business executives from the area will share their experiences navigating communication situations in the workplace. Through writing reflections, evaluations, and progress reports, the students will discuss and collaboratively write an executive narrative for each speaker. These profiles will become chapters in a collection of professional narratives that explore issues relevant for our business majors, including workplace communication, ethics, conflict, and leadership. Using data collected during and after the course, the presentation will explore three areas: (1) how writing-to-engage activities facilitated disciplinary dialogue, with the goal of activating students' critical thinking and enabling them to further develop their professional identities, (2) to what extent this writing-to-engage curriculum contributed to these students' development of what Bazerman (2005) refers to as "higher-level discipline-specific ways of knowing, as well as low-level task-specific knowledge," preparing them to participate effectively in professional situations, and (3) what political and logistical challenges and affordances are encountered and negotiated during WAC collaborations between departments.
Rising to the Diversity and Inclusion Challenge in Business Writing Courses
Area: The Role of WAC in Addressing Social Justice
Presenter: Sherri Craig, Virginia Tech University
Abstract: Despite our predominantly female universities there can be an overwhelming presence of masculinity and competition in the male-dominated classrooms of professional and technical writing. These masculine spaces are not surprising considering that hegemonic masculine behaviors, such as competitiveness and toughness, are socially constructed and often well supported in business and technical fields (Reid, et al., 2018). Undergraduate level courses, especially those in business, technical, or medical writing, can offer an ideal space for intervention and education of such hierarchical dominating masculine attitudes due to the affordances of readings and discussions about other's difficult and subjugated experiences that they may not otherwise engage with in their other courses. Such professional writing courses, while housed in English, are, by default, writing in the disciplines courses (Russell, 2007) that should consider how writing to learn about diversity, equity, and inclusion in addition to their writing for transfer objectives is the best path in WAC. This individual presentation has two main components. First, the author presents data and qualitative statements from students enrolled in their Business Writing courses from two years of a pilot study. Second, it provides information to situate diversity, equity, and inclusion into writing courses across the curriculum.
A.4 Research on WAC I
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Justin Nicholes, University of Wisconsin-Stout
Spanish Heritage Language Learners Across the Oral-Written Continuum
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenter: Melissa Ariana Patino-Vega, Portland State University
Abstract: The U.S. is home to the second-largest number of Spanish-speakers in the world (Escobar & Potowski, 2015). The sheer number of Spanish speakers in the U.S. help position Spanish as the dominant minority language of the country, however, intergenerational language shift in favor of English among third-generation Latinx bilinguals threatens the sustainability of the language within a given family. To promote language maintenance, researchers recommend the development of academic biliteracy in students' heritage language (Colombi, 2015). Literature indicates that academic biliteracy may triage language loss and promote pride for the native tongue. Ultimately, this paper intends to shed light on how heritage language learners of Spanish develop academic biliteracy, considering the diverse linguistic profiles that coexist in the same learning environment. This study tracks longitudinally the writing development of 24 bilingual students who were enrolled in a Spanish for Heritage Speakers program at a large public university. Using Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1985), it measures their academic development by considering three lexicogrammatical features: lexical density, combination clause strategies, and grammatical complexity over the course of an academic school year. The quantitative data demonstrates that as students progress through the course series, there is an increase in participants' Spanish writing development.
General-Education Writing Courses as Sites for WAC/WID Intervention and Predictors of College-Student Retention: Results From a Large-Scale Quantitative Study
Area: The Impact of Larger Educational Contexts and Trends on WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenter: Justin Nicholes, University of Wisconsin-Stout
Abstract: I present a large-scale quantitative study (N = 2,693) concerning a writing sequence (basic writing, composition 1, composition 2) at one four-year career-focused university. At the research site, course objectives required students to encounter increasing levels of writing-in-the-disciplines (WID) exposure and practice. Binary logistic regression analysis, however, indicated significantly lower odds of graduation for first-generation college students as they progressed toward more WID-related writing. Implications are discussed for WAC/WID pedagogy and research to support students as they encounter WID-related writing in general-education coursework and elsewhere.
3:30 to 4:30
Session B
B.1 Innovating Academic Writing for STEM-Inclined Learners: MATHesis
Type of Session: Teaching Demonstration
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded
Presenter: Luciana M. Herman, University of Texas at El Paso
Abstract: As American high school curriculum continues to place more emphasis on STEM, many First-Year Composition (FYC) students enter the classroom reluctant to, uncomfortable with, and underprepared for writing in an academic setting. Often students who are more comfortable with mathematics have difficulty responding to academic writing prompts because they are unable to develop viable thesis statements to satisfy the purpose and audience of the assignment. Many composition students are well-versed in algebra, a symbol set or language that may help students chart the relationships between variables, and further, how the order of operations functions as an organizational structure by which students can arrive at a solution. Additionally, arithmetic functions illustrate actions and relationships; students engage in similar illustrations in their theses. This presentation debuts an innovative, syncretic pedagogy used to teach composition to STEM-inclined students across the curriculum called the "MATHesis" – the application of algebra to academic writing. Participants will gain a deeper understanding for language, both English and mathematics, and how the two are not only integrally related, but can also be used to help students communicate and approach critical thinking in new ways.
B.2 Featured Session: Some Thoughts on the Longevity of WAC, Compared to Other "Across the Curriculums":
Type of Session: Panel
Area: The History of WAC
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Dan Melzer, University of California Davis
Presenter: David R. Russell, Iowa State University
Abstract: David R. Russell said in the first edition of his history of WAC, published in 1992, that WAC may be the "largest and longest-lived educational reform movement in the history of American higher education that did not develop a formal organizational structure." Some 25 years later, it gained a formal organizational structure, AWAC, so it no longer holds that distinction. It is no longer purely grassroots (though still mainly so), and I will give some reasons here why that is a very good thing, in terms of its future longevity. To make my argument, I compare WAC to several of the many other "Across the Curriculum" movements that have flouished and faded over the last 100 years, not only various General Education movements, and other disciplines' "across the curriculum movements, but also faculty development movements.
B.3 The Writing Center as Faculty Resource for Creating Transparent Assignments: A Discussion of a CSUN Writing Center/ Faculty Development Collaboration
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Loretta Huizar, California State University, Northridge
Presenters:
Trista Payte, California State University, Northridge
Melissa Filbeck, California State University, Northridge
Loretta Huizar, California State University, Northridge
Nayan Ramirez, California State University, Northridge
Abstract: While much writing center research examines the unique position of writing centers to foster WAC on university campuses, efforts to create a campus "culture of writing" (Isaacs and Knight 50) are often stymied by the lingering belief among students and faculty that writing centers serve only as a resource for undergraduates. Attempting to subvert this paradigm, writing consultants at California State University's Learning Resource Center, in collaboration with CSUN Faculty Development, designed a four-session workshop to assist faculty from across the disciplines in composing more transparent, scaffolded assignments into the writing projects they assign. In this hands-on, four-part workshop that employed transparent design resources developed by Mary-Ann Winkelmes, PhD at UNLV, we asked participating faculty to bring in a writing assignment to revise and workshop, provided annotated examples of scaffolded assignment sequences using transparent design templates, and made time for small group revision work lead by a writing consultant. In this panel, we will outline the importance of writing centers in WAC, specifically the possibilities they offer for faculty development, detail our workshop's design, successes and challenges, and explain implementation of the revision done in workshop and its impact on specific classes before opening the discussion to the audience.
B.4 Research on WAC II
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Jordan Stouck, University of British Columbia - Okanagan
Academic Transition and Navigation of Multilingual Students through Writing Across the Curriculum: Building Institutional Connections through Linguistically Responsive Curriculum Design
Area: WAC as an International and Transnational Movement
Presenters: Aisha Ravindran and Jordan Stouck, The University of British Columbia - Okanagan
Abstract: In this institutional case study, we attempt to identify the threshold concepts (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015) generated within our context of a WAC curriculum design for scaffolded composition courses, and their impact on adaptive transfer across disciplines (DePalma & Ringer, 2014; Yancy, Robertson & Taczak, 2014). Our study is grounded on these research questions: 1) What aspects of the ecological, instructional, and material features of writing course design impact perceptions of curriculum and pedagogy within an institution? 2) What are students' and instructors' perceptions of effective linguistically responsive pedagogy that facilitate the transfer of writing skills in and across the disciplines? 3) How does the instructional design of a course for multilingual students support their academic navigation and development of learning autonomy and agency in writing across the disciplines? 4) How is discursive "doing " in the discipline facilitated through adaptive transfer of skills acquired through extended immersion in a first year writing course? The findings of the study would be critical in increasing our understanding of the implementation of a WAC instructional design at a Canadian university, and the implications for research in multilingual academic literacy acquisition of students beyond the first year to later stages of interdisciplinary writing.
Assessing Faculty Members' Threshold Concepts for the Teaching of Writing: Quantitative versus Narrative Methods
Area: Other Perspectives on WAC
Presenter: Christopher R. Basgier, Auburn University
Abstract: WAC scholars have become increasingly interested in applications of the threshold concepts framework to WAC contexts. In this presentation, I describe my efforts to develop and validate a survey instrument that measured six concepts: writing to learn, writing in the disciplines, writing as rhetorical, writing as developmental, writing as a process, and writing as a general skill. Multiple validation measures revealed the challenge in gauging changes in thinking quantitatively, leading me to argue that narrative is a better method for capturing and assessing faculty members' threshold concepts for the teaching of writing.
5:00 to 6:00
Session C
C.1 Inviting Innovation: A Writing Fellows Program Adopts Universal Design
Type of Session: Panel
Area: The Role of WAC in Addressing Social Justice
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Gregory M. Skutches, Lehigh University
Presenters:
Gregory M. Skutches, Lehigh University
Sarah Heidebrink-Bruno, Lehigh University
Jason Slipp, Lehigh University
Eva Lane, Lehigh University
Respondent: Gregory M. Skutches, Lehigh University
Abstract: The Technology, Research, and Communication (TRAC) Writing Fellows program at Lehigh University has responded to the needs of an increasingly diverse student population by adopting Universal Design (UD) concepts to promote inclusivity, social justice, and the creation of an open space that values and supports writing and learning. Because this initiative has been intensely collaborative, our panel, consisting of the Director of WAC, the WAC graduate assistant, a member of Lehigh's Instructional Design Team, and a current TRAC fellow, will discuss the motivation, early ideas, planning, execution, and preliminary results of this experiment from a range of perspectives. We will also model UD principles that colleagues can adopt and incorporate into their own practices, and welcome feedback and suggestions from the audience in order to continue to grow this exciting new area of collaborative support and peer learning.
C.2 Learning in Writing-Intensive Community Engagement Projects That Link Courses Across the Curriculum
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Brian Hendrickson, Roger Williams University
Presenters:
Brian Hendrickson, Roger Williams University
Rebecca Farias, Roger Williams University
Jack Fusaro, Roger Williams University
Abstract: In this session, a scholar of writing across the curriculum (WAC) and two undergraduate researchers will recount a study of student learning in writing-intensive community engagement projects that link courses horizontally across academic programs and vertically across semesters. After providing a rationale and overview of the study, the presenters will share their results from coding student' reflections on the learning challenges and opportunities they encountered. The presenters will conclude with recommendations for supporting teaching and learning within writing-intensive community engagement projects, as well as for effectively integrating such projects horizontally and vertically across the curriculum.
C.3 IWAC Proceedings: Meet the Editors
Type of Session: Panel
Area: Other Perspectives on WAC
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Megan J. Kelly, University of Denver
Presenters:
Jill Dahlman, California Northstate University
Heather Falconer, University of Maine
Megan J. Kelly, University of Denver
Caleb González, Ohio State University
Abstract: In this panel, the editors of the 2020 proceedings propose to share how our initial visions for the collection reflect current conversations in WAC—where we've been; where we're going. This panel will include an explanation of the process for publication to help prospective authors plan for submitting abstracts. Time will also be allotted for one-on-one conversations with interested authors about their specific projects. Prospective authors are invited to attend the entire session or drop in.
C.4 Stories of Persistence: Implementing WAC at a Public Flagship University in the Age of Austerity
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Aimee C. Mapes, University of Arizona
Presenters:
Aimee Mapes, University of Arizona
Lindsay Hansen, University of Arizona
Lauren Harvey, University of Arizona
Brad Jacobson, University of Texas, El Paso
Abstract: Focused on approaches to WAC design and leadership at a public, research one institution, this panel shares insights from over five years of WAC initiatives. In celebrating successes and recognizing challenges, our panel examines the development, impact, and challenges of WAC at a land-grant, public institution in the southwest. We will tell the story of WAC in transition from three points of view. Starting with a brief institutional history, the panel then describes a successful collaboration between the writing program and the center for teaching and learning. The panel ends with a description of adopting a whole systems approach to the future of WAC in our institution.
Tuesday, August 3rd
9:00 to 10:00
Session D
D.1 Journal Editors Roundtable - Publishing Peer-reviewed Work in WAC/WID
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: Other Perspectives on WAC
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Justin Hayes, Quinnipiac University
Presenters:
Cameron Bushnell, Clemson University
Michael J. Cripps, University of New England
Justin A. Hayes, Quinnipiac University
Paul Pasquaretta, Quinnipiac University
Julia Voss, Santa Clara University
Respondent: Michael J. Cripps, University of New England
Abstract: Editors for three journals - Across the Disciplines, Double Helix, and The WAC Journal - share brief remarks about their journals, identify some possibly emergent trends based on submissions, and offer guidance for prospective authors. Following brief remarks, editors will respond to comments and engage a conversation with attendees.
D.2 WAC, Writing Centers, Diversity, and Inclusion: Finding Space to Work on Institutional Racism and Linguistic Supremacy
Type of Session: Panel
Area: The Role of WAC in Addressing Social Justice
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: William J Macauley, Jr., University of Nevada, Reno
Presenters:
William J. Macauley, Jr., University of Nevada, Reno, "Is Agency Enough? The Power and Peril of Individualism in Responding to Systemic Racism"
Pamela B. Childers, The McCallie School, "Inclusion in Two WAC-based Secondary School Writing Centers: Building Equity for All"
Brandall C. Jones, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company, "From a High School WAC Program to a Leader of Color: A Former Writing Fellow Shares His Story"
Abstract: Writing centers have long been sites for WAC discourse diversity, for negotiating between disciplines and the value systems they represent. Can writing center culture and WAC theory/practice combine to effectively support larger diversity and inclusion? This session will discuss these possibilities.
D.3 English Across the Curriculum (EAC): Adapting WAC for Bi-literate, Trilingual Hong Kong
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC as an International and Transnational Movement
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Marty Townsend, University of Missouri, emerita professor
Presenters:
Julia Chen, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Jose Lai, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Terry Myers Zawacki, George Mason University
Abstract: For this panel, the three presenters, Julia Chen and Jose Lai from Hong Kong and Terry Myers Zawacki from the US, will describe the exigence for and realization of the English Across the Curriculum (EAC) cross-institutional educational reform movement from its initial grant-supported development to current applications at two different institutions in Hong Kong. Influenced by US WAC, EAC is an adaptation that includes speaking along with writing in recognition of the important role speaking plays in learning when English is a second or foreign language. While the goal of this panel is to introduce US audiences to the EAC initiative within Hong Kong's higher education context, the panelists will also suggest that the trilingual Hong Kong context offers writing studies scholars a rich opportunity to study translanguaging practices across disciplines. Panel chair Marty Townsend will frame the presentations with brief observations of her WAC consulting in China.
D.4 Inclusive Visions for WAC
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Madeline (Annie) Halseth, Colorado State University
Accessing Critical Reflection to Promote Inclusivity in Writing Intensive Courses
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenters:
Christy Goldsmith, University of Missouri
Julie Birt, University of Missouri
Abstract: To investigate ways reflective writing emerges in our university's Writing Intensive courses, we employed grounded theory methods (Charmaz, 2006) to analyze over 200 WI course proposals across all undergraduate programs. Our findings suggest that reflective writing works generally by providing space for individual student subjectivity, moving students towards thinking about the larger community, and forefronting contextual considerations. More specifically, the WI reflective writing activities often (1) require metacognition and (2) ask students to "grapple" with their own or opposing viewpoints. These findings suggest that reflective writing requires students to consider different ways to learn/do/be in the campus and disciplinary community, creating the possibility of more inclusive WAC learning spaces.
Outcomes and Consequences: Challenging EdTech's Erosion of WAC Values
Area: The Impact of Larger Educational Contexts and Trends on WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenter: Susan "George" Schorn, University of Texas at Austin
Abstract: Resource pressures and the continued quest for "efficiencies" have led many institutions to cede analysis of the content and quality of academic writing to machines. Thus, automated systems that purport to read, grade, and authenticate academic work continue to proliferate, despite research showing their poor performance and detrimental effects on learning. Left largely unexamined is the extent to which this reliance on technology undermines the goals of WAC/WID/CxC. This presentation will demonstrate how our efforts to promote best practices of writing across disciplines are subtly and strongly countered by tools that teach students and faculty to devalue human communication and academic knowledge-building. Four common types of automated systems—plagiarism detection software, grammar checkers, citation software, and machine grading—will be analyzed to show how their structure, impact, and marketing all conflict with WAC's core values. Rather than attempting to roll back or eradicate these technologies, which are increasingly entrenched throughout the K-12 and secondary systems, our best response may be to critique them through a social justice lens, empowering WAC instructors and students to better understand the extent of their influence, and to discover multiple ways of countering it.
Tracking "Minimal Writers" and Intervening in Their Process
Area: The Impact of Larger Educational Contexts and Trends on WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded
Presenter: A. Alexis Larsson, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Abstract: Presents findings on a study conducted in writing-intensive courses across The City University of New York using BlabRyte, a web application designed to capture the labor of "private" writing and incorporate it in curricula. "Minimal writers" struggle to start drafts or reach word counts yet actively engage in course discussions and other activities. The research presented shows BlabRyte's potential to intervene in inhibitory writing process models and practices.
10:30 to 11:30
Session E
E.1 In the Face of Change and Uncertainty: Two Decades of Sustaining and Nurturing WAC Programs at CUNY
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Linda Hirsch, Hostos Community College/CUNY
Presenters:
Linda Hirsch, Hostos Community College/CUNY
Andrea Fabrizio, Hostos Community College/CUNY
Trudy Smoke, Hunter College/CUNY
Dennis Paoli, Hunter College/CUNY
Abstract: The CUNY WAC Initiative was implemented in 1999 as a University-wide undertaking to ensure that CUNY graduates had the writing skills to succeed in their future academic and career endeavors. Since then, the University has maintained its commitment to WAC by providing CUNY doctoral student Writing Fellows to each campus and varying forms of budgetary support and resources. Yet over the years, the University has enacted measures which undermine the success of the campuses' WAC programs including decreasing financial supports and minimizing requirements for campus-support of WAC. Sustainability of WAC programs, in light of those numerous and cumulative restraints, is an issue on all CUNY campuses. Situated in the context of Cox, et al. Principles for a Whole Systems Approach for WAC Program Development,this panel will present on the experiences of Hostos Community College and Hunter College, two distinct CUNY campuses which represent successful models for adapting to these varied challenges. Presenters include the WAC Coordinators of these campuses, the Hunter College Writing Center Coordinator and a Hostos Co-Coordinator who also served as a Writing Fellow. They will share their experiences and perspectives on sustaining WAC programs and adapting them to ever shifting contexts over the past two decades.
E.2 Recognizing (and Inviting) Leadership Philosophies and Theories into WAC Scholarship and Program Development
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Lisa Tremain, Humboldt State University
Presenters:
Lisa Tremain, Humboldt State University
Caitlin Martin, Miami University of Ohio
Crystal Fodrey, Moravian College
Nelson Graff, California State University Monterey Bay
Respondent: Lisa Tremain, Humboldt State University
Abstract: Writing Across the Curriculum as a curricular movement has offered various important scholarly research and pedagogical models to the fast-growing WAC field. However, much like work in writing program administration, WAC scholarship tends to articulate the development and direction of WAC programs in ways that emphasize management, design, and structural perspectives (Cox, Galin, & Melzer, 2018; McLeod, 1988; Thaiss & Porter, 2010). While we acknowledge that these elements are certainly parts of WAC leadership, we argue that there is much more to discuss about how leadership philosophies and theories can integrate into WAC development. This panel proposal seeks to contribute to current conversations in WAC both broadly and specifically by exploring how leadership has been discussed and defined in WAC scholarship across time, how it relates to localized program goals via a recent survey of WAC leaders nationally, and how leadership is enacted in two specific WAC programs. We seek to work with session participants to explore the following questions: How is leadership represented in WAC scholarship and/or cross-institutional conversations? What does it mean for WAC scholars/directors to be leaders? Why do we choose certain programs or approaches and employ them in certain ways? How do we take up ideas from the scholarship and put them into our local contexts as part of a leadership philosophy? What can an exploration of leadership offer back to the broader conversation around WAC?
E.3 Responses to WAC Challenges
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Madeline (Annie) Halseth, Colorado State University
Integrating Writing Instruction into Content-Based Disciplines: Lessons from the Shortcomings of the Social Sciences
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenter: Levente Szentkirályi, University of Colorado at Boulder
Abstract: Enhancing the critical thinking and writing skills of students are commonly-stated goals in content-based social science disciplines. Unfortunately, with the premium placed on teaching content-knowledge, these foundational skills are commonly left to students to develop through limited, ad hoc, and inconsistent training. With rare exception, students are expected to learn by doing: to read scholarly works, become familiar with how to interpret complex arguments and empirical analyses, and to emulate the structure and style of the literature they read.However, this mistakenly assumes that students have the capacity to infer from course readings principles of argumentation, rhetorical analysis, reader-based writing, and information literacy, and to successfully apply these principles in their own coursework. Further, this also assumes that students can independently learn how to successfully navigate the challenges of the writing, peer-review, and revision processes. Responding to these shortcomings, this paper explores tangible ways faculty in content-based disciplines can integrate skills-based writing instruction into their courses without sacrificing their focus on content, and develops a framework for a discipline-specific (WID) Writing in the Social Sciences course that departments could offer to help students develop a working understanding of the standards and conventions of research and writing that define the Social Sciences.
Writing Across Technology: Confronting the Challenges of Faculty Development in Multimodal Composition
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenter: Gabriel Morrison, University of Connecticut
Abstract: Although we know that multimodal composition is central to communication in many academic disciplines, various obstacles—outdated curricular infrastructure, lack of WAC coordinator expertise, lack of research, instructor anxieties, budgets—stand in the way of developing best practices for faculty across the curriculum to implement in their writing pedagogy (Reid et al., 2016). In this presentation, I interrogate some of these challenges as I present findings from a study of a burgeoning professional development program in multimodal composition called the Writing Across Technology (WAT) Institute.
E.4 WAC in an International Context
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Jay Jordan, University of Utah
An "American" Institution: WAC Geopolitics at an International Branch Campus
Area: WAC as an International and Transnational Movement
Presenter: Jay Jordan, University of Utah
Abstract: Excerpted from a longitudinal project on students' writing across the curriculum at a university's campuses in South Korea and the US, this presentation focuses on one student-participant's negotiation of his own writing competence and its connections to local language politics and policies. The focal student's educational and family backgrounds position him between "American" and "Korean" identities and also prompt his reflections on how the Korea-based campus markets itself as an "American" institution with arguably disparate impacts among its majority first-language Korean students. Data includes student and faculty interviews as well as student writing and faculty feedback.
Building a Transnational WAC Program: The Case of the American University of Armenia
Area: WAC as an International and Transnational Movement
Presenter: Elitza K. Kotzeva, American University of Armenia
Abstract: The American University of Armenia (AUA), a thirty-year old US-accredited higher education institution with both graduate and undergraduate programs, currently does not have a Writing Program, nor any Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) initiative. The majority of AUA students (92.6 %) are native Armenian speakers who have not had any formal instruction in writing in English prior to their enrollment at AUA. I propose to present on the first steps of building a WAC program at AUA that takes into consideration the low-diversity profile of the local student body. The theoretical framework will be based on a line of transnational writing program scholarship that occupies a middle space—"mesodiscursive" in the words of Hem Paudel—which respects both the local and the larger discursive contexts. This approach offers an alternative to translingual models: it focuses on negotiations across cultures and a shared learning experience within a common language instead of the emphasis of translingualism on interactions between relatively stable languages and communities. A mesodiscursive theoretical framework for the WAC program at AUA, I argue, fits best an institution with such a low-diversity (ESL dominant) profile.
12:00 to 1:00
Session F
F.1 Conceptualizing and Driving a Writing-in-the-Disciplines Initiative to Enhance Undergraduates' Writing Competence at a University in Singapore
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded
Chair: Radhika Jaidev, Singapore Institute of Technology
Presenters: Radhika Jaidev, Brad Franklin Blackstone, Lee Chien Ching, Lee Hwee Hoon, Padma Rao, Kenneth Ong Keng Wee, Singapore Institute of Technology
Abstract: At the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) we offer a range of our own as well as joint degree programmes (with overseas universities) in engineering, computing, and allied health services. To help students cope with their academic writing tasks at the university, language and communication skills are taught in one or more of four ways. These include stand-alone' modules that vary in length from 6 to 15 weeks and embedded content-specific writing (and speaking) instruction within content modules which could be incorporated within curriculum time or offered on a needs/ad hoc basis, outside of curriculum time, depending on the programme. The third way in which undergraduates' communication needs are addressed is through a writing centre offered by way of a “communication helpdesk,” which is a peer tutoring system. Finally, we have a suite of e-micro modules for students to use whenever they need help with their writing. Despite these efforts, it has been found that students' writing competence is still wanting. The members of this roundtable will share some insights on important considerations in the conceptualization of new initiatives and discuss foreseeable challenges in launching a holistic, university-wide, Writing-in-the-Disciplines (WID) initiative.
F.2 Coffee, Cake, and Curtains: How Food and Ambiance Helped Create and Still Sustain a Successful WAC Program
Type of Session: Panel
Area: The History of WAC
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Amy Lannin, University of Missouri
Presenters:
Martha Townsend, University of Missouri
Amy Lannin, University of Missouri
Deborah Huelsbergen, University of Missouri
Deanna Sharpe, University of Missouri
Abstract: Three-and-a-half decades ago, an eighteen-member faculty task force created the University of Missouri's Campus Writing Program, a WAC/WID program, to oversee new Writing Intensive (WI) courses on our campus. As a large public university, cross disciplinary collaboration was a challenge, especially when historically siloed academics may not have seen the need, benefit, or purpose of such a program. However, this task force saw the need and worked together to develop WI guidelines and pilot courses taught in the disciplines. The IWAC 2020 call suggests topics on the history of WAC to "celebrate the scholars and programs that have shaped WAC as a movement." This panel offers perspectives from two of the program's directors (one current, one former) who reflect on how the program created a culture of writing at our land grant institution, a culture that is sustained in part, through the common themes of food and ambiance. Our reflections also celebrate the program's founders and faculty who have taught over 6,000 WI courses over the years. Our respondent, a journalist, food writer and former WI teacher, analyzes the impact of food and ambiance on our program's history and longevity
F.3 Reimagining WAC for Large-Scale Online Delivery
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Teresa M. Redd, Howard University
Presenters:
Teresa M. Redd and Daria P. Winter, Howard University, "Is Online WAC Training Good Enough?"
Amy Mecklenburg-Faenger and Brandi Handley, Park University - Parkville Campus, "Making WAC Accessible: Reimagining the WAC Faculty Workshop as an Online Asynchronous Course"
Julie Minnaugh, Southern New Hampshire University, "The Virtual Frontier: Reimagining Writing Across the Curriculum for Large-Scale Online Delivery"
Abstract: Until the spring of 2020, most WAC directors had not moved their faculty training online even though many of the resources, writing centers, and courses that supported WAC had moved online more than a decade earlier. Some directors had questioned the effectiveness and accessibility of such training as well as the wisdom of investing the time and effort needed to design an online training course. Then COVID-19 struck. Suddenly, WAC directors were forced to offer faculty training online, yet today questions remain, especially questions about the effectiveness of online vs. in-person training. To answer such questions, this panel will draw upon the lessons learned from WAC programs that started training faculty online long before the pandemic, programs that also represent three different types of institutions: (1) a compact brick-and-mortar university with a low online profile, (2) a private university with 40 campus centers and hundreds of instructors across the country teaching in blended and enterprise-style online modalities, and (3) a university whose online enrollment has increased from 8,000 to more than 90,000 since 2001. Speaking from these diverse contexts and years of experience, the panelists will share their successes and challenges through screenshots of their online training sites, postings by faculty participants, and faculty evaluations of the training.
1:30 to 2:30
Session G
G.1 In Their Words: Using Departmental Data to Drive WAC
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC as an Educational Movement
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Pamela Flash, University of Minnesota
Presenters:
Pamela Flash, University of Minnesota
Matthew Luskey, University of Minnesota
Daniel Emery, University of Minnesota
Abstract: As Les Perelman ironically quipped in a 2009 Across the Disciplines article, data-driven change is easy, except for the many things about it that are extremely hard. Challenges emerge when we seek to implement, assess, and sustain those changes, whether describing relationships of correlation and cause, documenting methods of engagement and development, and particularly, demonstrating how such changes and sustained within programs and curricula. As the recent whole systems approach advocated by Cox, Galin, and Melzer (2018) highlights, enacting and documenting sustained pedagogical change has been a grail-like quest for WAC programs and scholars. In this three-part discussion, panelists will profile multiple points of engagement with data that inform and direct the Writing-Enriched Curriculum model (WEC). Student writing samples, surveys of faculty, students, and affiliates, locally-normed assessments, artifacts of instruction, and curricular maps empower department faculty to clarify department and disciplinary values in writing and to consider practices of instruction and assessment that can promote them. Presenters will also describe the theoretical and normative assumptions that guide these inductive processes of data presentation and discussion. In each segment, attendees will engage in lively discussion of data drawn from a diverse array of academic departments.
G.2 The WRITE Tool: Improving Writing and Information Literacy Instruction through Equitable Assignment Design
Type of Session: Panel
Area: The Role of WAC in Addressing Social Justice
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Julia Voss, Santa Clara University
Presenters:
Christine Bachen, Santa Clara University
Nicole Branch, Santa Clara University
Laura Doyle, Santa Clara University
Julia Voss, Santa Clara University
Abstract: A cross-unit team of faculty, librarians, and assessment specialists present the WRITE Tool, an adaptable tool for supporting effective, equitable assignment design of research-based writing assignments. Team members describe the theoretical grounding of the tools, an interactive demonstration, and assessment data.
G.3 Research on WAC IV
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Madeline (Annie) Halseth, Colorado State University
Multimodal Embodied Narratives: L2 Students' Architectural Literacy Practices
Area: Other Perspectives on WAC
Presenter: Min-Seok Choi, The Ohio State University
Abstract: This case study aims to provide an understanding of how L2 students learn disciplinary knowledge and practice through their everyday life experiences in the classroom. In architectural education, architectural competencies are taught and learned through the work of critique (Lymer, 2010). This study examines how L2 students construct their imaginative narrative with their instructors in desk critique in a sophomore landscape architecture studio. This ethnographic study focuses on how each of two L2 East Asian students worked with an instructor through a series of desk critique. To analyze the interactions, I employed discourse analysis across events (Wortham & Reyes, 2015). Preliminary findings showed that both students invited the instructor to co-author the imaginative narrative of the design by positioning the instructor as an expert, who shared his evaluative and epistemic stance on the design. In doing so, these L2 students appropriated the instructor's ways of seeing and talking and articulated the purpose of their design by embedding the instructor's stances into their narrative. Extending the analyses, this study aims to show that literacy involves interdisciplinary and multimodal practices, thus bringing new perspectives on WAC and extending the discussion of the role of WAC for interdisciplinary literacy.
Facilitating Chinese College Students' Critical Thinking with Online Discussion in an ESL Writing Course
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenter: Tina Zhang, Anhui University
Abstract: Studies have shown that critical thinking skills can be effectively fostered in asynchronous learning environments, i.e., online discussion board. Online discussion has been taken as an environment in which new knowledge can be constructed through students' interaction with outside world (content, instructors and partners). This research explores whether and how Chinese college students' critical thinking can be facilitated by online discussion in an ESL writing course. The process of co-constructing critical thinking skills in online discussion envrionment is explored. Strategies to raise participants' awareness of critical thinking and engage them in higher-order thinking are recommended to facilitate critical thinking skills in online discussions.
G.4 Institutional Innovations in WAC
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Dan Melzer, University of California Davis
WAC Networks for Precarious Times: Imagining New Methods for Established Models at Small Liberal Arts Colleges
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Presenter: Naomi Clark, Loras College
Abstract: According to conventional wisdom, only after a demonstrable level of faculty support has been solidified through free-flowing conversation and collaboration should proposals for formalizing WAC be made to administration. However, what changes to this admirable approach might need to be considered at the campus level when (re)starting WAC initiatives in the challenging economic and social contexts of late capitalism? This presentation offers insights from Actor-Network Theory to help begin imagining ways to design WAC initiatives as dovetailing with existing campus initiatives rather than competing with them for limited faculty time and attention.
WAC from Scratch: A Stage One Report toward Sustainable WAC at a Hispanic-Serving Institution
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Presenter: Cristyn Elder, University of New Mexico
Abstract: The presenter is the first WAC Director at a Carnegie-classified "highest research" flagship university and Hispanic-Serving Institution. She will discuss the insights she has gained thus far as a participant in the six-institution consortium on sustainable WAC led by Cox, Galin, and Melzer as supported by a CCCC grant. Specifically, the presenter will describe her methods for stage one of the whole systems approach, "understanding," as she works to uncover the affordances and challenges of building her institution's nascent WAC program into something sustainable. She will describe her strategic measures taken, including mapping the writing ecology on her campus, surveying faculty on their attitudes about students and student writing, and interviewing stakeholders across campus. The presenter will also solicit from participants the tools they have used or might use in determining the indicators for WAC sustainability at their own institutions.
3:00 to 4:00
Session H
H.1 Scaffolding from Foundations: Connecting Foundations Writing with General Education Writing Requirements
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Susan Miller-Cochran, University of Arizona
Presenters:
Susan Miller-Cochran, University of Arizona
Julie Christen, University of Arizona
Analeigh Horton, University of Arizona
Abstract: Several scholars in Writing Studies have examined the role of transfer of learning from writing courses into other contexts in students' academic and professional careers (Anson & Moore, 2016; Beaufort, 2007; Wardle, 2007). This presentation builds upon the growing knowledge about transfer in writing contexts to support student learning through a deeper understanding of the possible connections between Foundations Writing and the General Education writing requirement at one university. The speakers present data collected through ethnographic methods in the tradition of LaFrance (2019) and Melzer (2014) that explore faculty perceptions of the connections between writing courses taken to fulfill the first-year writing requirement and the assignments given to fulfill the General Education writing requirement in classes across the curriculum.
Specifically, the study reports on data collected through a survey and interviews with faculty who teach either Foundations Writing and General Education courses. Additionally, the study includes the analysis of writing assignments across the curriculum collected from faculty participants to understand how faculty understand the writing requirements, how they are fulfilling those requirements in their classes, and what genres they assign and expectations they have of student writing in those classes. Ultimately, the presenters triangulate these data sets to identify possibilities for increased faculty support and opportunities for connecting student writing across the curriculum.
H.2 WID/WAC in Math, Engineering, Physics, & History: an Experiential Workshop
Type of Session: Teaching Demonstration
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Presenters:
Phillip Troutman, The George Washington University
Lowell Abrams, The George Washington University
Royce A. Francis, The George Washington University
Alexander J. van der Horst, The George Washington University
Abstract: In this hands-on workshop, participants explore WID/WAC practice and theory by engaging in exercises led by WID faculty from math, engineering, physics, and history. Leaders give short pitches, followed by two rounds of hands-on work; participants choose two: Table 1 participants write out, in prose, the solution to a simple math problem, then analyze word choice and stylistic features, comparing these to disciplinary norms. Table 2 participants use Swales' Create A Research Space model to explore engineering identity. Engineers formulate problems responsive to the client's framing, yet communicate solutions in terms of their own authority as experts, all in the face of the audience's short attention span. Table 3 participants examine an astrophysics model for a student peer review panel focused on proposal drafts, then craft a similar model for their own course. At table 4, participants describe and interpret a selected historical image to highlight the challenge of describing only what is observable, the problem of translating the visual into the verbal, and the process of raising historical research questions. Finally, we gather for audience-led discussion, comparing notes across tables and exploring how these exercises might inform broader WID/WAC theory and faculty development practices.
H.3 Innovations & Challenges of Writing Fellows Programs
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Heather Bastian, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Presenters:
Cameron Bushnell, Clemson University
Ashley Holmes, Georgia State University
Jessie McCrary, Georgia State University
Heather Bastian, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Abstract: This panel examines the innovative hiring, training, and professional development practices of three different writing fellow programs. Presenter 1 unpacks assumptions that may be embedded in writing fellow hiring practices and advocates for understanding international graduate teaching assistants as models of translational consciousnesses and as valuable assets to any WAC program but especially to writing fellow programs. Presenter 2 describes the preliminary results from an online pilot program that sought to better support the 50-60 graduate student writing fellows hired each semester at a large research university. Presenter 3 explores how she has leveraged digital technologies to develop and pilot a new faculty professional development structure for those who work with writing fellows that combines an online educational module with face-to-face workshops.
H.4 WAC and Social Justice
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Alice Horning, Oakland University
Framing Technical Editing as a Social Justice Opportunity Through Human-Centered Projects
Area: The Role of WAC in Addressing Social Justice
Presenters:
Maureen A. Mathison, University of Utah
Stephanie Weidauer, University of Utah
Abstract: This paper presentation adds to thinking about social justice in WAC by contextualizing social justice in the undergraduate curriculum through: 1) reporting on the treatment of social justice in current undergraduate journals in the field of Writing and Rhetoric Studies and 2) by discussing a course in technical editing that is student-led and focused on social justice issues through the development of a journal.
Why Does WAC Matter? Literacy Heroines and The Lessons of History
Area: The Role of WAC in Addressing Social Justice
Presenter: Alice Horning, Oakland University
Abstract: At this unprecedented time for women, recent research has brought the work of a dozen or so particular women to light as important leaders and messengers for literacy in the Modern period (1880-1930) with useful relevance for our time. My presentation will show how these women served as literacy heroines in the Modern period, and to make clear the messages they offer for Contemporary times about why WAC matters.Because "foundational" literacy skills as identified by University of Connecticut reading scholar Donald Leu and his colleagues are more important now than ever, the messages of Modern times are pertinent and essential (Leu et al., 2004). The Modern period as defined here includes developments in just about every area of human endeavor or the entire college curriculum: the arts and humanities, the sciences and the social sciences all showed stunning achievements and success. This examination of women's lives and work in the Modern period offers many messages for Contemporary work on WAC. The persistence of these women as well as their use of their literacy shows that much can be accomplished by focused effort accompanied by careful use of critical reading and writing abilities in a WAC environment on every campus.
4:30 to 5:30
Session I
I.1 A Changing of the Guard: Sustaining Success and Revising Elements of a WAC Program
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Recorded
Chair: Mike Haen, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Presenters:
Emily Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jon Isaac, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Mike Haen, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstract: After the long-time director's retirement in summer 2019, the WAC program at our R-1 university committed itself to sustaining the success of the former director's twenty-nine year tenure. With this new chapter we continued our past work, including workshops for faculty, university-wide training for new instructors teaching writing-intensive courses, and one-to-one consultations with instructors, but we also tried to innovate and revise some elements of our program. In this session, we discuss our processes for revising particular programmatic elements including (1) a cross-campus partnership with a teaching and learning program for early-career faculty, (2) a "teaching with writing" course for STEM and Social Sciences TAs, and (3) our online resources for the campus community. After situating each of these elements in our institutional context and within broader trends in writing studies (e.g., anti-racist pedagogy and universal design), we explain our revisions and new initiatives over the past year. We also share and reflect on key takeaways from these revisions and initiatives that were made possible through intentional collaborations—within our WAC program and between our program and campus programs. By sharing these narratives that followed "a changing of the guard" in our WAC program, we aim to foster extended discussions about program redesign, especially for new WAC leaders and all leaders interested in social and linguistic justice. Because our session is pre-recorded and will not include live discussion, we invite attendees/viewers to continue the conversation via email or the Whova App. Our contact information is in the PowerPoint slides.
I.2 Assessing Collaborative WAC Workshops: Faculty and Student Perspectives
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Brad Benz, University of Denver
Presenters:
Brad Benz, University of Denver
Heather Martin, University of Denver
Juli Parrish, University of Denver
Olivia Tracy, University of Denver
Abstract: This panel examines the successes and challenges of a longstanding Writing Center-based WAC initiative, in which writing faculty and Writing Center consultants collaborate with WAC faculty from across campus to plan and facilitate writing workshops in WAC courses. Thaiss and Porter's (2010) research notes the "symbiotic WAC-Writing Center connection," and the Writing Center-based WAC workshop model illustrates this connection. Our previous assessment data show that WAC faculty are satisfied with the workshop model, but satisfaction is only one measure of success. In our presentation, we will share the results of a qualitative study using faculty interviews and student focus groups to learn what workshop participants value—and what they say they learn—in our workshops. Based on this data, presenters will consider potential innovations to the Writing Center-based WAC workshop model.
I.3 Research on WAC V
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Tom Deans, University of Connecticut
The Writing Histories of Exemplary STEM Majors
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenter: Tom Deans, University of Connecticut
Abstract: This presentation reports on an interview-based study of the composing histories of exceptionally high-achieving undergraduate STEM majors. Participants have either won an award at their flagship state university or been nominated for a prestigious national scholarship. Nearly all have performed well in writing-intensive courses, but they have distinguished themselves more as promising STEM researchers than as writers. The study distills findings about how these exemplary students have been taught writing in high school and college; how they have experienced teacher feedback; how their experiences with writing or writing-intensive courses have shaped their choices of major and career; how they currently write in and beyond the curriculum; and how they imagine the role of writing in their futures.
"It's kind of that initiative stuff": Faculty Using Writing to Cover Aspirational Learning Objectives
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Presenter: Erika Scheurer, University of Saint Thomas
Abstract: Throughout the history of WAC, program directors have often encouraged faculty not to see writing as the enemy of course content coverage, but as a means of covering that content. What exactly does "coverage" mean to faculty, though? In order to gain a deeper understanding of this at once simple and complex concept, I conducted qualitative research, interviewing seventeen faculty representing thirteen academic disciplines. In this presentation, after laying out the broader context for the issue of "coverage" as it pertains to WAC, connecting to comments of faculty in my study, I will focus on a sub-set of my interviewees across disciplines who not only used writing to cover course content and skills, but also to cover "aspirational," usually non-assessable, goals intended to impact students more as human beings than as students of their particular academic discipline. These goals include teaching students life-enhancing skills and attitudes such as initiative, persistence, and advocacy. I will then share ways WAC directors might leverage interest in these aspirational goals when discussing writing as a means of covering course content with faculty colleagues.
Wednesday, August 4th
9:00 to 10:00
Session J
J.1 Embracing the Always-Already: Toward Queer Assemblages for Writing Across the Curriculum Administration
Type of Session: Panel
Area: The Role of WAC in Addressing Social Justice
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Travis Webster, Virginia Tech University
Presenters:
Jonathan J. Rylander, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Travis Webster, Pace University
Abstract: Our presentation bridges WAC administration and queer theories. In doing so, we claim that: (1) WAC is always-already queer; (2) listening for queer orientations, bodies, and possibilities, may help us, as WAC researcher-practitioners, better understand our work, broadly, but especially the relational and pedagogical dynamics of WAC; and (3) "queer assemblage" (Palmeri & Rylander, 2016; Puar, 2007) may prove the most fruitful way to recognize, engage, and sustain campus writing cultures.
J.2 Developing a PACT for Speaking and Writing across the Curriculum
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Laura Brady, West Virginia University
Presenters:
Laura Brady, West Virginia University, "Leading Curricular Change with PACT"
Dana Huebert-Lima, West Virginia University, "Using PACT: A Framework for Writing, Speaking, and Thinking"
Nathalie Singh-Corcoran, West Virginia University, "Consulting with PACT in the Writing Center."
Abstract: This panel (comprised of a CAC director, a Biology professor, and a Writing Center director) demonstrates how a common framework of questions is currently guiding effective communication across disciplines at our large, public, research university. Questions related to purpose, audience, conventions, and trouble spots (PACT) apply to almost any communicative situation. By framing writing and speaking around four key questions, PACT invites students and teachers to consider elements that are common across disciplines as well as those elements that are discipline-specific. We will draw on recent scholarship relating to teaching and learning for transfer as we provide practical strategies for working with faculty and students across the curriculum in a variety of ways. We will also recognize the potential challenges and limitations of using a common framework to make disciplinary rules and practices more visible.
J.3 Considering the Design and Content of WAC Initiatives
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Sandra Jamieson, Drew University
Last-Year Writing: WAC/WID Instruction as the Path to Broad Writing-Related Transfer
Area: WAC as an Educational Movement
Presenter: Jerry Stinnett, Grand Valley State University
Abstract: Descriptions of transfer-supportive instruction often figure discipline-specific writing as the goal to which such instruction helps students transfer writing knowledge and practice rather than sites that themselves foster broad transfer of writing-related learning (Wardle; Yancey, et al.; Adler-Kassner, et al.). But since writing does not exist apart from the objectives it serves (Russell), students often do not identify writing as a distinct practice and, thus, are unlikely to transfer broadly knowledge of the distinct practice of "writing." Research presented here suggests that learners do increasingly identify different actions that make up disciplinary membership (including discipline-specific writing) as broadly transferrable distinct practices as they increasingly hone and integrate performances of disciplinary membership into their preferred identity. For instance, a chemistry student is likely to begin meaningfully considering what she has learned about attending to audiences when writing grant proposals as transferrable to audiences in other writing situations the more she integrates the practice of chemistry with her own identity. This presentation concludes that WAC/WID instruction should be reimagined as the means of supporting broad writing-related transfer and offers a description of a "last-year writing" course that fosters broad writing-related transfer by building on successful WAC/WID instruction.
An End to Deficit Thinking: Challenges to Developing an Asset-based WAC Curriculum
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Presenter: Sandra Jamieson, Drew University
Abstract: In Reformers, Teachers, and Writers, Neal Lerner observes that "curriculum design needs to reflect the values we hold dear—a belief in the importance of student agency, or honoring the assets they bring to instructional contexts, and of literacy's transformative potential." He adds that we might start to design such a curriculum from "a developmental model of learning rather than rely[ing] on a defined and fixed set of outcomes" (2019, 135). This paper discusses the process of designing such a curriculum that is scaffolded vertically from a first-year writing seminar, through writing enriched WAC courses to writing in the major and capstone courses. It also explores the institutional tensions such a model can create, tensions that challenge WAC more broadly. As such, it invites us to think through strategies for building programs across institutional and administrative structures. While in older WAC models the negotiation was between disciplinary practices and values, today many of us are challenged to reconcile the WAC practices our faculty embrace with an older and more rigid institutional vision of writing as a static set of accumulated skills.
10:30 to 11:30
Session K
K.1 Installing a Writing Culture Across the Curriculum: Insights from Brazil, Colombia and Peru
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Federico Navarro, Universidad de O'Higgins
Presenters:
Silvia del Carmen Calle-Mora, Universidad EIA , "Implementation of Disciplinary Writing through the Curriculum at EIA University: A Growing Experience"
Shirley Verónica Chumacero Ancajima, Universidad Católica Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo (Perú), "From Reading to Scientific Academic Writing: A Didactic Process and Metacognitive Experience with Technological Immersion"
Eliane Lousada, Universidade de São Paulo, "The Challenges of Academic Literacy Preparation through a Self-Study Website"
Respondent: Chris Thaiss, UC Davis
Abstract: Writing studies in Latin America have at least four decades of history, with contributions of international influence on early literacy, the study of reading, critical pedagogy, academic literacy, and the study of disciplinary discourses, among others. Since 2016, ALES has sought to promote informed, systematic and rigorous research on writing in higher education and professional contexts. In this bilingual thematic table (Spanish and English), selected teaching initiatives of ALES' almost one thousand members will be shared. The first presentation accounts for the early installation of a culture of disciplinary writing through a writing program, first tested in an Engineering major; the second presentation develops and assess a systematic pedagogical sequence to teach writing at the tertiary level; the third presentation addresses literacy teaching across languages in an online writing lab and how this experience informs a technology-assisted genre-based pedagogy. This session is sponsored by the Asociación Latinoamericana de Estudios de la Escritura en Educación Superior (ALES).
K.2 WAC Mobile App for ESL Learners: Rationale, Successes and Challenges
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded
Chair: Julia Chen, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Presenters:
Julia Chen, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Elza Tsang, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Vicky Man, Hong Kong Baptist University
Christelle Davis, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Christy Chan, City University of Hong Kong
Abstract: To motivate tech-savvy university students in Hong Kong to pay attention to writing when completing their capstone project (CP) or final year project (FYP), a five-university team of ESL teachers worked with faculty academics and educational technologists to create a mobile app, now available on Apple Store and Google Play, to offer writing tips and resources on different stages of writing a CP/FYP report. The app provides tailored support for students and staff across disciplines and is a flexible portal that provides discipline- and program-specific literacy tips and CP/FYP information. The app is currently being piloted with students in over a dozen departments in several universities. This panel is divided into five sections. It begins with the Hong Kong context and the rationale for offering English Across the Curriculum (EAC), a localized version of WAC, via a mobile app. It then gives an app demonstration, followed by a discussion of the successes and challenges it has experienced so far, as well as an evaluation of the app via staff and student feedback and textual analysis, and ends with an exploration of possible sustainability measures.
K.3 Reaching Beyond the Choir: Extending Anti-Racist and Decolonizing Conversations into Our Institutional Communities
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: The Role of WAC in Addressing Social Justice
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Kathleen M. Turner Ledgerwood, Lincoln University
Presenters:
Anne M. Canavan, Salt Lake Community College
Eric Jurgens, College of Menominee Nation
Kathleen M. Turner Ledgerwood, Lincoln University
Respondent: Kathleen M. Turner Ledgerwood, Lincoln University
Abstract: This round table discussion will seek to extend the discussion of anti-racist and decolonizing higher education for social justice into practice in writing programs, including first-year writing, writing across the curriculum, and writing in the disciplines. Bringing together a variety of writing professionals from various institutions, this roundtable will foster a rich discussion of how we can help faculty in an open-dialogue format. Panelists will describe their work, bringing discussions of anti-racist and "decolonizing" pedagogies to their programs and institutions, focusing less on the pedagogies themselves and more on the conversations, faculty development, and tensions involved in introducing these challenging new ideas to faculty. After these descriptions, we will invite audience members to engage in discussion about ways to help faculty throughout our institutions examine and revise their own teaching practices in light of social-justice concerns.
K.4 WAC in Institutional Context I
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Tiffany Rousculp, Salt Lake Community College
Trellising WAC: Growing a Sustainable WAC Program upon Institutional Power Lines
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Presenter: Tiffany Rousculp, Salt Lake Community College
Abstract: This presentation will share how a community college has, in five years, trellised its WAC program on institutional power lines which has allowed it to play an integral role in staff and faculty development, faculty evaluation mechanisms, general education assessment, and high-impact practice designations. By growing onto and along with these power lines, this WAC program is now positioned to sustainably implement an institution-wide writing intensive program that would not have been possible had this been the stated goal at the outset of its development.
Stealth WAC or Stealth Assessment? When It Looks Like Assessment But It's Really WAC – and Vice Versa. (And With a Little Faculty Development and Action Research Thrown In.)
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenters: Kelly A. Shea and Edmund Jones, Seton Hall University
Abstract: For the last 10-plus years, at WAC conferences and beyond, we have worked to frame and re-frame our university's attempts at getting a solid WAC initiative under way. At Seton Hall University, we have held informal workshops, technology-funded formal workshops, in-person faculty training, Blackboard-module-based faculty training – and we've taken various stabs at assessing this work, from department-based to program to university-wide assessment. Yet it has been nearly impossible to develop and maintain WAC due to administrative roadblocks, skepticism, and lack of funding. Ours is a classic case of multiple, well-intentioned, but frustrated WAC program design attempts and systemic leadership problems. Despite our best research, consensus-building, and passionate ideas, we just can't seem to develop a sustainable project. And yet we persist. What has resulted from our most recent attempt is not only a WAC program in sheep's clothing (this time a Core Curriculum project), but it is also assessment and faculty development. In our attempt to re-start WAC, we seem to have inadvertently created action research within faculty development within assessment. We may have stumbled onto a model that has the potential to satisfy faculty, students, and administrative stakeholders. Of course, time will tell. In this session, we will try to explain what happened.
12:00 to 2:00
Second Plenary Session (WAC Awards and Plenary Presentation)
WAC @ 50: Where are we now?
Pamela Flash and Teresa Redd
Pamela Flash serves as Director of Writing Across the Curriculum, Co-Director of the Center for Writing, and Affiliate Graduate Faculty for the Literacy and Rhetorical Studies Minor at the University of Minnesota where she has taught and served as a program administrator since 1991. Flash is the founding director of the Writing Enriched Curriculum (WEC) program, which offers academic departments a structured, faculty-driven approach to strengthening relevant writing instruction within undergraduate curricula. Flash is also the founding director of the University of Minnesota’s interdisciplinary Teaching with Writing Program, which offers an annual series of workshops, seminars, and instructional consultations designed to support effective writing instruction within diverse contexts. Her research, publications, consultations, and presentations focus on the WEC model, writing pedagogy, composition theory, discourse communities, and the use of qualitative research methods (particularly inductive consultation, collaborative action research, and ethnographic methodologies) to enable pedagogic change on individual, departmental, and institutional levels.
A former director of Howard University's WAC Program, Teresa Redd served on the Board of Consultants for the International Network of Writing Across the Curriculum Programs for nearly twenty years. In June 2016, she retired from Howard as a Full Professor after 33 years of service, including nearly 13 years as the director of Howard's Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Assessment and 24 years as the director of the WAC Program. A winner of Howard's Teaching Excellence Award, Redd has earned a national reputation for her scholarship and service. She has published numerous articles and chapters about pedagogy and writing as well as two books, Revelations: An Anthology of Expository Essays by and about Blacks and A Teacher's Introduction to African American English: What a Writing Teacher Should Know. She has also served on the editorial boards of three national journals, the executive committee of the Conference on College Composition & Communication, and the advisory board for the HBCU Symposium on Rhetoric & Composition. In addition, in 2019, she helped plan and facilitate AWAC's first summer institute for WAC directors.
2:30 to 3:30
Session L
L.1 Writing Across the Curriculum: International Perspectives
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC as an International and Transnational Movement
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Chris Anson, North Carolina State University
Presenters:
Amy Hodges, Texas A&M University-Qatar, Doha, Qatar, ""WEC in Qatar: Sustainable Models of Faculty Development and Student Success"
Estela Moyano, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento and Universidad Nacional Guillermo Brown, "WAC in Argentina: Working Beyond Programs by Increasing Institutionalization"
Magnus Gustafson, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, "WID in Sweden: Faculty Collaboration and Training"
Tiane Donahue, Dartmouth College and Université de Lille, Equipe de Recherches CIREL-Théodile, "Writing and disciplinarity: A French Perspective"
Abstract: By the end of 2009, the International WAC/WID Mapping Project documented the existence of over 300 cross-curricular writing programs in 28 countries. Since then, our US knowledge of WAC/WID work internationally and our interactions with this work in its varied forms have continued to grow, including at institutions in which English is not the medium of instruction, disciplines not often found in US universities, and international branch campuses. Several anglophone publications have described the nature of WAC/WID in its international manifestations (e.g., Thaiss, 2010; Thaiss & Porter, 2010; Thaiss, Bräuer, Carlino, Ganobcsik-Williams, & Sinha, 2012); however, studies of WAC/WID programs with a focus on the relationship of implementation to the institutional, cultural, and national contexts of higher education are lacking. This panel brings together scholars of interdisciplinary writing representing four different international contexts—Qatar, Argentina, Sweden, and France—who will describe the status of WAC/WID in their institutions and share current or future projects designed to explore writing from international and intercultural perspectives. This session is sponsored by the International Society for the Advancement of Writing Research.
L.2 Writing Feedback across the Curriculum
Type of Session: Teaching Demonstration
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Presenters:
Kelly Blewett, Indiana University East
Carolyn Judd, Indiana University East
Julee Rosser, Indiana University East
Markus Pomper, Indiana University East
Abstract: Feedback cycles abound across the curriculum and in professional life, yet students often perceive feedback as isolated incidents that occur in distinct disciplinary settings, such as an English class. This teaching demonstration shares how WAC scholarship and a historical artifact can be used to demonstrate the significance of feedback across contexts. The historical artifact is a real example of feedback by children's book editor Ursula Nordstrom, who was writing to a reluctant author to encourage him to submit revisions; the WAC scholarship is a list of best-practices for feedback provided by John Bean in Engaging Ideas. While initially developed for first-year composition, this activity can be adapted for a range of courses. Students first read the letter from Nordstrom and then review the best practices from Bean. Next, they apply Bean's framework to Nordstrom's letter. The ensuing class discussion emphasizes the importance of learning how to provide and receive critical feedback across academic and professional contexts. The speakers will provide an opportunity for audience members to go through the activity before describing how it supports transfer from early-career classes like first-year writing and speech to disciplinary contexts such as upper-level mathematics and nursing courses.
L.3 Research on WAC VI
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Jacqueline Kauza, The Ohio State University
Social Work Synthesis: How Understanding Disciplinary Instructors' Writing Expectations Fosters Opportunities to Teach for Transfer
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenter: Jacqueline Kauza, The Ohio State University
Abstract: Building on Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing in the Disciplines (WAC/WID) scholarship on disciplinary writing instructor pedagogy and scholarship on transfer, this individual presentation will detail results from an empirical qualitative study focusing on social work instructors' writing pedagogy. Specifically, this presentation will focus on results pertaining to the instructors' expectations regarding synthesis and evidence in their undergraduates' writing, particularly in assignments that mimic the assessment writing conducted by practicing social workers. The presentation will also discuss how targeted study of disciplinary writing expectations, such as those relating to synthesis and evidence, can promote opportunities for transfer.
Uptake, Academic Genres, and a New Frontier for WAC
Area: Other Perspectives on WAC
Presenter: Sarah Banting, Mount Royal University
Abstract: This presentation asks, what can uptakes of a research genre tell us about its "social action" (Miller)? Studies of research genres have already given us a rich understanding of the work—the social actions—that academic writers do with texts in many disciplines. But these studies take genres individually. This presentation takes the view that, as Anne Freadman argues, genres do not act independently; they must, rather, be understood as events happening, and only ever effecting social action, in a sequence. (Cf. Tardy.) Uptakes define and re-define genres, translating and sometimes mistaking (Freadman 44) their intended social actions. When a researcher's article is taken up by scholarly colleagues, what are they making of her social action? As they translate and reconstruct her rhetoric for their own purposes, does their uptake resemble what she hoped to achieve? Or might uptakes reveal a different picture of the social actions of research articles? I propose that these questions have implications for WAC research and pedagogy, and offer a case study of uptake—via citation—in one discipline (literary studies), showing how research articles attempt to define their own social actions, but may find them instead redefined, lost, or flattened, in uptake's translation.
L.4 WAC as a Locus for Cultural and Pedagogical Change
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: James P. Austin, Central Connecticut State University
Implementing Genre Pedagogy in Advanced EFL Writing Courses
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenter: Rubén Mora, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Abstract: The main objective is to present the findings of a study conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of genre pedagogy in the writing of academic essays by undergraduate students at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The pedagogy, proposed by Rose and Martin and grounded on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics, can help students learn how to control a genre through its Teaching/Learning Cycle, thus reducing the 'inequality of school outcomes'. Genre pedagogy was implemented during a semester in an experimental group made up of students from different majors taking an Advanced EFL Writing course; two other groups taking the same course were used as controls. The texts written were argumentative in nature, specifically, the kind required as part of the Test of English as a Foreign Language. In order to determine the effectiveness of the pedagogy, all students were given the same conditions to produce a text at the beginning and at the end of the semester. A corpus consisting of 60 texts was gathered and evaluated using a set of assessment criteria consistent with SFL theory, adapted to suit the needs of the study and based on those proposed by Rose and Martin.
Topic Selection in Creative Nonfiction Writers in Egypt: Implications for Global WAC
Area: WAC as an International and Transnational Movement
Presenter: James P. Austin, Central Connecticut State University
Abstract: In this presentation, I argue that, when western-based creative nonfiction (CNF) is learned and written in a non-western context, it is a form of transnational literacy. As such, the western-based social-cultural ideologies underpinning CNF are revealed. The presentation concludes with a call to consider social-cultural feedback in creative writing workshops. I also argue that CNF courses and writing should be part of WAC programs, both in the United States and elsewhere. Implications for WAC pedagogy and programming will close this presentation.
4:00 to 5:00
Session M
M.1 Collaborating for Publication: Conducting Cross-Disciplinary Scholarship on Writing
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Heather M. Falconer, University of Maine
Presenters:
Christopher Basgier, Auburn University
Pamela Childers, McCallie School
Susanne Hall, California Institute of Technology
Jay Jordan, University of Utah
Maureen Mathison, University of Utah
Michael Pemberton, Georgia Southern University
Sarah Tinker Perrault , Oregon State University
Abstract: Sponsored by the AWAC Research and Publications committee, the members of this roundtable will consider the transformative potential of collaborative WAC scholarship and the opportunities and challenges it presents. The speakers will draw on real-world examples of working across disciplinary lines to compose and publish scholarship on writing. Using the experiences of collaborative authors and journal editors, as well as strategic practices that may assist with interdisciplinary work, participants will have an opportunity to consider and reflect on solutions to current challenges, as well as have a stronger understanding of what journal editors in WAC are looking for in submissions.
M.2 Plus ça Change: WAC Work in 2020
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Michael J. Cripps, University of New England
Presenters:
Michael J. Cripps, University of New England, "First Year Writing (Still) Matters for WAC"
Jesse Miller, University of New England, "Writing Fellows Programs are WAC"
Jennifer Gennaco, University of New England, "ePortfolio as a Site for WAC Faculty Development"
Abstract: Both WAC practices and scholarship have evolved significantly since Barbara Walvoord's first faculty development seminar. At bottom, though, WAC manifests in local, institutional practices and must be cultivated one school at a time. For this reason, such WAC commonplaces as the faculty workshop, the importance of scaffolded writing assignments and informal writing, and collaboration with disciplinary colleagues to "discover" the genres they value in their courses must be re-enacted at each institution that is new to WAC. The speakers on this panel, three faculty engaged in different kinds of WAC work at a private comprehensive university in New England that lacks any formal WAC program, explore the enduring local relevance of foundational WAC practices by examining the role of first year writing, writing fellows programs, and ePortfolio in cultivating recognizable WAC practices.
M.3 Collaborating on a Discipline-Specific Writing Guide: Critical Thinking and Writing in Psychology
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded
Chair: Cheryl H. Duffy, Fort Hays State University
Presenters:
Janett Naylor Tincknell, Fort Hays State University, "An Editor and Psychology Professor's Perspective"
Carol Patrick, Fort Hays State University, "Another Editor and Psychology Professor's Perspective"
MaryAlice Wade, Fort Hays State University, "A Librarian's Perspective"
Cheryl H. Duffy, Fort Hays State University, "An English Professor and WAC Director's Perspective"
Abstract: Committed to disciplinary literacy, the Psychology Department at Fort Hays State University added a required course dedicated to developing students' research, critical thinking, critical reading, and discipline-specific writing abilities. For this course, professors sought a clear, concise, and specialized guide that would induct students into the professional discourse community of psychologists, tying university writing to a student's planned career. Failing to find such a guide (at one time adopting a combination of three separate books for the course and still not being satisfied with the content), they decided they would develop their own. This would require collaboration. Two psych professors, two librarians, one English professor/WAC director, and over a dozen professional psychologists later, the guidebook Critical Thinking and Writing in Psychology was born. This panel features four of the collaborators, who will provide insights and suggestions relevant to any department considering a similar venture.Topics will include aligning content with course objectives, deciding upon discipline-specific genres to cover, recruiting/coaching contributing authors, immersing oneself in another discipline to write like an insider (for librarians, English professors, media specialists, and the like)—and more.
5:30 to 6:30
Session N
N.1 Mapping Disciplinary Rhetorical Concepts and Reasoning Patterns in an Aerospace Engineering Department
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze, MIT
Presenters:
Michael Trice, MIT
Andreas Karatsolis, MIT
Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze, MIT
Jessie Stickgold-Sarah, MIT
Abstract: This panel explores a case study in updating WID instruction for a specific disciplinary group, an aerospace engineering department. Specifically we examine how we moved from a traditional translation model of communication within an engineering department to a version grounded more theoretically in understanding disciplinary reasoning, stasis, and mapping threshold concepts. Speakers will introduce our theoretical and instructional practices; describe historical and contemporary relationships between the disciplinary group and the WID program; and present strategies and successes in applying our framework in a space systems design capstone class. We report on how this approach allowed WID instructors new to the field to teach communication in a way that enriched and expanded the disciplinary knowledge of the students.
N.2 Research on WAC VII
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Thomas Polk, George Mason University
New Perspectives on Writing Fellows
Area: WAC as an Educational Movement
Presenters:
Naitnaphit C. Limlamai, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Emily Wilson, Alfaisal University, Saudi Arabia
Abstract: Earliest and current forms of WAC recommend generalist Writing Fellows. Given the technical knowledge and vocabulary in STEM fields, however, generalist Fellows rarely know enough to provide useful responses to writing-to-learn activities. This session reports on a study of the learning experienced by disciplinary specialist Fellows in STEM fields. Our study included semi-structured interviews of 15 undergraduates who served as Fellows in large-enrollment introductory chemistry, economics, math, or statistics courses. Fellows were selected because of their high performance in the course, and they enrolled in a one-credit course on writing processes, provided practice with writing assignments, and demonstrated effective peer review and feedback on drafts. We also consider the nature of the writing prompts Fellows encounter, which address topics students find tricky. Three preliminary findings: Fellows make distinctions between knowing required numerical operations and contextualizing results in writing. Second, many Fellows note that through grading sessions with the statistics professor and examination of student writing, they understand course concepts with greater nuance. Third, Fellows use in other classes content knowledge and soft skills they learn as Fellows. This presentation will explain Fellows' learning and its implications for thinking about teaching, learning, and writing across and in disciplines.
Considering the Ecologies of Influence in TA and Faculty Development
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Presenters:Thomas Polk and Emily Staudt, George Mason University
Abstract: In his history of writing instruction across the disciplines, David Russell calls the gradual socialization of faculty into the writing practices of their fields as contributing to the transparency of writing. In this presentation, we explore the concept of transparency by analyzing the tacit and explicit interactions writing instructors across disciplines identified in interviews as contributing to their writing and teaching development. Because many of our participants referred to tacit learning experiences in graduate school as impacting their current teaching practices, we consider our findings in the context of WAC's interest in the development of graduate instructors. We conclude by forwarding the concept of the 'ecologies of influence' which we believe can be used to make visible these tacit influences and help instructors to become more purposeful about the professional development they seek out.
N.3 Mapping the (Un)Common: An Interactive, Inclusive e-Map for Support of Diverse Writing Approaches
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Kendon Kurzer, University of California, Davis
Presenters:
Katherine Daily O'Meara, St. Norbert College
Kendon Kurzer, University of California, Davis
Greer Murphy, University of Rochester
Robyn Russo, Northern Virginia Community College
Abstract: Past mapping projects have shown trends and locales where writing happens. For instance, the National Census of Writing presents data and writing profiles of nearly 100 institutions. The initial WAC/WID Mapping Project collected survey data from 500 institutions. While these contributions remain undeniably relevant, due to their large-scale, quantitative nature they also remain limited—in terms of what they can show about the evolving state of WAC/WID and in terms of how they can showcase different possibilities. In this panel, we report on the launch of an interactive e-map showing writing spaces at diverse institutions while prioritizing hidden WAC and writing initiatives. With this map, we provide a resource that 1) validates WAC initiatives that would otherwise remain hidden, 2) offers robust description highlighting the various forms WAC programs take, and 3) supports new WAC/WID practitioners in better identifying how colleagues at comparable institutions have approached similar tasks. Accordingly, the map is equipped with various filters/search options, making it possible for users to identify trends regarding discipline-specific writing requirements at a range of teaching as well as research-focused institutions. Attendees can explore the map based on individual interests and contribute institutional data for a future update.
N.4 WAC Pedagogy: International Perspectives
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Paul Cook
Celebrating and Disseminating Effective Assignments: An International Peer-Reviewed WAC Assignment Database
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenter: Andrea L. Williams, University of Toronto
Abstract: This presentation reports on the development of a peer-reviewed, online, open-access educational resource of WAC assignments at a large Canadian university. Although the importance of supporting students' writing development is widely acknowledged across the disciplines, developing effective assignments, rubrics, and related writing resources requires time and expertise that not all faculty possess. Assignments are seldom shared outside of departments and many are stored behind password-protected learning management systems and thus largely inaccessible. Consequently, there are few widely available resources on which instructors from across the disciplines can build and innovate. The database described in this talk has been designed to fill this gap. The presentation outlines the adjudication process by a cross-disciplinary committee that ensures that contributions adhere to WAC principles and show how the resources are searchable by year, discipline, assignment type, audience, etc. Rather than merely house assignments, the database provides annotated resources where instructions explain context and constraints (such as class size) for their assignments.
Towards Expanding WAC Pedagogy in German High Schools
Area: WAC as an International and Transnational Movement
Presenter: Steffen Guenzel, University of Central Florida
Abstract: Starting in the 1970s, the WAC movement took a programmatic approach to introducing faculty and educating administrators about the advantages of writing across the disciplines for student learning. These programs were designed and located at the college and university level. With their taxonomy, Condon and Rutz (2012) showed how WAC programs differ widely across the US, depending on the level of grassroots and administrative support. What all WAC programs have in common is that, to be successful, they must move from foundational towards becoming an institutional change agent. Many work with Bean's (1996/2012) Engaging Ideas as a fundamental text. Eventually, community partners in the US want to collaborate with them, as Blumner and Childers (2015) show in their edited collection WAC Partnerships Between Secondary and Postsecondary Institutions. Recognizing that no WAC program exists in Germany, this presentation explores the development of a cross-Atlantice partnership between a large US university WAC program and two German high schools. The presenter will discuss a number of workshops and resources used to introduce faculty to principles and theoretical frameworks of WAC pedagogy while assisting graduating seniors from high school in their transition to university studies in Germany or even starting at universities in the US.
Thursday, August 5th
9:00 to 10:00
Session O
O.1 English as a Lingua Franca in Scholarly Publishing: The Clash of Anglo-American and Slovak Writing Styles
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC as an International and Transnational Movement
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Alena Kacmárová, University of Prešov
Presenters:
Alena Kacmárová, University of Prešov
Magdaléna Bilá, University of Prešov
Ingrida Vaňková, University of Prešov
Abstract: The study presents research into the lingua-culture-specific organization of academic writing in Anglo-American vs Slovak writing styles. The study is triggered by continual unsatisfactory ratio of the presence of Slovak authors in journals with English as lingua franca. The starting premise is that the English language sets also the standards of Anglo-American academic-writing tradition. We claim that it is in sharp contrast with the Slovak writing style, which is why Slovak authors' papers are not commonly found in international English-based journals. In general, four writing styles are recognized (cf Galtung 1981). We dare venture there is a conceptual dichotomy of Saxonic vs other than Saxonic writing styles in terms of information, layout, or the nature of discourse. We explored the Slovak writing tradition and found out that academic writing is only partly established within Slovak stylistics three basic notions (text type, genre, technique). Our understanding is that academic writing as such is not given appropriate treatment. We argue that it is only implicitly present through the means of their triangulation. This causes discrepancies in Saxonic and Slovak conceptualization of academic writing; the latter provides a writer merely with information regarding content, not with that on the process or text layout.
O.2 1 Designer, 3 Instructors, 5 Projects, 7.5 Weeks, 200+ Nurses: Why More Process Saved Us All
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Barbara D'Angelo, Arizona State University
Presenters:
Barbara J. D'Angelo, Arizona State University
Melissa Graham Meeks, Eli Review
Kimberly Vana, Arizona State University
Abstract: In this panel, we will offer our experience in planning, implementing, and assessing a course redesign focused on improving students' writing process in a required online 7.5-week course for RN-BSN students. We will explain how we leverage the peer review technology, grade data, and survey data to inform our next redesign cycle. We also will provide strategies for measuring student engagement and satisfaction as well as planning course updates in the continual program improvement process.
O.3 Asia Roundtable: Developing Discipline Content Specific Academic Literacy
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: WAC as an International and Transnational Movement
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Julia Chen, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Presenters:
Julia Chen, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, "Brief Overview of WAC in Asia"
Yuen Yi Lo, The University of Hong Kong, "Scaffolding EFL Learners to Master Academic Literacies: Effectiveness and Tensions"
Kyungsook Yeum, Sookmyung Women's University, "Societal and interdisciplinary dynamics in a Korean University's English Curriculum"
Judy Noguchi, Kobe Gakuin University, "Disseminating EAP/ESP in Japan: Proposing a Genre-based Approach to Overcome Barriers"
Gene Segarra Navera, National University of Singapore, "Making "Content Specific, Rhetorically Intensive" Modules Work: Reflections on Teaching Ideas and Exposition in a Singapore University"
Abstract: WAC is beginning to receive attention in Asia. Challenges abound in introducing WAC, or its adapted form – English Across the Curriculum (EAC), when most students and faculty learn English as an additional language. This Roundtable includes speakers from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Singapore, who have been trying to introduce WAC, EAC or CLIL (content and language integrated learning). After the Chair, Dr Julia Chen (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University), begins with a brief explanation of EAC and CLIL, two presenters will describe their efforts in promoting CLIL in different contexts: Dr Yuen Yi Lo (The University of Hong Kong) on her projects in training school teachers on planning CLIL lessons and Dr Kyungsook Yeum (Sookmyung Women's University) on her CLIL curriculum that aims to enhance Korean college students' market competitiveness. Professor Judy Noguchi (Kobe Gakuin University) will then discuss the difficulties of introducing non-generic English training in Japan and how a genre-based approach can help to make in-roads into discipline-specific literacy development in Japanese universities. Finally, Dr Gene Navera (National University of Singapore) will share his experience of teaching 'content-specific, rhetorically-intensive modules' and how he overcame challenges to offer them.
O.4 Furthering WAC Influence Through Strategic Partnerships
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Ming Fang, Florida International University
Presenters:
Christine Martorana, Florida International University
Ming Fang, Florida International University
Kimberly Harrison, Florida International University
Abstract: In keeping with the conference theme of "Celebrating successes, recognizing challenges", this panel will discuss the successes and challenges of expanding the reach of WAC through forming strategic partnerships. Our WAC program in a large, urban Hispanic-serving university, has struggled to maintain visibility and reach due to funding cuts. Recent successes have stemmed from partnerships with other teaching and learning initiatives in the university as we seek to keep the program visible and relevant. Our strategy works to "link to highly connected institutional structures" with the goal of increasing "program stability by not being perceived as marginal or temporary, but integral to the institution."[1] Strategic partners have included the Center for Advancement of Teaching, the Faculty Senate, the Center for Excellence in Writing, and various grant-funded initiatives. While our partnerships help to keep WAC visible, relevant, and busy, we have also recognized challenges including those to program identity and autonomy. We will discuss how we handled those challenges and will theorize the components of successful partnerships that contribute to an institutional culture of writing.
10:30 to 11:30
Session P
P.1 Book Series Editors Roundtable – Publishing Books in WAC/WID
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: Other Perspectives on WAC
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Heather Falcone, University of Maine
Presenters:
Heather Falconer, University of Maine
Rachael LeVay, Utah State University Press
Joan Mullin, University of North Carolina Charlotte
Dave Blakesley, Clemson University and Parlor Press
Aimee McClure, Clarke University
Michael Pemberton, Georgia Southern University
Abstract: Editors for several publishers—The WAC Clearinghouse, Utah State University Press, and Parlor Press—share brief remarks about their book series, identify some possibly emergent trends based on submissions, and offer guidance for prospective authors. Following brief remarks, editors will respond to comments and engage a conversation with attendees.
P.2 Strengthening the Core: A Roundtable Discussion on the Design, Implementation, and Sustainable Future of a New WAC/WID Program
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Kim Gunter, Fairfield University
Presenters:
Kendra L. Andrews, Fairfield University
Mary Laughlin, Fairfield University
Lindy Briggette, Fairfield University
Tiffany Wilgar, Fairfield University
Nadia Zamin, Fairfield University
Kim Gunter, Fairfield University
Abstract: This roundtable discussion features the new Core Writing team at Fairfield University, a private Jesuit institution that has restructured its core curriculum for the first time in forty years. With an emphasis on excellence in writing and communication across the curriculum, the new Magis core has required a restructuring of the Core Writing Program at the curricular and administrative levels. The six speakers will discuss the core elements of WAC/WID programming on Fairfield's campus, including the background of the new curriculum, the design and origin story of EN/W 100, the role of POPS within campus writing initiatives, and plans for the sustained growth of writing across the curriculum.
P.3 Team Writing as WAC practice
Type of Session: Teaching Demonstration
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Presenters:
Joanna Wolfe, Carnegie Mellon University
Maria Feuer, Carnegie Mellon University
Abstract: Many writing and communication projects across the university are conducted in teams. Our program has been supporting these projects by providing workshops on team writing. However, while these workshops have been received well, we have found that student teams do not effectively utilize tools such as task schedules and team charters. To increase student uptake of these important team documents, we have redesigned our workshop to include an online component. This teaching demonstration will present our revised workshop, which foregrounds the importance of explicitly discussing genre expectations both at the planning and review stages and of explicitly discussing expectations for peer review.We will also present data showing the workshop effectiveness. Attendees should come away from the demonstration with an understanding of how to implement a similar workshop on their home campus.
12:00 to 1:00
Session Q
Q.1 Strategies for Becoming a Liberatory WAC Program
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Adele Leon, University of Arizona
Presenters:
Adele Leon, University of Arizona
Eric House, New Mexico State University
Elliot Churilla, Pima Community College
Respondent: Eric House, New Mexico State University
Abstract: This roundtable brings together diverse perspectives and experiences, ranging from community college discipline coordinator, department head for Writing and Communication, English Department chair at a SLAC, outreach program coordinator, and junior writing faculty. We will engage ongoing conversations related to WAC program development, and connect them to current institutional initiatives surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion. In connecting these two organizational progressions, a unique opportunity presents itself – at the crux of progress is the willingness to change, and this willingness to change allows for application of a theoretical framework to the writing program in transition. However, a recent trend within public WPA forums and listservs illustrates an increase in WPAs seeking advice and information about transitioning their writing programs into WAC programs. We consider this return to dialogue between WPA and WAC to be kairotic because it allows for a reframing of the smaller writing program to not only accommodate institutional changes regarding DEI initiatives, but also to justify reconceptualizing writing program practices through liberatory theories to better serve the students, faculty, and staff for whom Writing Program Administrators [the directors themselves] are responsible.
Q.2 Writing Across Engineering: A transdisciplinary action research approach to STEM writing
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Paul Prior, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Presenters:
Bruce Kovanen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Nicole Turnipseed, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Megan Mericle, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract: This panel will present data from an ongoing WAC initiative titled "Writing Across Engineering and Science" (WAES) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. WAES has grown into a sustained partnership now in its sixth year between faculty and graduate students in Writing Studies and STEM. Aligned with the notion of "transdisciplinary action research" (Stokols, 2006; Perrin, 2012), WAES brings together multiple disciplines and stakeholders to investigate and improve the teaching of writing through integration of four elements. First, WAES organizes a series of semester-long, weekly workshops for a specific cohort of STEM faculty. Second, WAES offers sustained mentoring of self-selected STEM faculty (typically from the cohort who have participated in the semester workshops). Third, our interventions were not only designed after an initial year of local inquiry, but have been informed by ongoing, iterative inquiry around the workshops and mentoring initiatives. Finally, we have begun efforts to impact departmental curricula, general TA and faculty development programs, and targeted course staffing. We believe that the combination of transdisciplinary action research and sustained mentorship of STEM faculty through a program co-led and co-managed by Writing Studies and STEM faculty and graduate students represents a novel approach.
Q.3 What Happens After Publication? Reflections on the Evolution of WAC Teaching, Research, and Collaborative Writing Practices
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Andrea Olinger, University of Louisville
Presenters:
Andrea Olinger, University of Louisville
Sandra Tarabochia, University of Oklaholma
Rachael Cayley, University of Toronto, "Reflections on Teaching the Publication-Based Thesis: Balancing Patterns and Particularity"
Malcah Effron, MIT, "Reflections on Teaching Source Use in Mathematics: Mathematical Precision vs. Patch-writing"
Marcela Hebbard, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, "Reflections on Analyzing Latinx Students' Border-Crossings in Literacy Narratives and on Implementing WAC at Hispanic-Serving Institutions"
Phyllis Conn, St. John's University, "Reflections on Interdisciplinary Dynamics, Challenges and Successes in a WAC-Sponsored Writing Pedagogy Research Group "
James Croft, St. John's University, "Reflections on Interdisciplinary Dynamics, Challenges and Successes in a WAC-Sponsored Writing Pedagogy Research Group "
Joseph Serafin, St. John's University, "Reflections on Interdisciplinary Dynamics, Challenges and Successes in a WAC-Sponsored Writing Pedagogy Research Group "
Abstract: This roundtable brings together the coeditors and six contributors to Diverse Approaches to Teaching, Learning, and Writing Across the Curriculum: IWAC at 25, a new WAC Clearinghouse book that celebrates the 25th anniversary of IWAC. Framed by the concepts of diversity, connection, and resilience, Diverse Approaches is comprised of chapters that began as presentations at the IWAC 2018 conference and marks a significant moment WAC history. Roundtable presenters will discuss how their teaching, research and collaborations have evolved since they published in Diverse Approaches, embracing IWAC 2020's call to recognize challenges, offer critique, and advance innovation. First, the coeditors will frame the roundtable discussion by expounding on the notion of resilience as a useful lens for understanding and pursuing WAC sustainability. Second, roundtable contributors will share how their work—consulting with graduate writers, supporting communication-intensive courses in mathematics, teaching first-year writing at a Hispanic-serving institution, and collaborating around writing pedagogy in history, chemistry, and legal studies—has progressed since they wrote their chapters. Cayley and Effron will reflect on how particular pedagogical practices have advanced; Hebbard describes a new research project that emerged from a teaching collaboration; and Conn, Croft, and Serafin reflect on the successes and challenges of their collaborative research, writing, and publication.
Q.4 Writing Engagement, Self-Regulation, and Family Support in Educational Communities
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Federico Navarro, Universidad de O'Higgins
Presenters:
Lida Johanna Rincón Camacho, Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, "Effects of a Self-Regulating Writing Course on Academic Text Production"
Alicia Olmos and Yair Buonfiglio, Universidad Provincial de Córdoba / Universidad Católica de Córdoba (Argentina), "Discourses about Schools in WhatsApp Groups: The Opinions of Families about the Teaching of Writing"
Teresa Benítez Velásquez, Universidad del Norte , "Genre Pedagogy and Active Learning: Fostering First-Year Students' Engagement in Academic Writing"
Respondent: Chris Anson, North Carolina State University
Abstract: Writing studies in Latin America have at least four decades of history, with contributions of international influence on early literacy, the study of reading, critical pedagogy, academic literacy, and the study of disciplinary discourses, among others. Since 2016, ALES has sought to promote informed, systematic and rigorous research on writing in higher education and professional contexts. In this bilingual thematic table (Spanish and English), selected teaching initiatives of ALES' almost one thousand members will be shared. The first presentation develops and assesses an online writing course which focuses on writing process self-regulation teaching; the second presentation studies parents' beliefs and conceptions about writing teaching in WhatsApp groups; and the third presentation reports the results of a qualitative action-research project that combines genre-based pedagogy and active learning strategies to promote students' engagement. This session is sponsored by the Asociación Latinoamericana de Estudios de la Escritura en Educación Superior (ALES).
1:30 to 2:30
Session R
R.1 Writing Expertise: Inclusive Teaching and Learning Through Our Field's Knowledge About Writing
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Linda Adler-Kassner, University of California Santa Barbara
Presenters:
Linda Adler-Kassner, University of California Santa Barbara
Elizabeth Wardle, Miami University
Abstract: This session examines how drawing on our field's knowledge about writing as the basis for WAC/WID can serve as a basis for influencing faculty members' teaching, as well as institutional structures, policies, and dynamics. To illustrate, the session focuses on two faculty development seminars at different institutions—one a minority-serving public research-intensive university; the other a public university focusing on innovative teaching and research. The first two speakers describe these seminars, which engage faculty in the study of domains through which knowledge-making occur: disciplinary knowledge, i.e., threshold concepts of disciplines; representational knowledge, i.e., knowledge about writing; empathetic knowledge, i.e., how to appreciate and build connections to the identities and experiences of others; and learning knowledge, i.e., understanding how people learn and how expertise is developed. Presenters 1 and 2 share activities used with faculty in the seminars, and data illustrating some of the results of the seminars—for faculty and for institutions. Speaker 3, an internationally-recognized expert on teaching and learning who works across disciplines (including composition), discusses the ways in which the model connects to larger issues addressed in faculty development more broadly.
R.2 Bridging "Siloed Spaces": Building a Successful Librarian-Faculty Partnership in First-Year Research-Based Courses
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Ann N. Amicucci, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Presenters:
Norah Mazel, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Ann N. Amicucci, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Jennifer Eltringham, Pikes Peak Library District
Emily Katseanes, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
DeLyn Martineau, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Carlos Duarte, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Abstract: This panel will discuss a successful librarian-faculty partnership that bridges the academic silos common on university campuses to enact sustained education of first-year research writing students. Librarian and writing faculty panelists will discuss how the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing and the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education complement each other, how learner-centered pedagogy guides library instruction in our research writing courses, ways librarians and writing faculty can engage in shared inquiry, how our partnership connects students with interdisciplinary research, and how attendees can facilitate strong relationships with campus librarians. Attendees will learn how to foster effective librarian-faculty partnerships that rest on shared learning outcomes for students.
R.3 Blurred Boundaries: Sussing Out Thresholds between WAC and WPA in Administrative Professionalization
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Chair: Amy Cicchino, Auburn University
Presenters:
Mandy Olejnik , Miami University
Amy Cicchino, Auburn University
Christina M. LaVecchia, Neumann University
Respondent: Al Harahap, University of Oklahoma
Abstract: In this roundtable, we wish to extend conversations from broader WPA scholarship on administrative professionalization to frame approaches to WAC-specific development for new-to-WAC WPAs, early career WPAs, and gWPAs. We will facilitate this roundtable from a cross-rank and cross-context perspective, including a graduate student currently in a gWPA WAC position; a junior faculty member in a fully administrative, NTT WAC position; a WAC administrator overseeing multiple writing programs who has a double appointment as English faculty; and a respondent who is a co-founder of WAC-GO and conducts WAC faculty workshops on his campus.
3:00 to 4:00
Session S
S.1 It takes a village…the Past, Present, and Future of a WAC Program at a Young University
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Jill Dahlman, California Northstate University
Presenters:
Christopher Wostenberg and Rikki Corniola, California Northstate University, "The Past"
William Davis and Elizabeth Ryder, California Northstate University, "The Present"
Gloria Poveda and Jill Dahlman, California Northstate University, "The Future"
Respondent: Jill Dahlman, California Northstate University
Abstract: This roundtable session proposes to share the Past, Present, and Future of its WAC curriculum: its struggles and knowledge of creating a Writing Intensive campus, the program as it stands now, and the future of its program. This session will demonstrate how bridging gaps between disciplines to create learning communities by valuing what each discipline can bring to the table will help to connect the various courses for this specific student body, one that illustrates the importance of all components within their curriculum, especially writing, throughout their learning and their future careers. The goal of this Roundtable is to provide inspiration and perspectives combined with discussion with attendees to adapt this model of collaboration as we move WAC into the future and envision possibilities.
S.2 Empathizing to Enrich WAC Program Design
Type of Session: Teaching Demonstration
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live
Presenter: Leslie Bruce, California State University Fullerton
Abstract: In this interactive teaching demonstration, I will guide participants in the use of "design thinking"—especially its emphasis on empathizing—to enrich their development of new WAC programming. Stanford's d.school defines "design thinking" as a multi-step, non-linear process for creating "innovative solutions" to complex problems (2). An important early step in the "design thinking" method is "Empathizing," a practice I'll focus on in this workshop. As James P. Purdy (2014) and Carrie S. Leverenz (2014) review in separate articles, design thinking and the academic writing process share many features. Both Purdy and Leverenz observe that Charles Kostelnick (1989) and Richard Marback (2009) have proposed design thinking as a potential paradigm for composition. While I agree that design thinking has much to offer composition instructors, my workshop will suggest a related potential field of impact for design thinking methods: WAC Program design. I will argue that employing design thinking strategies—especially "Empathizing"—can help WAC directors solve complex problems, such as how to assess a new Writing Intensive initiative or how to create a positive culture of writing. To illustrate, I'll describe how "Empathizing" enriched CSUF's development of a "Thesis Retreat" program that attends to our graduate students' expressed needs.
S.3 WAC in Institutional Context II
Type of Session: Panel
Chair: Ann Amicucci, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Taking Small Steps Toward Big Change: A Grassroots WAC Effort
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live
Presenters:
Kim Pennesi, Seton Hill University
Emily Wierszewski, Seton Hill University
Abstract: In this presentation, the speakers (the Writing Center Director and WAC Director at a small, liberal arts university) will share the various ways they have innovated in their WAC program from the ground up over the past three years. Inspired by the research that indicates a grassroots approach to WAC development can be productive, the presenters will share how they responded to challenges such as faculty resistance and a lack of institutional support by making small advances and building key relationships.
Ecologies of a Growing Writing Internship Program: A Conversation about Successes and Challenges across Campuses
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Presenters:
Barbara E. George, Kent State University
Uma S. Krishnan, Kent State University
Abstract: This presentation explores the growth of a Writing Internship Program initiative within both a large campus and smaller regional campus system. By exploring programming at different scales, we show how growing writing internship opportunities can serve as a successful example of writing across the curriculum, particularly at institutions with no official WAC program. We share case studies to clarify what it means to establish and sustain such programs at various campuses.
4:30 to 5:30
Session T
T.1 Teaching and Researching Writing Within and Beyond the Curriculum: One University's Initiatives to Encourage Faculty Collaboration and Further Writing Transfer Research
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Paula M. Rosinski, Elon University
Presenters:
Julia Bleakney, Elon University
Paula M. Rosinski, Elon University
Jessie Moore, Elon University
Mike Carignan, Elon University
Respondent: Paula M. Rosinski, Elon University
Abstract: In this presentation, we describe how our university supports a range of campus and cross-institutional programs and initiatives focused on teaching and researching writing as a high-impact practice. One key element of this work is that we bring interdisciplinary faculty teachers and researchers together to develop, collaborate, and innovate around writing instruction, research, and practice. Our presentation showcases this work, presents evidence of the benefits of collaboration to participants, and acknowledges the challenges we've encountered and the adjustments we've made. At our university, two centers—the Center for Writing Excellence (CWE) and the Center for Engaged Learning (CEL)—-support faculty and staff as they engage in pedagogical innovations and research into writing within and beyond the university. Julia Bleakney (Writing Center director in the CWE) will discuss our Disciplinary Writing Consultants and Writing Center programming; Paula Rosinski (Writing Across the University director in the CWE) will discuss our Summer Writing Institute, Writing Groups/Boot Camps, and Writing Pedagogy/Scholarship grants that support writing research; Jessie Moore (Center for Engaged Learning director) will share how our CEL seminar—Writing Beyond the University: Fostering Writers' Lifelong Learning and Agency—facilitates multi-institutional research on the writing transfer between academic to beyond the university contexts. Mike Carignan (History professor) will share his experiences as a faculty member who has participated in several of these opportunities and how they have impacted his teaching and research. We will provide several opportunities for brainstorming so that participants can generate ideas for developing related collaborations appropriate for their own campuses.
T.2 'Time and Change will Surely Show...': A Decentralized WAC Program at a Crossroads
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Christopher E. Manion, The Ohio State University
Presenters:
Christopher E. Manion, The Ohio State University
Min-Seok Choi, The Ohio State University
Kay Halasek, The Ohio State University
Ju-A Hwang, The Ohio State University
Cristina Rivera, The Ohio State University
Jacqueline Kauza, The Ohio State University
Abstract: Recent work studying WAC programs and evaluating what makes programs "sustainable" have shifted from describing particular characteristics and practices of programs to theorizing how WAC programs operate within larger social systems within and beyond their institutions: how they are a part of a complex network of relationships, policies, and ideologies, and that as a result programs need to carefully study how to orient themselves to their stakeholders within this network in order to have a wide, effective impact on an institution (Cox, Galin, and Melzer, 2018; Tarabochia, 2017). Through the lens of this paradigm shift, we will discuss what our local research has uncovered about the decentralized nature of our program, both what might be considered successes as well as challenges which might limit our wider impact. Then, we'll feature some of the recent and upcoming institution-wide changes that seem to be giving the program an opportunity to have more institutional leverage, and share how the program is planning its work in response to these changes.
T.3 Detangling the Professional Development of gWPAs in WAC
Type of Session: Roundtable
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Caitlin Martin
Presenters:
Caitlin Martin, Miami University OH
Mandy Olejnik, Miami University OH
Thomas Polk, George Mason University
Jacie Castle, Middle Tennessee State University
Abstract: In this WAC-GO sponsored roundtable, we open up discussions about WAC mentoring and professionalization by working from our own local WAC gWPA contexts to explore the ways in which we've been professionalized into our program and the field, as well as the ways in which WAC leaders can look toward further ways to mentor the next generation of writing administrators in and beyond WAC. We also account for the unique contexts and backgrounds of individual graduate students and WAC practitioners. Each speaker will provide a brief opening statement about their work in WAC before inviting audience members to consider a variety of questions about gWPA enculturation in WAC. This session is sponsored by the Writing Across the Curriculum Graduate Organization.
Friday, August 6th
9:00 to 10:00
Session U
U.1 Holistic Assessments: A Better Way to Assess Learning.
Type of Session: Teaching Demonstration
Area: The Impact of Larger Educational Contexts and Trends on WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Recorded with Live Q&A
Presenters:
Mark Hussey, Front Range Community College
Alyson Huff, Front Range Community College
Abstract: Students should learn in college. However, our most prevalent assessment practice – one that assigns numerical point values to evaluated assignments – undermines that goal. Research clearly shows that students learn best when they develop a growth mindset, when they gain intrinsic motivation for learning, and when they approach learning through a 'deep learner' mindset. Points-based assessments foster the opposite effect: externally motivated students with fixed mindsets who simply try to game the system for points. We argue against that practice and for a holistic model that uses narrative feedback and critical reflection to assess student learning and improve teaching effectiveness.This holistic model offers an alternative to the "Labor-Based Grading Contracts" advocated by Asao Inoue while still subverting the points-based assessment tradition with a more equitable model.
U.2 What Do Undergrads Write and What Do They Value? Findings and Implications of Two Current Studies
Type of Session: Panel
Area: Other Perspectives on WAC
Delivery Mode: Recorded
Chair: Doug Hesse, University of Denver
Presenters:
Richard Colby, University of Denver, "Meaningful/least meaningful writing: A small-scale replication study"
Katy McDonald, University of Denver, "Meaningful/least meaningful writing: A small-scale replication study"
Rebekah Shultz Colby, University of Denver, "Meaningful/least meaningful writing: A small-scale replication study"
Doug Hesse, University of Denver, ""A Vertical Longitudinal Study of 100 Undergraduate Writers"
Abstract: This panel reports findings from two studies at the University of Denver and explains implications for WAC research, practice, and faculty development. The projects share two important contexts. (1) We wanted to learn about student writing at DU eight years after a massive longitudinal study, which followed 59 students through multiple surveys, interviews, and analyses of a vast written corpus: every piece of writing they did across four years. We asked how current practices and values compare with those of eight years past, and we explored more deeply what writing experiences students value and how they approach them. (2) We wanted to extend research presented in two recent studies: Eodice, Geller, and Lerner's The Meaningful Writing Project, and Anne Gere's Developing Writing in Higher Education. One of our studies, "Meaningful/Least Meaningful Writing," replicates Eodice, Geller, and Lerner's approach through surveys of and interviews with 180 University of Denver students. The second, "A Vertical Longitudinal Study of 100 Undergraduate Writers," interprets a snapshot (made through deep interviews) of the amounts and kinds of writing that first, second, third, and fourth-year students (25 student each) do in a single quarter, and how they approach a single writing task.
U.3 WAC in Institutional Context III
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Recorded
Chair: Caleb González
Updating the International WAC/WID Mapping Project
Area: WAC Program Design and Leadership
Presenter: Michele N. Zugnoni, Northwestern University
Abstract: Since the completion of the first WAC/WID Mapping Project survey, much has occurred in U.S. colleges and universities (e.g., the effects of the economic recession and recovery from it, the rise of international enrollments and transnational programs, new technologies, etc.) that has affected WAC/WID program development. As such, a new survey has been created to capture the current state of WAC/WID within the US. This survey calls upon key individuals at US colleges and universities to comment on the shape of their WAC/WID programs. Questions focus on such areas as program components, assessment, and leadership, in addition to institutional type and setting. This session will discuss survey findings.
Small m- to Big M-Mobilities: A Theory and Model for WAC Professionals
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Presenter: John T. Scenters-Zapico, CSULB
Abstract: For this session, I share a small m- to big M-mobilities theory and model for WAC Professionals that will help inform our understanding of events that lead WAC professionals to leave their institutions in search of a better situation, even when, clearly, they have made immense investments in their current institutions. Changing our professional positions as WAC teachers and administrators is common, yet we tend to know very little of why we each change jobs. While this talk is the first step, in collaboration with Mike Palmquist and the WAC Clearinghouse, we will be developing an online repository for WAC professionals to upload in written, voice, or video their small m-mobilities experiences. The combined narratives of these stories will become our Big M-Mobilities, a searchable archive allowing WAC professionals to discover commonalities that will guide us—as well as our institutions—to a better understanding of the many personal and professional impacts of WAC mobilities.
10:30 to 11:30
Session V
V.1 Research on WAC VIII
Type of Session: Panel
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Nancy Small, University of Wyoming
Investigating and Innovating the Curriculum: Studying Writing Transfer and Genre Awareness in Engineering Lab Reports
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Presenters:
Wendy M. Olson, Washington State University Vancouver
Matt Frye, Oregon Institute of Technology
Abstract: This presentation shares preliminary research from a three-year NSF project focused on writing transfer and genre awareness in introductory engineering lab courses at three different institutions: a private liberal arts school, a public polytechnic institution, and a land-grant university. We share preliminary data on how students' prior writing knowledge and genre awareness vary across three transfer contexts. Our presentation will include data from both writing artifacts and student surveys.
What We Say When We Talk about Writing: Seeking Common Ground across the Curriculum
Area: WAC and Institutional and Interdisciplinary Dynamics
Presenters: Jessica S. Pisano and Brian Graves, UNC Asheville
Abstract: Over the past five years, the speakers have worked to promote writing both in first-year writing classrooms and across campus. Their experiences at UNC Asheville have provided some insight into writing instruction across campus, but a more comprehensive understanding could shed light on commonalities. Inspired in part by Mark Blaauw-Hara's (2014) research on his campus, this research explores how UNCA faculty talk about writing with their students, what genres or metagenres they assign (Carter, 2007; Wardle, 2009), and what rhetorical features they expect (Thonney, 2011; Wolfe, Olson, & Wilder, 2014). To gather this information, the speakers first surveyed faculty about their writing instruction and followed up with both focus groups and a review of assignment prompts. Findings from this study promise to support teaching for transfer in at least two ways. First, understanding the genres students will write may inform first-year and disciplinary writing pedagogies, both within and between curricula. Second, and even more important, learning how faculty conceptualize and discuss writing—looking, even amid distinct terminology, for shared goals or concepts—may uncover new ways to deepen support for the teaching, learning, and assessing of writing across both gen-ed and disciplinary curricula (Anson, 2015; Basgier, 2016; Melzer, 2014).
V.2 When Learning Outcomes Mask Learning: Probing Assumptions about Writing Assessment in the Age of Learning Analytics
Type of Session: Panel
Area: The Impact of Larger Educational Contexts and Trends on WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Kathleen Daly Weisse, Marist College
Presenters:
Kathleen Daly Weisse, Marist College
Angela J. Zito, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstract: This presentation explores and interrogates the promise at the heart of learning analytics—namely, that, through algorithmic processing, student data can be made to reveal (and assess) student learning. Far from revealing the realities of student learning, we argue that learning analytics creates and deepens blind spots in assessment and WAC practice/scholarship around how instructors can best "see" student learning, all while fostering misconceptions about what counts as learning in the writing classroom. As a mode of assessment, learning analytics—with its algorithmic foundation and reliance on predetermined standards for assessing learning and opaque methods for surveilling student work—ends up constraining rather than empowering student learners. Our interrogation of the promise at the heart of learning analytics rhetoric opens an introspective moment for us, collectively, to interrogate the "promise" at the heart of WAC. Specifically, that writing is a high-impact practice that instructors can harness—with the help of carefully designed assignments that are aligned with disciplinary ways of thinking—to support and deepen student learning across disciplines. Following our initial inquiry into the limitations of learning analytics as a form of assessment, this presentation asks, to what extent do "disciplinary ways of thinking and writing" posit algorithmic structures of their own, structures that likewise serve to conceal as well as reveal student learning?
V.3 Fostering Ethnographic Interactions and Collaborations: Implications for WAC and WID
Type of Session: Panel
Area: WAC Pedagogy and Practices
Delivery Mode: Live
Chair: Kamila Kinyon, University of Denver
Presenters:
Alejandro Cerón, University of Denver, "An Interdisciplinary Ethnography Lab as a Catalyst for Student, Faculty, and Community Collaborations"
Kamila Kinyon, University of Denver, "Teaching Ethnography in First-Year Composition Courses: Pedagogical Approaches and Co-Curricular Opportunities through the DU Ethnography Lab"
Dinko Hanaan Dinko, University of Denver, "Exploring the Emancipatory Potential of Ethnographic Writing for Addressing Climate Change Challenges"
Respondent: Kamila Kinyon, University of Denver
Abstract: Ethnographic writing offers a rich field for WAC and WID studies, especially given the complex evolution of ethnographic work in different disciplines as well as the shifting relationship between ethnographers and the cultures they study. Multiple stages of writing are involved in ethnographic projects, calling for a network of interactions, feedback, and collaboration. This panel showcases the University of Denver's interdisciplinary ethnography lab, which has served as a catalyst for student, faculty, and community collaborations. Within the context of the ethnography lab, a space where ethnographers can come together to share ideas and writing practices, the speakers illustrate different facets of ethnographic work at DU, from writing practices in specific disciplines to the teaching of ethnography to first-year composition students. The DU Ethnography Lab is just one example of the type of institutional and cross-institutional support that can provide ongoing feedback about work in progress, as researchers contribute to a scholarly community both within their specific disciplines and in a larger interdisciplinary context. We invite the audience to reflect on possibilities for facilitating ethnographic interactions within or beyond their own institutional settings and to consider the potential role of WAC programs in fostering such interactions.
12:00 to 1:30
Closing Plenary (Closing Remarks and Plenary Presentation)
Writing across More-than-the-Curriculum: A Conversation Toward Diversifying, Professionalizing, and Renovating WAC
Al Harahap, Federico Navarro, and Alisa Russell
Al Harahap is Lecturer in the University of Oklahoma's Expository Writing Program, currently exploring WAC/WID and learning community opportunities with various campus communities, academic and otherwise. His research, service, and teaching lie at the intersections of DEI issues and WAC/WID, WCs, and WPA writing ecologies. He co-founded the WAC-GO, is outgoing Managing Editor of the journal Xchanges, and currently serves on the WAC Clearinghouse and CWPA boards. His current favourite classes to teach usually involve helping students bring their specialized discourses into public spheres and the sociopolitical world.
Federico Navarro has a Ph.D. in Linguistics. He is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Education Sciences, Universidad de O'Higgins (Chile). He is the Principal Investigator of two state-funded research projects on writing and learning in higher education (FONDECYT and CNED) and co-investigator of a state-funded project on writing across history (FONDECYT). He is the President of the Latin American Association of Writing Studies in Higher Education and Professional Contexts (ALES), founding member of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum (AWAC), and editor of International Exchanges on the Study of Writing Series. He has presented his research in more than 70 conventions. He has published more than 100 scientific papers on writing studies, discourse studies, and systemic-functional linguistics, including the Spanish translation of “Reference Guide to Writing Across the Curriculum”.
Alisa Russell is an Assistant Professor of English and WAC leader in the Writing Program at Wake Forest University. Her areas of interest include rhetorical genre studies, public writing, and WAC, and her research focuses on increasing community access through writing and writing innovations. Her work has appeared in journals such as Composition Forum, The WAC Journal, Across the Disciplines, and Pedagogy. She is a founder of the WAC Graduate Organization, and she currently serves as Co-Chair of the WAC Summer Institute Committee for AWAC.