I had a fine time in San Francisco, and I’ll share John’s sentiment that CCCC is much more than the sessions. While I didn’t get a chance to chat with Steve Krause, and I missed Jenny Edbauer’s presentation, I was glad to finally meet Derek Mueller (whose presentation, it doesn’t hurt to say again, totally rocked), Daisy Pignetti (who is absolutely charming), and Joanna Howard (whose Montgomery College t-shirt John was wearing at the Thursday night meet-up in South Beach; I spent a semester at MC as an undergrad). And it was good to see Brad, Charlie, Clancy, Collin, and Dennis again, as well as many other colleagues and instructors past and present.
And now, as Collin points out, it’s time to start thinking about next year. I’ll share Collin’s sentiment that the “trend […] towards increasingly arbitrary and unclear categories” on the CCCC Call for Proposals is problematic, and I’ll add a question: do the proposal form’s “area clusters” perhaps actually hinder our disciplinary conversations? I noticed that a lot of bloggers went to a lot of the technology-focused panels, which of course is to be expected (it’s become axiomatic that the thing bloggers most like to blog about is blogging) — but I didn’t see any panels that had only one or two tech presenters; the tech panels were all tech, all the time (somebody, please, correct me if I’m wrong), which I think makes for a sort of echo chamber effect. It can also lead to attitudes like the one I (perhaps mistakenly) perceived in Anne Jones’s troubling “dark ages” comment; attitudes that pedagogies associated with digital technologies are somehow beyond rather than a part of composition’s body of knowledge. I wonder what might happen when composition reaches the disciplinary point that the New York Times reached on March 24, when it eliminated the Circuits section because of the way technology concerns had begun “migrating into the mainstream.”
I’m going to blog Jenny, Jeff, and Geoff’s panel, Mike. You’ll like what Jenny has to say, for sure.
But until then, see Donna’s notes.
I’d support you in that kind of change–and I think that Collin’s point is a good one, and as someone who has watched our Women’s Studies program prepare for hosting a conference next week, I’d like to see that whatever happens is efficient and fair to the conference organizers who have to read/sort/accept/reject all of our proposals. I have a half-formed idea that it would be interesting to have a “wild card” category: put three unrelated presenters together and have them spend the year discussing how and whether their ideas intersect. . .or not, and then bring that to the conference, so the that the discussion is formed from moment to moment (kind of like a blog!).
Thanks, Clancy. I’ll look forward to your account, since I was somewhat put off by Professor Strickland’s slam of “expressivists” and rhetorical sneer at the notion of “writing alongside one’s students.” One can only conclude she’s talking about such emeriti as Walker Gibson, Donald Murray, and Peter Elbow, all of whom (whatever political problems James Berlin might have ascribed to their pedagogies) are people who treat their students’s writing with immense respect; a respect that seems rather diminished in the infantilizing “crayons” metaphor Professor Strickland applies to students. After all, when I assign some quick in-class writing assignments, I’ll often sit down at the computer and write myself, since I’ve always got things I’m working on and trying to puzzle through, and I don’t see doing so as somehow beneath me. Nor do I see the writing work I do as making students’ work infantile by comparison. I’m also someone who, in testing out a new writing assignment, will write the essay myself, just to make sure I fully understand its practical consequences. So I took Professor Strickland’s comments rather personally. Perhaps such pedagogical practices are new to Professor Strickland, but the expressivists she so easily (and, to my ear, rather unkindly) dismisses have known about them — and the respect they foster for the labor of students — for a long, long time.
Joanna, I love the “wild card” thing. I think the serendipitous quality that you’re talking about is often what happens in the CCCC hallways when introductions get made, but to actually set aside programmatic space for such serendipity — neatl idea.
You missed it? Ah, man. I’d be happy to reenact the whole panel with sock puppets some time.
Here’s a 4 C’s question–maybe jocalo can chime in on the answer–has there ever been a”call for categories”? By that I mean, we are given a list of every which way our ideas can fit into the conference, but have we ever been polled to find out what we want at the 4 C’s?
While I’m here. . .read your BlogSIG email–wondered if we have to have a statement that nails down what things are–given the nature of blogging and electronic media, can’t we write something that recognizes that one of our expectations is that there WILL be change? And because we recognize that technology changes rapidly, we believe in these general guidelines. . . .
I’ve never read any resolution all the way through, except for the Wyoming res (which I’ve half-forgotten), so I’m unfamiliar with form and purpose.
Hope you and your kitty get better in time for Easter.
Hi, Mike. I just read your C’s presentation on the Creative Commons site & tried to send you an email, but I’m afraid your cryptoaddress stumps not only the spambots but me! Send me an email?
Becky Howard
Sock puppets? Sounds good.
Joanna, I like your idea about allowing for change: rather than a pedagogical outcomes statement that says, “Because blogs do X, Y, and Z, assignments should. . .”, we would likely do better with a statement saying, “Because we don’t yet adequately understand the ways in which weblogs work. . .”
As far as the categories question goes, Mariolina Salvatori noted in a Q&A session that the categories are largely up to the chair: if the chair has the need or desire — and the necessary time — to change them on the program, she can. This is what resulted in “Reading and Writing” getting dropped as a category (on which topic, see my post on Mariolina’s presentation and my recent follow-up on Derek’s). I’m sure John can add some insight, but I’m just wondering if Professor Anokye might be interested in hearing suggestions like the ones you and Collin offer.
Re: “I didn’t see any panels that had only one or two tech presenters; the tech panels were all tech, all the time (somebody, please, correct me if I’m wrong)”
I was the one “tech” person on my panel, but since it was a historical panel I don’t think it drew many tech people (Jason Palmeri was there and had great feedback, but most responses focused on the historical or gender aspects of the presentation). To be fair, my presentation didn’t deal explicitly with the kinds of sexy technologies that are usually going to draw a tech crowd.