Teaching of Writing Festival at Suffolk County Community College

The following is an invitation from Suffolk Community College to all teachers, students, administrations to their Teaching of Writing Festival on October 19th:

Greetings!
Your department is cordially invited to the Teaching of Writing Festival at Suffolk County Community College (Ammerman Campus, Selden NY) on Saturday October 19th from 9:00am-2:00pm. This conference/festival is for teachers, students, and administrators to learn, share, and celebrate different approaches to the teaching of writing. We are inviting teachers and students from local high schools, colleges, and universities to explore the diversity of academic writing and how we can bridge the gaps between multiple communities and discourses, especially in navigating and negotiating the transitions between high schools, two year colleges, and four year universities.
These professional development workshops will be given by faculty so we are soliciting proposals from teachers across Long Island to give our conference/festival a more diverse program. Proposed workshops could include syllabus construction, creating high school writing centers, college writing centers, evaluating student writing, assessing student performance and progress, BRIDGE programs, developmental writing, creating in class assignments, successful writing prompts, academic integrity/plagiarism, collaborations between high schools, two year, and four year schools, and research and revision preparation for multiple writing situations. We are also inviting students to participate as well so that faculty can gain more holistic and practical insights into the writing process and how teachers and students conceive, perceive, and live writing in all aspects of academic, civic, and community life. The Teaching of Writing Festival will provide speakers, workshops, breakout sessions, relevant activities, and opportunities to discuss, explore, and celebrate diverse teaching methods in order to enhance and expand practices of writing, composition, and rhetoric.

 
We are especially excited to invite students to the conference/festival. We feel that students could benefit tremendously from gaining a clearer understanding of what the expectations for college writing are, and, for any prospective teachers, what opportunities the field of English offers. We also feel that students are valuable resources in giving us feedback and sharing their experiences with writing with us. Please encourage your students to attend!

Proposed Schedule:
9:00-9:30am—On-site registration (for those who don’t preregister)
9:30-10:00am—Greeting and overview of events
10:15-11:00am—Session 1: Panels and Workshops
11:15am-12:00pm—Session 2: Panels and Workshops
12:15-1:30pm—Lunch and Keynote Speech
1:30-2:00pm—Closing and Feedback

Registration is free. If you would like to attend, please contact William Burns at 631 451-4537 or burnsw@sunysuffolk.edu.  If you would like to present in a workshop or panel discussion, please e-mail a 250 word (max) proposal including name(s) of presenter(s), brief discussion of topics you will discuss, and any A/V needs to burnsw@sunysuffolk.edu by August 2nd. If you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Thank you and we are looking forward to sharing the day with you.
The Suffolk County Community College Ammerman Campus Composition Committee