Co-Exploring International Writing Research and Rehearsing Scholarly Performances (CCCC2019)

Other - Workshop, 2019

Our performances as writing scholars involve more than just composing and publishing research. We must also engage with diverse traditions, methods, and theories from around the globe. Complex cultural, political, and linguistic contexts often complicate these performances. That said, writing scholars rarely have an open space to “rehearse” with each other across these contexts. In this workshop, participants will enter dialogic conversations to give and receive rich feedback on their research and deeply reflect on higher education writing research from around the world. The design of this workshop also allows scholars to interact with audiences not always accessible during the writing process. Scholars studying writing in different languages are welcomed, especially those typically underrepresented in the field.

This workshop is made up of 32 writing researchers, who will be designated as workshop facilitators. In advance of the workshop, 27 facilitators will share works-in-progress with a brief explanation of theoretical, cultural, and linguistic contexts. Each scholar will read the works-in-progress and choose 5 before attending the workshop. Then each facilitator will lead a table discussion on their piece. All perspectives will be explored on equal footing with other “embodied performances” and potential audiences. Participants will rehearse their current findings and questions, encounter many international perspectives, and perform as both agents and audiences throughout the day. Throughout the workshop, participants will foster deep engagement with each other’s work and discuss various avenues for publication.

The projects represent new developments in writing studies from Bangladesh, Canada, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Ireland, Jordan, South Korea, KSA, Lebanon, Pakistan, Philippines, South Asia, Syria, Sweden, Scotland, UAE, UK, and US . The 21 projects and 32 writing researchers from diverse national, cross-national, disciplinary, and multilingual contexts form the heart of the workshop exchanges. In other words, these projects and how they interrelate throughout the day will be the content of this workshop. The workshop chairs will provide the framework for these discussions and guide them towards overall themes and future applications. Understanding how different methodologies “perform” in various projects will be a key focus. Some of the represented methodologies include genre theory, archival research, interviews and surveys with students and faculty in specific contexts, corpus analysis, microgenetic analysis of student writing, analysis of institutional policy documents, ethnographic approaches to disciplines, participatory action research, and digital tracking.