2003 Conference Highlights
Spokane Falls Community College hosted TYCA-PNW's 2003 Conference on October 17-18, 2003, around the theme of 'At Home on the Range.' Visit our Photo highlights page.
Keynoter: Howard Tinberg, Editor, Teaching English in the Two Year College.
Luncheon speaker: Jody Millward, Santa Barbara Community College, representing the national TYCA (Two Year College Association).
Summary of Conference Presentations
1. Title: Pedagogical Linguistic Obfuscation: What Language Are You Speaking? Adria Fulkerson of Oregon State University, Monica Holman and Kristin Hilton, both of Portland State University, and Bev Johnson of Portland Community College will discuss the languages of the writing classroom -- oral, literary, academic, and professional -- as four distinct forms of communication whose differences can be learned, taught, and used to help writing students achieve success.
2. Title: More Bang for Your Book: Creating Opportunities for Primary Texts. Barbara Williamson and Heather Keast of Spokane Falls Community College will examine the integration of primary texts into composition or literature classrooms through formalized Book Clubs. Discussion will include the benefits of Book Clubs, guidelines for book selection, forming groups, group maintenance, culminating projects, assessment criteria, and permutations of the basic process.
3. Title: Teaching writing with Technology: A Courseware Alternative to Blackboard and WebCT. Bradley Bleck of Spokane Fall Community College will show that as courseware packages get bigger and better, their mission is to be all things for all disciplines. The Bridge, a courseware package developed for teaching writing by those familiar with composition pedagogy, provides a sounder pedagogical environment for infusing technology into the writing classroom. Come see how it can work for you.
4. Title: Re-Imagining Learning: Mixing Multimedia and Technologies. Camille Conley, Natalie Martinez, James Stewart, and Joanna Kenyon, all of Western Washington University will discuss how Twenty-First Century students' increasingly global and technological environment necessitates a composition classroom that will use multimedia texts to help them develop rhetorical skills. Drawing from different media, each panelist demonstrates how incorporating multimedia texts can help instructors teach students how to be thoughtful readers and writers of their world.
5. Title: So Many Sources, So Little Time: Blurring Genre Boundaries. Diane Houston-Manju, Laura Kingston, Alyson Indrunas, and Rhonda Daniels, all of Western Washington University will discuss the theoretical and practical benefits of blended personal/source driven essays and present an assignment sequence designed to aid its implementation in the classroom. They will draw on creative uses of sources, including multi-media text and social literacies, presenting activities addressing a variety of approaches to the blended essay.
6. Title: Where the reading AND writing folk play: Ranging through an Integrated Curriculum. Margaret Triplett and Crystal McCage of Central Oregon Community College will share the process and product of their efforts to integrate reading, writing, critical thinking, and technology in two levels of developmental rhetoric courses. They will briefly discuss the theoretical models used to develop this curriculum, the actual content of the courses, and the methods of cross-training faculty to deliver instruction.
7. Title: Educating Women the World Needs Most: A case in How a Co-Education University Can Meet the Unique Educational Needs of Women for the Benefit of All. Elisebeth 'E.V.' VanderWeil of Eastern Washington and Gonzaga Universities will explore how, using Gonzaga University's '2002 SeniorLongitudinal Data' research survey notes as an incidental indictor, there is a loss of interest and confidence in leadership roles by women. Problematic areas within higher education, such as classroom participation and the overall university environment, are addressed in light of a societal need for good leaders and the position of higher education as a 'leadership incubator.' A combination of expanded curriculum, mentoring, and service-learning are proposed to better meet the needs of women, as well as the needs of men, the university, and society.
8. Title: Teaching the Personal Essay: A Necessary Step or an Avoidable Nightmare? Gayle Ekins, Amy McCann, Jennifer Ander, and Janelle McCabe, all of Eastern Washington University, will discuss how the personal essay as academic writing is controversial, presenting a number of troublesome questions in the composition classroom. Should we teach it? How should we teach it? How do we respond to it? How do we assess it? They will briefly address their experiences with this writing form and discuss different approaches to teaching the personal essay from each of our major fields of study.
9. Title: Invitin' Students on the Drive: Practical Engagement on the Range. Polly Buckingham, Thom Caraway, Bob Daniels, Kellie Fischer, and Jeff Holmes, all of Eastern Washington University, will present specific methods of engagement and accompanying teaching materials that they have found useful in their classrooms. Invigorating and engaging students calls for gradual re-conceptualizations of the ways they view students, themselves, and the student-teacher relationship. They share a conviction for offering timely and thoughtful challenges to our students by actively considering their individual needs as audiences to our instruction.
10. Title: Undiscovered Shared Experiences. Maria L. Griffin, Deb Jones, and Emily Van Kley, all of Eastern Washington University, will focus on undiscovered shared experiences utilizing instructor perspectives and life experiences. The panel contains a variety of positions: a Southern, working-class non-traditional student involved with Education and TESL, an American Indian's use of color to address culture in technical communications, and a young lesbian feminist creative writer.
11. Title: Grammar as a Foreign Language. Dr. Tracey McHenry and Nanette Wichman, both of Eastern Washington University, will discuss how composition instructors are well aware that students often lack the technical terminology of grammar and that we do not have time to teach it. Should we just give up? Using data from a recent survey, they present specific tips and techniques to bridge the language barrier.
12. Title: First-Year College Students as Literary Critics: Teaching Other How to Love What We Have Loved. Betsy Lawrence of Eastern Washington University writes that through trial and error, she has found a few ways to entice first-year students into reading and will discuss an overview of current research in the teaching of introductory literature as well as some teaching methods that work well in the classroom.
13. Title: Teaching Critical Thinking through Composition. Jimmie Coy of Eastern Washington University will examine forms of composition to illustrate generalizable traits of critical thinking. For example, any critical thinking situation requires an accumulation of content-specific knowledge in order to define terms, develop analogies, describe parameters, develop criteria, and evaluate the outcome of the overall critical thinking episode. Coy will demonstrate how teaching the research paper with its components models this process.
For more information about TYCA-PNW's Fall 2003 conference held in Spokane, Washington, October 2003, contact Dana C. Elder, Eastern Washington University, Cheney, Washington (509) 359-2400 delder@mail.ewu.edu
Updated October 2003. Site editor: beth.camp@linnbenton.edu
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