University of Florida's Conference on Pedagogy, Practice and Philosophy – Deadline November 15, 2014

full name / name of organization: 
University of Florida

Call for Papers

Conference Date: Saturday, January 31, 2015

The University of Florida's University Writing Program invites proposals for its second annual Conference on Pedagogy, Practice and Philosophy. With the proliferation of new media technologies and shifts in pedagogical practice, design, and implementation, we seek presentations from graduate students that address the ever-changing dynamics of the college composition classroom, while also attending to the challenges and opportunities these changes afford for both students and instructors. The conference is designed as a practicum in which collaboration and exchange are foregrounded. Graduate students are asked to reflect upon the study, practice, and philosophy of teaching writing in the university, and to reconsider current educational trends about learning, engagement, comprehension, and skills-development. The overarching goal of this conference is to create a network for sharing effective, innovative, and creative approaches to composition pedagogy in practice. While the conference is graduate student focused, faculty members are also encouraged to participate.

Conference Format

Instead of having panelists read traditional twenty minute conference papers, we welcome proposals for ten to twelve minute presentations or demonstrations that illustrate pragmatic approaches, strategies, and techniques for teaching writing effectively. Accepted participants will be grouped into themed or conceptual panels, but our goal is to extend the dialog and conversation across the conference sessions. We are also open to proposals for roundtable discussions, which are to model a conversational, collaborative, and audience-centered or participatory format.

Presentation topics may include (but are not limited to):

• The use of social media in the writing classroom
• Online writing instruction
• Technical communication pedagogy
• Collaborative learning and peer teaching and assessment
• Approaches to the reading-to-writing process
• Exploring race, class, gender, and/or sexuality in the writing classroom
• Current-traditional rhetoric, expressivism, and epistemic pedagogy models
• Prewriting techniques and strategies
• Writing in and across the disciplines

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Kathleen McCormick is currently Professor of Literature and Pedagogy at Purchase College, State University of New York. Her book, The Culture of Reading and the Teaching of English, won the MLA's Mina Shaughnessy Award for an outstanding research publication in the field of teaching English language and literature. She's also co-author of The Cultural Imperatives Underlying Cognitive Acts, and numerous textbooks, including Reading Our Histories, Understanding Our Cultures and Reading Texts. She has published many theoretical and pedagogical essays in such journals as Pedagogy, College English, Poetics, and College Literature and in numerous essay collections. She is currently writing a new book on teaching writing based on work she's done at Purchase, tentatively titled, Constructivism in the Collaborative Classroom: How Nested Mentoring Increases Students' Reading, Research, and Writing Skills.

Submission Guidelines

To submit a proposal for an individual presentation, please email a 250 word abstract in .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .pdf format to Justin Grant at justin.grant@warrington.ufl.edu. Be sure to include your contact information, affiliation, and position/title on the abstract. To propose a roundtable, please email a description of the discussion, a rationale of what it seeks to accomplish and why it is significant, and the names, affiliations, and positions/titles of each participant. Proposals must be submitted no later than November 15th. Accepted participants will be notified by December 1st. For further information about UF's Writing Program, visit: http://writing.ufl.edu/