April 1 – 2, 2019
Difficult Conversations: Making Space for Diverse Ideas in the Writing Classroom
Difficult conversations are central to learning, as learning is central to the viability of a society, yet resistance to difficult conversations is common and must be carefully navigated in the classroom. How can educators then best practice socially responsible teaching? How can educators create a deliberative environment in which talking and listening are a shared goal? What creative modes encourage conversation in writing and composition? This year’s conference will focus on preparing teachers as well as students to engage in difficult conversations inside and outside the classroom.
Our keynote speaker will be Heather Lindenman, an Assistant Professor at Elon University, whose expertise includes community literacy and service-learning in composition. She teaches classes in first-year writing, community writing, and literacy studies.
Before pursuing her Ph.D., Dr. Lindenman taught high school in South Texas and Washington, DC. Her research focuses on the consequences of community-engaged writing projects, student writing for civic purposes, and writing transfer across contexts. Her work has appeared in Composition Forum, College Composition and Communication, Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric, and the Community Literacy Journal.
Dr. Lindenman’s keynote address, “Listening with Empathy, Writing for Change,” will present the case study of Writing for Change, a high school-university partnership that uses writing to promote conversation about difficult issues affecting students’ lives. She will present tactics the partnership uses to promote perspective-taking and empathic listening.
As always, it is our goal to form connections between secondary and post-secondary writing instruction. We strongly encourage experienced teachers at the secondary level, as well as instructors for two and four-year institutions, to submit proposals for panel discussions, hands-on workshops, and practical “strategy-oriented” teaching sessions that focus on difficult conversations relevant to middle, high school, and college-level instruction.
Presenter Materials and Resource Share
Agenda 2019 Final Draft