Fall 2014: Writing Program Brown Bag Series

All sessions held in the Memorial Hall 3^rd-floor lounge. Light snacks and beverages will be provided.

Places to Start: Moving Towards Universal Design in the Classroom

Tuesday, September 23^rd, 11:00-12:00

For the first brown bag of the 2014-15 academic year, Jay Dolmage, professor of rhetoric, composition, and disability studies at the University of Waterloo, will facilitate a conversation about the concept of “Universal Design” (UD) as a means of creating more accessible and inclusive ways to move pedagogically. The starting point of the conversation will be a “list” of Universal Design suggestions across teaching modes and student engagements.

Don’t Wait: Remediate!

Wednesday, October 8^th, 11:15-12:15

Over the past few years, “remediation” assignments have sprung up in first-year composition courses, both at UD and nationally. Such assignments challenge students to rewrite their research papers in new modes and genres and for new audiences. This brown bag lunch will be run as a roundtable, in which Michael McCamley, Janel Atlas, and Caitlin Larracey talk about their remediation assignments, how they engage students in multimodal writing, and what E110 course outcomes these assignments support. Come learn about “rewriting” research papers as video projects, magazine articles, and Tumblr posts, and share some of your own ideas and experiences!

Teaching in the Internet Age: What’s On (the) Line?

Tuesday, November 11^th, 11:00-12:00

In this era of rapidly evolving internet and communication technologies, online learning in higher education is booming. In this brown bag session, Lauren Hornberger will lead a discussion about online writing instruction in particular. Topics may include why and how writing is currently being taught online, available technologies for delivering course content and facilitating interaction, types of assignments and activities that work particularly well in the online environment, and strategies for ensuring student engagement. We will also explore possibilities for implementing the best of traditional writing instruction in the online classroom as well as how online teaching strategies may inform our approaches to face-to-face instruction.

Any questions, thoughts or suggestions for brown bags? Contact Jane Wessel (jwessel@udel.edu) or Kiley Dhatt (kileynd@udel.edu).