{"id":263,"date":"2021-03-17T14:36:50","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T14:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/writingconference\/?page_id=263"},"modified":"2026-01-22T16:26:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T16:26:21","slug":"42nd-annual-old-dominion-university-spring-conference-on-the-teaching-of-writing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/writingconference\/","title":{"rendered":"The 47th Annual Spring Conference on the Teaching of Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What If We Wonder? Curiosity, Humanity, and the Teaching of Writing<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

February 23\u201324, 2026 | Old Dominion University, Norfolk Campus & Online<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proposals due: Thursday, January 29, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Submit your proposal HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The educational landscape is shifting at a rapid pace. And we have emerging digital technologies to thank\u2026 and sometimes blame\u2026 and often both. Students arrive in our classrooms tired and carrying fatigue in their bodies, phones in their pockets. AI tools are increasingly embedded in primary, secondary, and higher education, reshaping how students read, write, and think. Lots of things feel uncertain, precarious even, and it can be tough not to get mired in overwhelm\u2014particularly as political and institutional pressures push toward efficiency, standardization, and automation. Meanwhile, teachers of writing know that while generating text can be as simple as pushing a button, learning to write <\/em>is slow, human, relational work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what do we do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be easy to respond with judgment\u2014of the tools, of the students, of our administrations, of ourselves. But (hear us out), what if we choose wonder instead? What if we approach this moment with curiosity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re not suggesting we mask our feelings or ignore the very real challenges we face. Rather, we propose: What if we use this conference to pinpoint the questions that matter to teachers of writing right now\u2014and brainstorm, problem-solve, and build resources and coalitions in response? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaret Atwood reminds us that stories about the future are really about the present\u2013the  questions we ask now reveal what we value now. So let’s ask together: What do<\/em> we value? What enduring principles should continue to guide the teaching of writing? How is the changing educational landscape challenging existing threshold concepts<\/a>\u2013 those irreversible, transformative ideas that fundamentally shift how someone understands writing? What new principles and threshold concepts<\/a> are emerging? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Join us this February as we center curiosity as both method and theme and invite writing and literacy teachers to explore the questions before us not to resolve tensions but to explore them. Not to declare what writing instruction must become, but to wonder what it could be<\/em>. Not to defend against change, but to ask what change makes possible. And, perhaps most importantly, to do this inquiry together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We invite proposals that wonder:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n