Composition in the 21st Century: A Teaching Symposium

The Day's Agenda

2006-09-06T10:21:00.000-05:00

8:30 – 9:15 Continental Breakfast and Registration

9:15-9:30 Introduction and Welcome
Kate Geraghty, Bedford/St. Martin’s Publishers
Nicholas J. Coles, University of Pittsburgh Composition Director

9:30-10:30 Keynote: Writing in the Undergraduate Curriculum: A Report on a Two Year Study at the University of Pittsburgh
David Bartholomae, University of Pittsburgh

10:30 – 10:45 Break

10:45-12:30
Keynote: Across the Drafts: Responding to Student Writing
Nancy Sommers, Harvard University

12:30 – 1:30 Lunch, Provost's Suite 2501

Afternoon Revolving Workshops

1:45 – 2:45

Workshop A: Multimodality in Composition
Scott Lloyd DeWitt, The Ohio State University

Workshop B: Teaching Composition from a Cross-Disciplinary Perspective
Steve Bernhardt, University of Delaware

Workshop C: Advocacy in Troubling Times: Framing the Work of First-Year Writing
Linda Adler-Kassner, Eastern Michigan University

Workshop D: Beyond the Dutiful Essay: Literary Ambition in the First Year Course
Jennifer Lee and Brenda Whitney, University of Pittsburgh

2:45 – 3:00 BREAK

3:00 – 4:00

Workshop E: Multimodality in Composition
Scott Lloyd DeWitt, The Ohio State University

Workshop F: Teaching Composition from a Cross-Disciplinary Perspective
Steve Bernhardt, University of Delaware

Workshop G: Advocacy in Troubling Times: Framing the
Work of First-Year Writing
Linda Adler-Kassner, Eastern Michigan University

Workshop H: Learning from History’s Pedagogy
Jean Ferguson Carr, University of Pittsburgh

4:00 – 4:45 What We Have Learned – A Closing Thoughts Discussion
Kate Geraghty and Nick Carbone, Bedford/St. Martin’s Publishers

4:45 – 6:00 Cocktail Reception – The Cloister’s, Frick Fine Arts Building

What We Have Learned: A Closing Discussion

2006-09-06T09:34:00.000-05:00

Kate Keraghty and Nick Carbone, Bedford/St. Martin's

Writing a description now, before hearing the keynote speakers and attending the workshops, it's impossible to predict what we will have learned on Friday. But I bet we learn a lot -- some of it will be relearning things we knew, or discovering ideas that make intuitive sense, and some of what we learn and share will surprise us. Some of what we learn will be a serendipitous answer to a need we didn't know we had, and some of it will be nice to know, but not immediately useful.

But I can safely predict, given our speakers, workshop leaders and those who are attending to lend their voices, that the day will be fun and invigorating. And that we'll all learn and come away better for having gathered.

Keynote: Nancy Sommers, "Across the Drafts"

2006-09-05T19:52:00.000-05:00

Nancy Sommers, Harvard University
Sosland Director of Expository Writing

"Across the Drafts" (essay forthcoming in December 2006 College Composition and Communication) reports on the value and role of response to student writing, and it will focus on the following (quoting from a draft of Dr. Sommers' forthcoming article):

The new perspective I bring to this topic today comes from the Harvard Study of Undergraduate Writing, which followed 400 students for four years to see college writing through their eyes. With the leisurely perspective of time, and with the collection of over 600 pounds of student writing, 500 hours of taped interviews, and countless mega-bytes of survey data, my fellow researchers and I have witnessed the wide range of comments which students receive, not just in one course or from one teacher, but over four years and across the disciplines. To see these comments through the eyes of college students is a kaleidoscopic experience: papers never returned; papers returned with bewildering hieroglyphics —dots, check marks, squiggly or straight lines; papers with responses that treat students like apprentice scholars, engaging with their ideas, seriously and thoughtfully. That students might benefit from a decoding ring to determine whether the check marks and squiggles are a good or bad thing will not surprise us. That students might find comments useful throughout the process--before and between drafts, not just at the end--will also not surprise us. But what did surprise us, though, is the role feedback plays in the complex story of why some students prosper as college writers while others lag.

Keynote: David Bartholomae

2006-09-05T19:40:00.000-05:00

David Bartholomae, University of Pittsburgh
Chair, Department of English

Dr. Batholomae will report on a two year study of writing and the teaching of writing conducted in the University of Pittsburgh's College of Arts and Sciences. After presenting the study's findings, Dr. Bartholomae will move to a discussion of how a first year writing program can best serve and support a "culture of writing."

Learning from History’s Pedagogy

2006-09-01T13:44:00.000-05:00

Jean Ferguson Carr, University of Pittsburgh

Session Description: We will review some materials from Archives of Instruction and discuss the uses of reading past textbooks for contemporary composition teaching. How do textbooks help circulate attitudes about teaching writing? How do such attitudes become "doxa"? In what ways are textbooks situated--in relation to specific kinds of students or educational situations? How can we read the anonymous or semi-anonymous labor of textbook traditions--labor that is, in some ways, an extension of teaching? What does it mean to have a critical relationship to a textbook?

Beyond the Dutiful Essay: Literary Ambition in the First Year Course

2006-09-01T13:29:00.000-05:00

Jennifer Lee and Brenda Whitney, University of Pittsburgh

Session Description: How do we, as teachers of composition, think about the kinds of writing students do in our courses as different from those practiced in either literature or creative writing courses, and what would it mean to disrupt those distinctions? In this Session, we will consider the merits, and challenges, of a course that positions first-year students as literary scholars and writers. Our central text, this year's staff syllabus at the University of Pittsburgh-“On the Essay: Writing the Times,” co-authored by the workshop leaders-asks students to enter the work of literary essayists, both by engaging texts critically and by trying out similar projects. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to critically engage their own and disciplinary assumptions about what students can, and should, do in a first-year composition course.

Advocacy in Troubling Times: Framing the Work of First-Year Writing

2006-09-01T13:27:00.000-05:00

Linda Adler-Kassner, Eastern Michigan University

Session Description: Reports about writers and writing, from those in mainstream newspapers to those published by groups like the Spellings Commission on Higher Education and Project Achieve, are gloomy. According to these documents, students’ abilities are faltering, and educators (from K-college) are often failing to address what is portrayed as a gaping need.

The “solutions” to these proposed problems contained in influential reports (such as those from the Spellings Commission or Project Achieve’s “Ready or Not”) have profound implications for first-year writing programs. They include using state-mandated NCLB tests for college admission and placement (including writing placement), and as a baseline from which to measure student learning.

If first-year writing programs are to maintain curricular integrity, we must both represent the work that we do in clear and accessible terms, and assess the effectiveness of that work. This session will help participants identify projects that they can develop and/or conduct in their programs, and learn to frame that work to advocate for their programs.

Teaching Composition from a Cross-Disciplinary Perspective

2006-09-01T13:24:00.000-05:00

Steve Bernhardt, University of Delaware

Session Description: Most programs want their composition courses to prepare students well for writing in various disciplines. But what does it mean to be well prepared for writing in the disciplines (WID)? This workshop session asks participants to examine assumptions and practices. What goals should we set? What assignments should we give? How should we structure in-class and out-of-class work? If the goal is to help students transfer writing practices from our classes to other disciplines, how can we best proceed?

Multimodality in Composition

2006-09-01T13:21:00.000-05:00

Scott Lloyd DeWitt, The Ohio State University
Director, The Digital Media Project

Session Description: This workshop will explore the use of digital media in the
contexts of our varied college composition programs. We will consider a range of contemporary digital literacy practices—alphabetic, visual, audio—while imagining composition classes that include a meaningful course of study in the analysis and production of multimodal texts. The workshop will include examples of students’ digital media work that illustrate innovative, rhetorically–based approaches to composing.

Conference Location: The University of Pittsburgh

2006-09-01T11:50:00.000-05:00

Many thanks to Director of Compostion, Nick Coles, and his colleagues in the Composition Program at the University of Pittsburgh for hosting this conference.

Conference meetings and sessions will be held in Wesley Posvar Hall. It can be found here on the campus map.

Here are other Pitt resources to help you enjoy the conference: