Fall Conference 2025

A purple poster with the words Speaking Together: Discourse as literacy. There are two purple people with white speech bubbles next to them indicating they are speaking to each other.

ECE English Fall Conference.

When: November 21st, 2025. 9AM-2PM

Where: Student Union Ballroom, 2110 Hillside Road, Storrs, CT. 3rd Floor.

Register: UConn ECE Fall English Conference

Speaking Together: Discourse as Literacy

We believe the classroom should be a space for collaboration and exploration. Speaking Together: Discourse as Literacy is about focusing on collaboration and communication as ways of building knowledge and understanding, both in and out of the classroom. We are exploring activities and strategies that put students in conversation with each other, hone their critical thinking skills, and build their confidence as consumers and producers of knowledge in the digital age. This theme corresponds to the habit of practice contextualizing, which challenges students to consider their writing as part of a larger intellectual conversation. Students are encouraged to engage with the community through fieldwork, analyze qualitative research, and integrate a well-informed understanding of the social contexts in which they are writing, to contribute stronger, nuanced writing to an ongoing discussion.

Group Presentations (link to materials)

We designed this conference with collaboration in mind. Presenters were encouraged to work in groups as a way to bring together diverse perspectives, experiences, ideas, and expertise.

Agenda

8:30-9:00 Registration and Check in

9:00-9:30 Opening Remarks (Ballroom): Scott Campbell, “this dialogue, already underway”: on words, sentences, and style*

9:30-10:30 Session 1: Reading and Revision

  • Contending with AI in the Writing Classroom (Room 304a)
  • The Art of Annotating using Levels of Questioning (Room 304b)
  • Peer Review Strategies (Room 304c)

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-11:45 Session 2: Authentic Discussion

  • Fostering Authentic Student Discourse: Bridging ECE English and AP literature (Room 304a)
  • Authentic Experiences in the ECE Classroom (Room 304b)
  • Means of Discussion (Room 304c)

11:45-12:15 Lunch

12:15-1:15 Session 3: Multimodality

  • "It Don't Move Me": Putting Writers in Motion with Course Inquiry (Room 304a) [link to materials]
  • Murder, Motive, and Meaning-Making: Theorizing via discourse (Room 304b)
  • Beyond the Essay: Multimodal Projects as Powerful Summative Assessments (Room 304c)

1:15-1:30 Break

1:30-2:00 Closing Remarks & Coming Together (Ballroom); Lisa Blansett, Slow Writing: Hopscotch as Method

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For questions about the conference, contact eceenglish@uconn.edu