2021 Program

Conference Dates & Times

10:00 am — Introductions & Opener by the Executive Board

Elections and board positions. Please propose names of candidates for various positions by filling out the nominations form that was sent to all participants.

10:15-11:15 am — Keynote, 45 minutes with 15 minutes for Questions & Answers (Q&A)

Keynote Speakers: Michal Reznizki & David T. Coad

Practical Waves of Change: Transforming the Composition Classroom with Engaging Activities

Co-editors of the upcoming book Dynamic Activities for the First-Year Composition Classroom, Michal Reznizki and David T. Coad will discuss the need for a more practical guide with engaging activities that will revolutionize the composition classroom.

Michal Reznizki is a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley and holds a PhD in Education with an emphasis on the teaching of writing from UC Davis. She has been teaching first-year composition for the past 10 years.

David T. Coad is English faculty at West Valley College and Solano College. He also holds a PhD in Education from UC Davis, focusing on the teaching of writing. David has published in Kairos, Computers and Composition and Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy.

11:15-11:30 am — Break to Chat & Socialize

11:30 am-12:00 pm — Session A

Using Question Clouds to Engage Students’ Curiosity in Social Justice with Dan Curtis-Cummins, San Francisco State University

In this interactive workshop that can be applied to everyone’s curriculum, we will practice how to engage students in a Mind Mapping exercise to generate a curious mindset about social justice issues. Starting with Amanda Gorman’s TED Talk and overview of various question genres, the workshop can be adapted to your curriculum using current events, literature, and/or to begin students’ research processes and topic selections as I use it.

Moderator: Sterling Warner

11:30 am-12:00 pm — Session B

“Lend ears!”: Using Audio Recordings of Polished Texts to Cultivate Rhetorical Awareness with Heather Shearer, University of California, Santa Cruz

Writing instructors often encourage students to use speaking and listening to aid revision, such as when students are advised to read drafts aloud during peer review. Expanding the use of speaking and listening to include audio recordings of polished texts can help students deepen their rhetorical knowledge of audience and delivery. This presentation summarizes relevant research on the benefits of using recorded texts and describes two simple techniques for integrating them into composition courses.

Moderator: Kathleen Hudson

12:00-1:00 pm — Lunch

Meet here with your lunch and socialize, or lunch on your own and meet back at 1:00 pm.

1:00-2:30 pm — Session C

Let Freedom Ring: Integrating Social Justice Activities in Our Classrooms with Dan Curtis-Cummins, Jolie Goorjian, & Joan Wong, San Francisco State University

In this interactive workshop, we will engage in activities that creatively address social justice issues that our students face, encounter, and care about.  Starting with Rhiannon Gibbons’ “Cry No More”, we will share activities that we use in our classes and invite participants to reflect on social justice issues and create and/or share an activity that rings true for them and their students. Participants will leave with activities that can be adapted to their curriculum using current events, literature, and/or research topics, all of which support and build community and greater awareness of social justice issues.

Moderator: Chela Courington

1:00-2:30 pm — Session D

Assignments for Climate Crisis Culpability with Randy Fallows & Tamar Christensen, University CLA Writing Programs

In our panel, we will discuss various assignments we have given our students to understand both the impact of climate change and what can be done about it. From creative nonfiction pieces that help them to wrestle with their personal culpability to Op-Eds and Ted Talks, which empower them to reach a multitude of audiences as they take an activist approach for personal and social change.

Moderator: Kirsten Schwartz, San José State University

2:30-3:00 pm — Break with Norton Publishing

Grab a virtual coffee with Norton and learn about resources designed to help students with editing, research, and information literacy skills. Those who attend and fill out a short follow-up survey will receive a Starbucks gift card and a copy of Andrea Lunsford’s new little rhetoric, Let’s Talk!

3:00-3:45 pm — Session E

Rhetorical Resonances of C. S. Lewis During a Pandemic with Isaac Richards, Brigham Young University

My presentation shares insights from a rhetorical close reading of two of C. S. Lewis’ works that went viral during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis finds striking similarities between the two writings, and both resonated strongly with Christian audiences during the pandemic. My presentation will also solicit other insights through an interactive conversation about what rhetorical features of Lewis’ work may contribute to his recurring prominence in modern rhetorical situations.

Moderator: Alesya Petty, San José State University

3:00-3:45 pm — Session F

Resisting the Standard, Inviting the Translingual with Adrienne Jones Daly, Independent

This interactive session gives instructors a set of practices and dynamic elements to consider to help them create a classroom space that invites a more creative and inclusive understanding of language, rhetoric, and writing. These practices are grounded in a translingual orientation that helps to challenge standardized language ideologies that inhibit students from using their full rhetorical knowledge.

Moderator: Amber Sylva, San José State University

3:45-4:00 pm — Grab a Drink & Mingle

4:00-6:00 pm — Fireside Social: Round Robin Reading of Poetry and Short Fiction

Share the Stage, Grab the Page, and Ride the Wave!

Ume Ali, SJSU MFA

Chela Courington, Kathleen Hudson, Tobey Kaplan, and Sterling Warner, Emeritus Laney College, Las Positas College, and Chabot College

10:00-10:30 am — Morning Address with Forecast of the Day & Social Time

10:30 am-12:00 pm — Session G

Fight the Power: Teaching Writing for Social Justice with Maura Tarnoff, Ainsley Kelly, Maggie Levantovskaya, & Jackie Hendricks, Santa Clara University

This panel will discuss how we’ve adapted our courses in response to COVID-19 and the ongoing struggle for racial justice. In particular, we will address our efforts to center BIPOC voices in our teaching, frame and reframe assignments to help students think about authority, privilege, and positionality, as well as research and implement antiracist pedagogies.

Moderator: Amber Sylva, San José State University

10:30 am-12:00 pm — Session H

Breaking the Rules to Create Change: Repositioning Assessment in First-Year Composition with Jia-Wei Dang, Mirian Hernandez, Jolie Goorjian, Makaela Mabrey, & Stephen Panagiotopoulos

In this interactive workshop, we—one teacher, one peer mentor, and three first-year undergraduate students—share with participants how we broke the rules and repositioned ourselves Fall 2021 in First-Year Writing. Participants will engage in an activity that mirrors our work teaching literacy narratives by designing the assignment’s expectations, completing the assignment, and assessing participants’ work based on our shared rubric. Participants will leave this workshop with activities and ideas for repositioning themselves and their students in their classrooms.

Moderator: Elia Hohauser-Thatcher, Wayne State University

12:00-1:00 pm — 2021 Rhetorician of  the Year & Lunch

Ryan Skinnell interviewed by Amber Sylva (Q&A format)

Ryan Skinnell is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition and Assistant Writing Program Administrator in the Department of English & Comparative Literature at San José State University (SJSU). He has taught rhetoric and writing classes at five universities to all levels of students, including a summer seminar for faculty at the National University of Modern Languages in Islamabad, Pakistan. He is also an SJSU faculty media expert in political speech, politics, and rhetoric as well as an OpEd Project Public Voices Fellow.

Dr. Skinnell studies political rhetoric and public discourse, especially as it relates to authoritarianism, demagoguery, and extremism. He has related interests in bureaucracy, institutional rhetoric, histories of rhetoric and writing (particularly in higher education), historiography, and archival research. Dr. Skinnell has published six books, including Faking the News: What Rhetoric Can Teach Us About Donald J. Trump (2018) and Rhetoric and Guns (forthcoming 2021). He has also published more than 80 articles, book chapters, and op-eds, and has given more than 80 presentations to academic and non-academic audiences on topics ranging from demagoguery, fascist rhetoric, and contemporary political discourse to American education, bureaucracy, and faculty development. He is currently working on a book about how Adolf Hitler used rhetoric to persuade millions of Germans to support, or at least acquiesce to, Nazism. For a full CV, please visit RyanSkinnell.com.

For past Rhetoricians of the Year, please view this page.

1:15-2:00 pm — Session I

Visibility Language for Classroom Empathy with Katherine Rothschild, Stanford University

This presentation offers a multi-disciplinary curricular approach for empathy-centered classrooms to deconstruct language and make meaning visible in its intent and historical meaning. The presentation will address student pushback, share research on anti-racism curriculum, and offer the results of a focus group study after a civil liberties protest rhetoric course used Visibility Language to address linguistic bias in the classroom and beyond.

Moderator: Kirsten Schwartz, San José State University

1:15-2:00 pm — Session J

Fostering a Prosperous Learning Environment for Critical Thinking with Ashna Singh, California State University, Stanislaus

How can educators and faculty meet the needs of underprepared students in the classroom? It is our responsibility to identify discrepancies about student learning, so we can prioritize the development of our students. My presentation examines the progress of five college students’ writing abilities through their experiences in remedial, freshmen, and upper-division writing courses. Based on my findings, I will discuss how educators can implement pedagogical strategies for source-based writing in the classroom.

Moderator: Tamar Christensen, University of California, Los Angeles

1:15-2:00 pm — Session K

Making Your Syllabus More Inclusive with Katie Oesau, Yuba College

Diversity statements? Listing my pronouns? Equitable syllabus policies? Is this stuff really that important? Messaging matters. The messages our teaching materials send to students matter. One way to ensure that we are supporting our diverse population of students is to make our teaching, and thus our teaching documents, more inclusive. Come learn a little bit about how to make your syllabus (and your teaching in general) more equity-minded, inclusive, and accessible for all students.

Moderator: Alesya Petty, San José State University

2:00-2:15 pm — Social Break

2:15-3:45 pm — Session L

Promoting Student Agency with Information Literacy with Nicole Allensworth, Lizzy Borges, & Faith Rusk, San Francisco State University

In this 90-minute presentation, we will discuss the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy, our Teaching Research Toolkit, and how it can be infused into courses with rhetorical assignments, as well as other librarian-instructor collaborations that can support student information literacy development in composition studies. Participants will also have the opportunity to brainstorm activities to scaffold information literacy learning and get immediate feedback.

Moderator: Jolie Goorjian, San Francisco State University

2:15-3:45 pm — Session M

Engaging Mobility Justice in Rhetorical Pedagogies with Walter Lucken IV & Elia Hohauser-Thatcher, Wayne State University

This 90-minute workshop will model an activity wherein participants read a transit map of a major Great Lakes city as a primary source which organizes the motion of people through the built environment.

Moderator: Katie Oseau, Yuba College

3:45-4:00 pm — YRC Executive Board Elections

Please vote for future members of the 2022 conference at the link that will be provided to all participants.

10:00-10:15 am — Executive Board Election Results & Virtual Coffee & Donuts

10:15-11:45 am — Session N

Rethinking Peer Review with Melissa M. Donegan, Santa Clara University (45 minutes)

Peer review offers a valuable opportunity for students to feel connected—and to improve their writing. In this presentation, I will discuss the benefits of an online peer review structure, including student responses to this work. I will also acknowledge the effort involved in orchestrating the exchanges and consider how to make the system work for face-to-face classes.

Moderator: Maura Tarnoff, Santa Clara University

Pandemic Monologue and Dialogue: Documentary Theater as Rhetorical Genre with Andrew Rejan, Darien High School (45 minutes)

This interactive presentation will explore the use of interview-based monologues in recording, shaping, processing, and performing testimonies of life during the pandemic. Drawing on the techniques of Anna Deavere Smith, the presenter will share how interview-based monologues can offer a means of fostering dialogue, even in (or perhaps especially in) an online or socially distanced learning format.

Moderator: Katie Oseau, Yuba College

10:15-11:45 am — Session O

Compassion and Flexibility Workshop with Clara Weygandt & Tiffany Lynn Wong, University of California, Santa Cruz (90 minutes)

In this workshop, we create a space for teachers to discuss the ways that writing instructors can use the concepts of compassion and flexibility to help their students and themselves. We will come together and share what we discovered works, through our experiences, and also provide researched techniques and structures that teachers have been finding helpful in dealing with the upheaval and trauma and grief of the past year.

Moderator: Issac Richards, Brigham Young University

11:45 am-12:00 pm — Break

12:00-1:00 pm — Executive Board Elections & Meeting