2017 Arizona State University

Composition Conference

Saturday, February 25, 2017

8:00 am – 3:15 pm

Language and Literature Building

Tempe Campus

Welcome to 2017 ASU Composition Conference

Welcome to the tenth annual Arizona State University Composition Conference. We are pleased to have as participants not only our own Writing Programs teachers from the ASU Tempe campus, but also faculty from ASU Downtown, Northern Arizona University, the University of Arizona, and Mesa Community College.

The conference is a great way of exchanging ideas related to composition theories and practices, assessment, program administration, literacies, multilingualism, composition and technology, as well as any topics that bridge these.

This year’s keynote speaker is Dean of Humanities George Justice, who will share with us his thoughts on the ASU Charter and then lead a brainstorming session for ways in which the Writing Programs can engage the ASU Charter.

In combination with Dean Justice’s round-table talk, every member of Writing Programs is invited to submit a developed idea for how Writing Programs can support the ASU Charter. The best submissions will be recognized by awards between $250 and $400. For more information about this effort to engage the ASU Charter, please see

There will be three concurrent sessions of individual and panel presentations, two in the morning and one in the afternoon. After the complimentary lunch in LL 316, we will give out two teaching awards for engaging and innovative teaching assignments or activities.

We would like to thank ASU’s English Department for its generous support for this event. Many thanks also tothe following Writing Programs faculty members who contributed to the success of this conference by serving as judges in the teaching awards committee, assisting with the setup of the event, helping with registration, and taking photos:

Gregg Fields / Sean Moxley-Kelly
Sarah Jackson-Young / Samantha Ruckman
Bruce Matsunaga / Glenn Newman
Jeremy Meyer

Best wishes for a productive 2017 ASU Composition Conference,

Adelheid Thieme (Associate Director of Writing Programs, Conference Chair)

2017 ASU Composition Conference Schedule and Description

8:00 am – 9:00 am Registration
Lobby / Registration will be moved to LL 316 after 9:00 am
LL 316
(3rd Floor) / Light Breakfast /Starbucks Coffee
9:00 am – 9:10 am Opening Plenary Session
LL 02
(basement) /
  • Welcome (Adelheid Thieme, Associate Director of Writing Programs/Conference Chair )
  • Welcome (Aaron Baker, Interim Chair of English Department)
  • Welcome (Shirley Rose, Director of Writing Programs)

9:10 am -10:10 am / Keynote and Discussion
Keynote (George Justice, Dean of Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)
George Justice will present the ASU Charter along with his thoughts on how it can bolster our efforts to educate a diverse range of students at the university. The session will largely consist of discussion with faculty teaching a range of courses in the Writing Programs. Together we will brainstorm ways to support our students on their educational journey.
10:30 am – 11:30 am Concurrent Sessions A
LL 240 / Session Chair: Kevin Kato
10:30-10:50 am
Presentation:“ Freewriting Exercises Your Students Will Actually Enjoy”
Dave Mondy, University of Arizona
Description:Short freewriting exercises can be an incredibly useful tool to help students explore many different topics in an imaginative and enjoyable way. However, these simple exercises must be designed to actually engage your students. This presentation will offer exercises that can be immediately used in the classroom.
10:50-11:10 am
Presentation: “Corpus analysis to teach more effective peer written feedback”
David Courtney, Northern Arizona University
Description: Some students bristle at the notion of peer feedback (Elbow, 2011). To teach better peer written corrective feedback (WCF), the presenter describes a corpus analysis of discourse-level features in effective comments by freshman composition students. Finally, participants do an activity for higher quality comments in their classrooms.
11:10-11:30 am
Presentation: “Regaining Lost Time: Using Video Tutorials to Maximize Class Time”
Dana Tait, Arizona State University
Description: This presentation discusses the practical use of video tutorials to help facilitate student learning and to help instructors spend less time on “how-tos” during class time to regain instruction time.
10:30 am – 11:30 am Concurrent Sessions A
LL 241 / Session Chair: Glenn Newman
10:30-11:00am
Presentation: “The Role of ePortfolios in Supporting Metacognitive Practice: Reflection as a Means of Creating Learning Outcomes”
Adelheid Thieme, Emanuel Bécquer, Arizona State University
Description: Reflecting on a summer internship in a local community service organization under the mentorship of a Writing Programs teacher, an ASU student explores how completing an ePortfolio heightened his levels of metacognition in relation to his skill set and his personal growth. The presentation is testament to the success of portfolio-driven pedagogy.
11:00-11:30 am
Presentation: “Classroom Activities for Students Developing Electronic Portfolios”
Katherine Heenan, Arizona State University
Presentation: “Diving into Digication: In Class and Other Activities for Digital Portfolios”
Description:In this presentation I will illustrate several in class and out of class activities that encourage students to work in their digital portfolios throughout the semester. These include peer feedback activities, invention activities, response activities, and research activities.
LL 243 / Session Chair: Elizabeth Ferszt
10:30-11:30 am
Roundtable: “Teaching to Support Student Voiced Agency in English Composition”
Adele Leon, Nicole Schmidt, University of Arizona
Description:This is a presentation that explores two Graduate Assistant Teachers’ plans to investigate the development of voice in low-stakes writing, as opposed to major writing assignments, over the course of a semester. Drawing from Cushman’s vision of students and teachers being agents of social change, ideas and aspects of a politically-charged critical pedagogy will be shared and discussed.
11:45 am – 12:45 pm Concurrent Sessions B
LL 240 / Session Chair: Heather Hoyt
11:45-12:45
Presentation:“Redesigned ENG 302 Curriculum: Information Session”
Heather Hoyt, Arizona State University
Description:This information session will provide teachers with updates about the redesign of ENG 302: Business Writing based on collaboration with the W. P. Carey School. The updated ENG 302 curriculum will be effective in Fall 2017.
LL 241 / Session Chair: Dana Tait
11:45 -12:05
Presentation:“Emo in the Composition Classroom: Considering the Use of Emojis and Emoticons for Peer Review”
Elizabeth Lowry, Arizona State University
Description:
This presentation considers the potential plusses and pitfalls of using emojis/emoticons for responding to student drafts during peer review and discusses possible ways in which assignments might be developed to help students to use emojis/emoticons reflectively during the drafting and sharing processes.
12:05-12:45
Presentation: , “A Citation Cornucopia: The Value of Learning Multiple Citation Styles & How to Teach Them”
Heather Crook, Arizona State University
Description: Many of our students are required to write in more than MLA, and they will be required to use APA, or Chicago Style, without instruction. ENG 101 & 102 are where they will learn the basics to be familiar with how to construct each of these formats.
LL 243 / Session Chair: Katherine Heenan
11:45-12:05
Presentation: “Why Writing Studies Needs Surveillance Studies: Exploring Digital Rhetoric and Social Justice in FYC”
Sarah Jackson Young, Arizona State University
Description: Surveillance is an under-explored area of focus in Writing Studies. Expanding on work from Computers and Composition and using research from the interdisciplinary field of surveillance studies, I show why surveillance is important to examine and what a surveillance pedagogy could look like in a FYC course.
12:05-12:45
Presentation: “When Politics Enter the Writing Class: Facilitating Effective, Critical Conversations about Controversial Issues”
Melani Martinez, Krista Ferguson, University of Arizona
Description:The tense election season and emotionally charged disagreements of 2016 posed critical challenges for discussing controversial issues in composition classes. This panel shares real classroom experiences that generated new approaches to these tough conversations. We will examine practical guides for engaging students and inviting dialogue that bridges divides in the classroom.
LL 245 / Session Chair: David Boyles
11:45-12:05
Presentation: “An Alternative ASU English 101 Curriculum”
Michael Hatch, Arizona State University
Description: This presentation offers an alternative approach to an English 101 curriculum. This curriculum maintains the same amount of writing but spreads it across more pieces. This gives students more opportunity to better understand different genres and forms of writing while exploring the same issues and concepts.
12:05-12:45
Panel: “In Defense of Reliable Sources: Teaching Credible Research in the Era of ‘Fake News’”
Heather Ackerman, Stephanie Downie (ASU Phoenix), Valerie Fazel, Adam Hoffman, Jennifer Waters, Arizona State University
Description: ‘Fake news’ as satire has been around for centuries, but only in the last year has the topic become a major concern. Since the election, the legitimacy of reliable news sources has been further diminished. This panel will explore the potential pitfalls of teaching reliable research practices in these times.
12:45 pm – 1:30 pm Lunch
LL 316 / Complimentary Lunch
1:30 pm – 2:00 pm Teaching Awards
LL 316 / Presentation of Teaching Awards
2:15 pm – 3:15 pm Concurrent Sessions C
LL 240 / Session Chair:Shirley Rose
2:15-3:15
Panel:, “Examining Teacher Practices outside the Classroom: Extending the ViTA Project”
Sean Moxley-Kelly, Gregg Fields, Brandon Whiting, Kevin Kato, Holly Fulton, Paulette Zillmer, Arizona State University
Description:This panel explores teacher practices outside of the classroom through ethnographic-style visualization. These practices are an important component of teaching that are typically unexamined. A variety of visualizations are presented, along with a discussion of their creation process and value in the context of the ASU English Department’s building move.
2:15pm - 3:15 pm Concurrent Sessions C
LL 241 / Session Chair: Valerie Fazel
2:15-2:30
Presentation:“Habits of Mind and New Media Skills: A Framework for Turning Classrooms into Participatory Cultures”
David Boyles, Arizona State University
Description:As many writing teachers grapple with the rise of “fake news,” this presentation will use the work of media scholar Henry Jenkins to examine junctures where online participatory cultures and composition classrooms can meet and learn from one another.
2:30 pm – 2:45 pm
Presentation:“The Rhetoric of Trust in the Sharing Economy”
Elizabeth Ferszt, Arizona State University
Description:In his 2016 TED talk, Joe Gebbia explains “How Airbnb Designs for Trust” by encouraging certain moves with language that prompt, control, and produce the right amount of writing to create trust between host and guest. Using this talk as well as my own experiment in attempting to rent (on craigslist) the upstairs of my own house in Michigan, I have created a writing assignment in which students in my Business and Professional Writing classes read about my rental/trust experience, and decide which of the four respondents to trust/rent to, based on the language used online.
2:45-3:15
Presentation:“Emphasizing inquiry-based learning: Project-based learning through integrated curriculum”
Adam Webb, Janelle Kappes, Christina Lam, Arizona State University
Description:The Arizona State University ProMod project encompasses an interdisciplinary approach that encourages instructors from different schools to collaborate and cohere their goals, objectives, and outcomes in order to create shared curriculum, which includes a shared syllabus and projects and utilizes a project-based learning approach.
LL 243 / Session Chair: Laura Cruser
2:15-3:15
Panel:“Theory and Practice in Stretch Practicum”
Susan Bernstein, Karen Dwyer, Mandy Roth Luszeck, Josh Cruz, & Ian James,
Arizona State University
Description: Josh, Mandy, Ian, and Susan evolved our theories and practices of basic writing through diverse backgrounds of teaching, learning, and writing. Through our writing, our digital artifact, and our students’ writing, we hope to show that basic writing still occupies a much needed place in academia. Karen serves as respondent.

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