Conference

ICYMI: Collaborative Circulation Conference Recap

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Earlier this month, Brandon Hurst and I (your ECE English Graduate Assistants), had the pleasure of witnessing the fruition of the work we did along with our leadership (Scott Campbell and Tom Doran ) and our Advisory Board during our conference: Collaborative Circulation: A Recursive Roadmap.  

Throughout the day, our ECE English instructors delved deeply into the concept of “circulation” in the writing classroom. With a name like that, the conference itself was designed to be an expansive journey, one that would move beyond considering circulation as an endpoint. Our presenters and panels encouraged us to map the dynamic pathways that our ideas and written works follow as they flow through stages of ideation, creation, feedback, revision, and community engagement. 

Each session, led by members of our Advisory Board highlighted how circulation can be seen not only as a process of sharing and re-sharing work but as a collaborative venture that involves early ideation, rhetorical context, and multifaceted feedback. Circulation became more than the final stage of the writing process. Instead, we explored it as a living and recursive part of the writing process, one that shapes our work from the first spark of an idea to its permeation within a community.  

Screenshots from the Opening Remarks presentation showing a graffitti by tagger VEO and poems by Emily DickinsonThroughout various sessions, presenters, educators, and scholars brought forward stimulating examples and approaches to integrate circulation into writing pedagogy. Scott and Tom, in their welcoming remarks engaged with circulation in graffiti tagging and the poems of Emily Dickinson, respectively. Attendees were sent off to their sessions primed for the opportunities that the exploration of the vast uses that centering circulation in our writing process reveals and the growth for students that that engenders. We examined traditional notions of circulation as “publishing” but pushed past that view to consider circulation as a transformative process that writers and students experience in iterative, often unpredictable ways. A recurring theme was the collaborative nature of circulation, with presenters sharing how they encourage students to engage with peers, instructors, and outside communities, making the writing process more transparent and connected. 

The Circulation for Brainstorming and Ideation session looked at circulation in its ideation phase. Throughout the conference, this session became a wellspring of ideas and conversations through Post-It notes as attendees engaged with images and responded to the sessions that came before. The ideas in circulation (on the notes) influenced those participating in the next session. In this way, the participants not only engaged with the materials provided by the workshop leaders, but also the responses that came before them. The session emphasized the recursive and collaborative nature of ideas in an engaging activity. You can see images of the compiled comments here. 

Our Circulation of Feedback session focused on feedback loops within classroom settings, where the presenters emphasized the circulation of feedback as a dialogue and discussed methods for engaging students in a series of reciprocal exchanges that invite them to see their writing as a living piece on which to act upon and respond to. Such discussions underscored the importance of fostering a space where students can experience the full lifecycle of writing—a journey where texts evolve in relation to diverse voices and perspectives. 

Poster board showcasing an example of the Humans of East Lyme ProjectThe Circulation as Rhetorical and Compositional Context session focused on how the rhetorical context in which the writing of students exists can move beyond the classroom. Using the Humans of Education project (renamed to Humans of East Lyme), One presenter shared how her students expand the reach of their writing by creating a new rhetorical context. Another presenter shared some great-looking posters that emerged from a class that had traced the social impacts of a song. The posters led back to a shared playlist of all the songs. Both of these assignments invite students and the community into the reading of these pieces and can be shared through time and space with tools like QR codes.

Brandon and I also hosted two hands on (and quite arts and crafty) sessions. In these sessions we used Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and “Joy” by Langston Hughes to offer a new activity for students to engage with texts in multiple circulation phases. During the sessions all participants commented, had conversations through, deconstructed, and reconstructed texts to encapsulate and enact a tactile experience of circulation.  

During our closing session, multiple cross-campus instructors shared with the conference attendees the diverse ways in which they are implementing circulating practices in their classrooms. We heard about audio postcards, civic engagement expos, judging texts already in circulation, the impetus we have to write (both in and out of the classroom), and the impact of circulation on identity construction. 

As a newcomer to the ECE English world, I want to extend my gratitude to the presenters and attendees.  The collaborative spirit among participants was palpable in the conversations that I engaged with and reminded me that, as educators, we can only benefit from sharing our challenges, successes, and strategies to nurture a richer, more meaningful writing experience for our students. 

A special thanks must also go to the Advisory Board: Kevin Barbero, Kyle Candia-Bovi, Michael Ewing, Emily Genser, Siobhan Jurczyk, Alexa Kydd, Ramona Puchalski-Piretti, Kristen Rotherham, Arri Weeks, and Karen Tuthill-Jones. Their dedication to facilitating engaging, collaborative sessions, and ensuring that each participant’s voice was heard created a truly inclusive environment. 

If you missed out on this conference or want to dive even deeper into these ideas, you can visit our Fall 2024 Conference Materials or our larger resource repository in our SharePoint site. I’m excited to share that we will hold our next conference in April in conjunction with the larger UConn FYW Program. Thank you, again, to everyone who made Collaborative Circulation: A Recursive Roadmap a success. I look forward to seeing you all in April! 

 

What Does it Mean to “Circulate” Our Writing?

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Thank you all for staying with me over this three-post tour of Circulation. Today I want to discuss Circulation as it is most commonly conceived and presented in the first-year writing classroom: as the activity of circulating a piece of writing amongst a particular audience and setting. In the process, I hope to explore the many questions that Circulating asks writers to consider as they compose their writing for a specific purpose and set of contexts. 

Circulation as Rhetorical Context 

Circulation as “Rhetorical Context,” as all of you undoubtedly have heard numerous times, is the practice of writing with a specific audience, genre, form, media, accessibility, impact, etc. in mind. For a library, this is maybe the organization of the materials in their collection, the layout of shelves and displays for patron navigation, and which materials are displayed. It also describes the impact this has on how patrons physically circulate through the library, which materials get circulated, and why—taking into consideration:  

  • Who the library’s patrons are,  
  • What they are interested in or need,  
  • Their access to those materials,  
  • The impact these materials have on their patrons as they circulate?  

In the conference, we want to explore what questions we pose to students—and how we pose them—that can help them identify the affordances and constraints of different types or modes of Circulation. At the same time, we want these questions to promote students’ consideration of these pros and cons in connection with their own goals, enabling them to make purposeful rhetorical decisions with their writing. This may include:  

  • Who do they want to share their writing with?  
  • How does that audience conventionally circulate their writing?  
  • Do they want to adopt these principles or make the conscious, rhetorical decision to depart from certain genre conventions?  
  • What media and/or modalities are best suited to conveying and circulating their writing?   
  • How can a composition be effectively accessed and shared by the audience we want to reach?  
  • What tensions arise between voice and genre and how do we navigate them?  
  • How will it be received and is it expressing its ideas ethically and in good faith? 

When we practice Circulation as a rhetorical context, we are asking students to think about why they are writing, then make informed decisions about how to best achieve these writing goals. And during the conference, we hope to address how to best go about fostering this reflective approach to composition. 

Collaborative Circulation: A Recursive Roadmap 

As these different contexts coalesce, it becomes apparent that Circulation is a recurring and collaborative writing practice. We hope that by foregrounding the practice of Circulation in the classroom, we can enable students to be mindful of all the questions Circulation asks them to consider in every phase of the writing process—harnessing Circulation for their own thinking and writing purposes.  

I look forward to exploring the many ways Circulation takes place in the FYW classroom at the upcoming November 1st! 

Conceptualizing Circulation: Brainstorming and Feedback

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Hi all, as promised, here is the first of two follow-ups to last week’s preview of our Conference theme. In this post, I’ll be discussing the role of Circulation in Ideation and Feedback. Later this week another post will cover Circulation as Rhetorical Context with a summary of our tour of Circulation.  

Circulation for Brainstorming and Ideation GraphicCirculation for Brainstorming and Ideation: 

Thinking back to the library, any specific book that gets added to a collection is shaped by and in response to the active ecosystem of texts, social contexts, culture circulating in and around that library. New writings Engage with their conceptual antecedents, adopt (or reject) established genre conventions of form and style, and augment these precedents according to present social discourse, cultural trends, political, and physical environments. Moreover, which texts are accessible is also directly related to the social and political powers/movements governing circulation. This directly influences the writing that can be engaged with, directly influencing the ideation phase of writing and thinking. And as soon as a new book enters into the library, it becomes a part of the circulating texts and contexts that will shape subsequent readings and writings.  

During the conference, we will explore what Circulation as a tool and context for brainstorming and ideation looks like and how it can be emphasized in the FYW classroom. For example, it may prove valuable to consider that in any ECE writing class, when we ask students to Collect perspectives, Engage with difficult texts, and Contextualize their research question/inquiry, the circulating texts they encounter engender ideation and brainstorming.  

The act of reading, and the thoughts and responses in the margins and/or in the mind of the reader, is a product and practice of Circulation. A circulating text stimulates ideation as the reader “talks” back to the text during their reading. Students’ responses to an inquiry and text circulate in the classroom as they share initial thoughts—writing ideas and questions in their infancy. In a collaborative brainstorming session or class discussion, students’ conversations influence each other’s thinking, which in turn promotes self-reflection and a consideration of alternative perspectives that helps them develop these future writing ideas.  

We hope to discuss methods of working with students to help them recognize that participating in the Circulation of ideas in a public ecosystem is not only about “putting our writing out into the world.” It also consists of receiving, responding to, and then interrogating those responses in a way that helps us come up with concepts they can develop in writings that will make meaningful contributions to that ecosystem. We want students to see that they are participating in Circulation in every phase of writing.  

Circulation of Feedback and Suggestions: Circulation of Feedback Graphic

Similarly, the Circulation of feedback and suggestions helps students further develop their writing. When I think of the editing of a book, I am imagining the cinematic portrayals of an author bickering with their editor about what gets included. Or maybe the editor poses a question that prompts a total rewriting or reconsideration of an author’s stance. As feedback discursively circulates between editor and author it cultivates a more thoughtful reflection on the piece of writing, its goals, and its method in a fashion that is ultimately generative. When “editing” a library, staff must first reflect on which materials are being (or not) circulated most by patrons. This then informs the “editing” of their collection—what materials are weeded and what materials are added—to help the library best serve the needs of its patrons, i.e., achieve its purpose. And this does not take place in a vacuum but features a discussion amongst multiple librarians and between staff and patrons as they “revise” and “refine” the library. 

The FYW classroom is a comparable space; students circulate their work as they collaboratively revise and refine their writing to more effectively achieve their compositional goals. Group workshops and peer-review offer a low stakes environment where students can gauge audience reception, find alternative perspectives, receive feedback, and work together to develop their own and others’ compositions. These drafting and revision activities grant them freedom to experiment radically or minutely with their writing. Practicing how to provide and receive feedback—inside and outside the classroom—encourages students to reflect on their writing and its goals and how they might best achieve them. During the conference, we will explore ways to capitalize on the opportunities for growth and learning that Circulation affords during these activities. We also look to share and discuss the various forms, uses, and struggles of giving and receiving feedback. 

Spring 2019 Conference

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Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts in the Classroom

Our conference this spring was inspired by Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. Collaboratively written by Linda Adler-Kassner, Elizabeth Wardle, and many other composition scholars, Naming What We Know determines and describes the threshold concepts of writing studies.

A threshold concept is troubling, transforming, and transferable. It is troubling because it challenges commonsense ideas; it is transforming because once we understand a threshold concept, we can’t go back to how we used to think; and it is transferable because it can be used in multiple disciplines, as well as outside of academia.

We used Naming What We Know and it’s five major threshold concepts (and thirty subconcepts!) to organize our ECE conference. Each breakout session engaged with a major threshold concept of writing studies. For example, for the threshold concept “Writing is Social and Rhetorical,” we began by investigating commonsensical notions of writing and writers. We did a Google Image search of “writing” and “writers.” “Writing” yields images of disembodied hands using a pencil. Images of “writers” often show a single person, usually older, white, and male. Oddly, they’re using a typewriter or fountain pen. It takes some scrolling until you get to someone using a laptop. We discussed how these images communicate an idea of writing as isolated, clean, and exclusive; in fact, as the threshold concept demonstrates, writing is collaborative, messy, and all of our students are already writers. Part of our work as writing teachers is to challenge received ideas about writing. But how do we do that? How might these threshold concepts transform our teaching of writing?

Each breakout session adapted an assignment or activity that in some way speaks to their threshold concept. The threshold concept “Writing Takes Recognizable Forms” describes the necessity of writers to evaluate their rhetorical situation in order to choose, adapt, and/or create the appropriate genre. One group of teachers described an assignment where students are tasked with creating a teen health magazine about authentic student health issues. This assignment asks students to work within a known genre (the magazine) and adapt it to speak to their peers. Students learn the conventions of magazines–the values and practices the genre enacts–as well as how flexible genre can be to the needs of writers and readers. In the breakout session on the threshold concept “Writing is a Cognitive Activity,” participants explored the relationship between writing and the brain. One proposed activity for introducing cognition or metacognition into the writing classroom is to have reflective writing assignments that asks students to consider the affective domain of writing. Another proposal was to ask students to record themselves composing, perhaps using screen capture. This would direct students to consider how their writing is a way of thinking; how their writing shapes their thinking and vice versa.

All of these activities were shared during a large group discussion just before lunch. You can find more about threshold concepts and the activities we brainstormed at the ECE English website here. Click on the Session Materials folder to be taken to slides made by each breakout session. I’ve only highlighted a few examples of threshold concepts in the classroom here, but you’ll find many more in the slides. We also provided a brief overview of the developing Writing Across Technology (WAT) curriculum in First Year Writing.

The day ended with a meeting of the interest groups. In the multimodal interest group, we discussed the specific challenges facing ECE teachers when incorporating technology into the classroom. It was a very productive conversation for sharing workarounds, but also brainstorming how these challenges may be addressed in the future.

Thank you to all the participants and presenters for a wonderful day!