Composing Environments for Teaching and Writing
UConn ECE English Summer Institute 2017
Much current scholarship in the field of composition concerns the embeddedness of writing within highly complex and variable contexts or ecologies. The schools of thought that have arisen to address this complexity—assemblage theory, ecological composition, complexity theory, the postprocess movement, and more—pose writing as a product of ever-shifting and layered factors. Although one possible consequence of this line of thinking can be exasperation for teachers—how can one “design” a course with such uncertain outcomes?—the movement away from evaluating isolated artifacts to exploring relationships and emergent properties offers fresh ways to look at teaching and writing.
The 2017 ECE English Summer Institute will join this composition research to our own work as teachers of First-Year Writing courses. Our contexts, here, will include current scholarship on classroom ecology, the UConn FYW pedagogy, our own course materials, and, needless to say, an array of yet-to-be-discovered connections and possibilities. Over the course of the three days, we will read, discuss, and workshop course materials together. Among the topics we can expect to address:
- redefining the role of the teacher (seeing teaching as less about engineering outcomes and more about establishing settings conducive to writing)
- putting student work at the center of the course
- building community strengthened by heterogeneity
- using technology to circulate writing
- seeing academic writing (and information literacy) as connective and oriented outward
The institute will run from June 27th through the 29th from 9-3 each day at the UConn Storrs Campus. The fee for the course is $75. Please direct all questions about the institute to Scott Campbell (scott.campbell@uconn.edu).