Workshops

Your IWAC 2023 conference registration includes one free workshop. One additional workshop can be purchased for $50. Please note you may only attend one workshop from each session. 

Workshop 1

Workshops in this session will take place from noon-3 p.m.

W.1 Designing RAD WAC Research

Session Chair: Christopher Basgier, Auburn University

Workshop Leaders: Christopher Basgier, Auburn University | Michael Pemberton, Georgia Southern University

Scholars in rhetoric, composition and writing studies have urged the field to conduct more replicable, aggregable and data-supported (RAD) research (Haswell, 2005; Driscoll & Perdue, 2012, 2014). According to Haswell (2005), RAD research is characterized by “inquiry that is explicitly enough systematized in sampling, execution, and analysis to be replicated; exactly enough circumscribed to be extended; and factually enough supported to be verified” (Haswell, 2005, p. 201). For writing across the curriculum scholars, RAD research can provide a means for testing, refining and expanding our body of knowledge about pedagogy and program design. Furthermore, it can provide WAC professionals with research to share with faculty, campus partners and administrators who are equipped to think critically about the validity of our claims about, for example, writing-to-learn, writing intensive courses or writing enriched curricula. This workshop will introduce RAD research principles to participants and guide them through the design of a RAD research project. Participants may be at any stage of a scholarly project, from incubating an idea to building on research they have already published. By the end of the workshop, participants will have learned about RAD principles and considered how to enact them in their own research.

W.2 Crafting WAC Equity Whitepapers in Your Discipline

Session Chair: Stacey Sheriff, Colby College

Stacey Sheriff, Colby College | Sherri Craig, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 

This 2023 IWAC pre-conference workshop introduces the goals of the WE: Writing Equity in the Disciplines whitepaper series, announced by the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum in 2022, and invites participants to contribute. In this workshop, participants will first review and discuss a draft of the whitepaper, “Writing Equity: Inclusive Writing Practices in Technical & Professional Writing.” Then, workshop facilitators will provide a template and heuristic for participants to work in small groups and define the concerns and contents of a whitepaper on equitable writing instruction in their specific disciplinary focus areas. Small groups will conclude by proposing collaborative partnerships to co-author a WE whitepaper for online publication and distribution by AWAC.

W.3 Transformative Initiatives for Sustainable WAC

Session Chair: Lauren Silber, Wesleyan University

Workshop Leaders: Lauren Silber, Wesleyan University | Jenny Krichevsky, California State University, Fresno | Kelin Loe, Texas A&M University – Commerce

This workshop takes an ecological perspective on WAC (Cox et al.; Reiff et al.; Inoue) by framing WAC work as one thread of a complex campus ecology made up of administrative allocations, labor structures, diverse student populations and our everyday interactions with the people that contribute to a writing culture on campus. In collaboration with other writing program administrators, we will complicate the notion that WAC work necessarily needs to reconcile the different approaches of top-down institutionalization and bottom-up grassroots advocacy (McLaren et al.). With three examples of transformative WAC initiatives in very different contexts — graduate student support, WID writing fellows and writing centers — we are able to consider multiple strategies that WAC programs can use to build and develop writing cultures that are sustainable, connective and transformative.

Workshop 2

Workshops in this session will take place from 3:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m.

W.4 What Our Policies Say: Inclusive Language Practices for Syllabi Writing (Virtual Workshop)

Session Chair: Adele Leon, Nova Southeastern University

Workshop Leaders: Adele Leon, Nova Southeastern University | Melissa Bianchi, Nova Southeastern University | Juliette Kitchens, Nova Southeastern University | Claire Lutkewitte, Nova Southeastern University | Star Vanguir, Nova Southeastern University

This workshop recognizes the power of language to affect worldviews, specifically in the design of equitable, accessible and inclusive interdisciplinary course policies in a COVID classroom. As writers and instructors, we acknowledge that equity, accessibility and inclusivity begin before the first class meeting, long before students even enroll in the course. Once the curriculum is approved, these practices are enacted within the syllabus. A syllabus is — for most students — the first impression of a college course, and its language sets the tone for what is valued and what is not valued in academic spaces, university policies and classroom practices. The goal of this workshop is to identify and mitigate exclusivity/exclusion in syllabi in order to practice/model an inclusive community. Through a series of discussions and small-group activities, participants will get hands-on experience building community-just curriculum enacted through a syllabus that takes into consideration students’ roles and experiences that extend beyond the hierarchical structure of students as knowledge-consumers.

W.5 Meaningful Inquiry: How to Integrate Equity into Research Assignments

Session Chair: Amanda Folk, The Ohio State University

Workshop Leaders: Amanda Folk, The Ohio State University | Katie Blocksidge, The Ohio State University | Jane Hammons, The Ohio State University | Christopher Manion, The Ohio State University | Hanna Primeau, The Ohio State University

We created an intensive instructor development workshop that contextualizes research and inquiry-based assignments within persistent racial and social-class equity gaps in higher education. Our workshop highlights the importance of intentionality and transparency in terms of writing and information literacy expectations. While transparency benefits all students, this is especially important for students whose identities have been and are marginalized in our institutions, as the lack of transparency creates a hidden curriculum that might remain inaccessible. Workshop participants learn to use strategies, including decoding the disciplines, transparency in learning and teaching and writing to learn, to create action plans to revise a course or assignment. Facilitators will discuss the theoretical foundations of this workshop and lead participants through key activities designed to help instructors make their assignments more transparent and equitable. Participants will leave with frameworks, strategies and resources, such as a sample workbook and action plan template, to address equity gaps and research assignments on their own campuses. We recommend bringing a laptop or tablet, though this is not required to fully participate.

W.6 WAC Summer Institute Alumni Workshop: Building Sustainable Programs One Year Later

Session Chair: Alisa Russell, Wake Forest University

Workshop Leaders: Alisa Russell, Wake Forest University | Chris Anson, North Carolina State University | Cristyn Elder, University of New Mexico | Jeff Galin, Florida Atlantic University | Jamila Kareem, University of Central Florida

Participants from the 2022 WAC Summer Institute in Athens, Georgia, are invited to attend this one-year anniversary alumni event. The facilitator team will solicit topics based on the original exit survey that participants want to explore in more depth than the WACSI allowed (e.g, community outreach, budgeting, inclusive practices, potential pitfalls, etc.). Participants will also be asked to share developments that have happened with their WAC initiatives over the previous year so we can continue to learn from one another’s institutional contexts, reflect and brainstorm next steps. This workshop will look a lot like a WACSI session: engaged, applied and collaborative learning. Not only is this workshop meant to support WAC leaders as they continue building their WAC programs, but it is also meant to keep WAC leaders connected and in relationship with one another. *This workshop is only open to WACSI 2022 participants.