(R)evolutionizing Writing Classrooms One Lesson at a Time: Strategies and Provocations (NeMLA)
Philadelphia
Organization: NeMLA
Event: NeMLA
Since their formal inception in the 19th century, writing courses have been seen as “a preparation for citizenship and productive work” (Brereton, 1995, p. 9). Rhetoric around the “knowledge economy” prioritizes communication skills in equipping students for success in competitive job markets (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009). These students, however, face more than professional challenges in the world: the rise of climate catastrophe, wealth inequality, misinformation, state-sanctioned violence, and economic uncertainty, to name a few. Imparting skills of critical engagement with social justice is often associated with disciplines outside composition, and tensions arise among progressive composition theorists about how to balance, for instance, feminist rhetorics with mechanics, argumentation, and genre conventions (Young, 2011, p. 62), or as Shapiro (2022) puts it, progressive and pragmatic approaches (p. 281). How are composition instructors addressing these tensions? How to make our classrooms spaces that prepare students for both a professional world and a world in crisis? We invite proposals for posters detailing one specific lesson, teaching technique, or unit that you’ve developed to allow students to imagine, communicate, and create radical change. We’re eager to hear from course instructors, teaching assistants, those who design their own courses, or those working with standardized curricula. How do we teach Writing Studies in a revolutionary way?
To submit, please use this link: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21262
Brereton, J. C. (1995). The origins of composition studies in the American college, 1875-1925: A documentary history. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (2009). “Multiliteracies”: New literacies, new learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), 164-195, doi:10.1080/15544800903076044
Shapiro, S. (2022). Cultivating critical language awareness in the writing classroom. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Young, V.A. (2011). Should writers use they own English? In L. Greenfield & K. Rowan (Eds.), Writing centers and the new racism : A call for sustainable dialogue and change (pp. 61-72). University Press of Colorado
https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21262
Amanda Paxton