Fourth Annual University Writing Program Conference
University of North Carolina-Charlotte
Center City Campus
October 20, 2017
Keynote Speaker: Ellen C. Carillo

Between the Lines: Critical Reading and Thinking in the Writing Classroom

In calling for a reinvigorated discussion of reading in composition, Ellen Carillo asserts:

Reading is a deliberate intellectual practice that helps us make sense of—interpret—that which surrounds us. And, that which surrounds us includes so much more than published texts. We also read our own writing, our own and others’ belief systems, as well as everything from ideological and social structures to political and advertising campaigns to each other’s expressions and our personal interactions. The range of activities that falls under what might be called “reading” demands a more complex practice than a one-size-fits-all mechanical process of decoding.

Given how closely these ideas echo the assertions we make about writing as a situated and rhetorically contextualized practice, why doesn’t critical reading figure more prominently in writing pedagogy? Can one be an effective writer without being a critical reader? How do critical reading practices inform writing practices and vice versa? And how do these practices, in tandem, prepare students for broader social engagement beyond the classroom?

The 4th Annual UWP Conference at UNCC invites proposals for individual presentations, panels, workshops, roundtable discussions, and posters that address these questions, or various others such as:

• How do colleges, universities, and schools prepare students for their roles as critical readers, writers, and thinkers? How do we teach students to read into writing?
• How do we get students to understand connections between reading and writing?
• How do we adjust critical reading strategies to account for digital texts? And how do we leverage technology and/or digital texts to bolster reading and writing pedagogies?
• How does a critical reading focus help us teach genre?
• How do we harness the reading and writing students do in their own lives with what we teach?
• What are we preparing students for in reading and writing? Our class? Or beyond?
• How do school practices of reading writing and thinking transfer to roles in a democratic society? Is there a difference between teaching critical, rhetorical practices and promoting a political agenda?
• How can instructors at the secondary and postsecondary levels teach critical reading to help prepare students not only to recognize post-truth rhetoric but to resist it?

Please submit a 250-500 word abstract via this site by August 1, 2017. Successful abstracts will indicate how the presentation will address issues of critical reading in the writing classroom at the secondary and post-secondary level.

For more information and conference updates, please visit the UWP Conference website at https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/uwpconference/. If you have any questions, please contact Jon Pope at uwpconference@uncc.edu.

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