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Conferences
Upcoming Conferences
Beyond Blame: Authority, Creativity, and Plagiarism in the Digital Age 9:00am-5:00pm What if we approached the idea of what constitutes plagiarism from a different perspective? Students now have widespread access to vast quantities of information on the Internet, and many teachers see plagiarism as a fast-spreading, uncontrollable epidemic in schools, colleges and universities. Increasingly, schools are turning to software like turnitin.com to help monitor what students are presenting as their own work. Access to information is only going to increase, so rather than trying to police it, shouldn’t we consider a new approach and fresh problematization of the issues? At our annual conference, the Institute invites teachers to think creatively about plagiarism and move towards a better understanding of the 21st century’s shifting definitions of creativity, originality, and authorship. Instead of starting from a negative premise of how to prevent undesired behavior, the conference will consider ways to reframe the issue: How might questions surrounding ownership and writing present teachers with opportunities to create better assignments and provide occasions for productive conversations with students and colleagues? As preoccupation with plagiarism is in fact a luxury not available to many schools—especially those struggling day-to-day to help students discover their voices and the world through writing—how might teachers there convey a sense of creative ownership, when getting students to feel comfortable putting pen to paper is first and foremost the goal? The conference begins with a small group workshop focusing on plagiarism and the Internet, cultural differences in understanding and defining plagiarism, and new understanding of creativity. In the two workshops following the plenary session, participants write to articulate ideas and visions for a framework that might guide students to be owners of their own writing. An aim of this work will be to help teachers create more focused assignments connected to the texts, documents, and discussions used in class. Plenary session panelists include: Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, will introduce a plenary panel discussion inviting deeper reflection on the ethical, intellectual, and rhetorical dimensions of plagiarism with Ray Peterson, principal and English teacher at the Bard High School Early College, NewYork, Jane Cadwell, dean of academic affairs and English teacher, Phillips Exeter Academy, and Margaret (“Ranny”) Bledsoe, principal, Charlestown High School (Boston). The panel will consider a range of questions: What do we consider plagiarism, and why does it matter? What approaches to thinking about it have resulted in positive outcomes for students, teachers, and schools? How are notions of authority and authorship changing in the digital age? Following discussion and lunch, small groups will meet again for two sessions in the afternoon. Conference Schedule 8:15–9:00 a.m. Registration and coffee 9:00–9:15 a.m. Welcome and introduction 9:30–10:45 a.m. Session 1 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Keynote and panel presentation, followed by Q & A 1:00–2:15 p.m. Lunch 2:15–3:45 p.m. Session 2 3:45–4:00 p.m. Break 4:00–5:30 p.m. Session 3 5:30–6:30 p.m. Refreshments and farewell The fee for this conference is $135; it does not include housing. For further information or to request a conference flyer, contact Judi Smith at 845-758-7484 or jsmith@bard.edu.
Past Conferences
Report? Paper? Essay? Making Connections “While young people excel at lyrical poetry and mathematics, it is hard to think of anyone who made a mark on the personal essay form in his or her youth . . . . It is difficult to write analytically from the middle of confusion . . . ” —Phillip Lopate, The Art of the Personal Essay (New York: Anchor Books, 1995) “It takes at least a dozen years before the taint of the schoolroom—the ‘essay question,’ the college application essay, the essay on the principal exports of Bulgaria due Thursday at 10:00, all of which have as much in common with an essay by Montaigne as a vitamin pill does with a chocolate truffle—wears off completely.” —Ann Fadiman, The Best American Essays (Houghton Mifflin, 2003) “The field of potential within the essay lies in the active zones between believing and doubting. (Congealed belief, or doubt, produces tracts.) This is why the essay in its best uses can be the most important exploratory tool of humanistic thought. Its active middle terms is a particular kind of play with and of ideas—the play of minds in pursuit of both pleasure and meaning, the pleasure of making meaning.” —Joan Retallack, The Poethical Wager (University of California Press, 2003) All essayists were once young. Classrooms need not suffer from the taint of dutiful but lifeless writing that is commonly associated with the “essay.” And although essay is often synonymous with reflection on personal experience—which may require the experience of middle age—the essay is in fact not one thing. The essay represents a wide range of formal, informal, and experimental forms, a range of personal, critical, and analytical writing that lives in an interdisciplinary world. What distinguishes the essay, however, is that it is thinking by means of writing—a form of writing that is as appropriate in an analysis of a literary text or an exploration of a psychological phenomenon as it is in exploring personal memory and identity. Essay is writing that mirrors the writer’s thinking as she makes connections, explores an idea, or responds to a problem. This conference explores what we—and our students—can learn about writing and thinking from studying the essay, and students’ lives can be enriched by practice of the essay as an act of imagination and exploration. The Institute secondary and college teachers in all academic fields to reconceive the essay as a form of thinking that can be useful for writing papers in the social studies, history, and science as well as in English and composition or language arts. Whether we assign papers in history or literature, reports in science, or essays in English, many of us are disappointed with the results. Embedded in the form of the essay—as practiced by writers from Montaigne to Michael Pollan—are clues to improving student writing. Small group workshops, a keynote talk by writer Phillip Lopate, and informal discussion provide an opportunity to read and reflect on several varieties of the essay and to imagine writing assignments that will allow students to compose essays that are the equivalent of a “Milky Way,” if not the “chocolate truffle” of middle age. Format: Conference participants will receive a packet containing an eclectic collection of essays by writers such as Mary Gordon, Susan Griffin, Michael Pollan, Brian Doyle, and Rosemary Waldrop—along with selected student papers—to be read in advance of the conference. Writing in response to, and discussion of, the essay collection will be the focus of the small group workshops, led by faculty associates of the Institute for Writing and Thinking. Lively discussion of the essay collection provides the occasion to explore the common goals and techniques that themes, papers, exploratory essays, and scholarly articles share and to imagine how to teach students to do in their papers what essayists do. Additional examples of traditional and experimental essays as well as papers on the essay form will enrich the discussion. Featured Speaker: Phillip Lopate is the author of numerous essay collections, including Portrait of My Body (1996), Against Joie de Vivre (1989), and a memoir of his teaching experiences, Being with Children (1975). He is the editor of the Art of the Personal Essay, the Library of America’s Writing New York, and series editor, The Art of the Essay. He has taught at Fordham University, Cooper Union, the University of Houston, Columbia University, and New York University. He is Professor of English at Hofstra University, where he holds the John Cranford Chair in the Humanities. Workshop leaders: Celia Bland, director, Academic Resources Center, Bard College Darlene Forrest, director of faculty development, Expository Writing Program, New York University, and instructor in English Education, New York University Alfred Guy Jr., R.W. B. Lewis Director of Center for Writing Instruction, Yale University Susan Kirschner, senior lecturer in humanities, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon Sharon Marshall, lecturer, Program in Writing and Rhetoric, SUNY at Stony Brook Nicole Wallack, associate director, Undergraduate Writing Program, Columbia University Conference Schedule Friday, April 15, 2005 8:00–9:15a.m. Registration and Welcome 9:15–10:45a.m. Workshop session 1 11:00a.m. – 12:15p.m. Plenary session Keynote: Phillip Lopate 12:30–1:30p.m. Lunch 1:30–3:00p.m. Workshop session 2 3:00–3:15p.m. Break 3:15–4:45p.m. Workshop session 3 4:45–6:00p.m. Plenary discussion and closing reception The conference fee, which includes tuition, materials, and lunch, is $125. Accommodations are not included in the fee. You will receive a list of area motels when you register. The Institute offers a 10 percent discount to schools sending three or more teachers to the conference. Website: http://www.bard.edu/iwt/teachers/conferences/april05.shtml
Great Expectations: Re-Visioning the Academic Paper This year's April conference will address the academic paper—why we assign it, what we expect students to learn from writing it, and how we explain to students what it means to write thoughtfully in different academic disciplines. Much has been written about teaching writing “across the curriculum.” But we have paid less attention, this conference will suggest, to thinking in different academic disciplines; have been less interested in learning how to ask students for what we want. Teaching students to write academic papers is about more than teaching disciplinary conventions--in history, economics or literary criticism. We also need to teach students how to pay attention to audience, how to identify essential questions, read key texts closely, and support the inquiry with appropriate research. But students are (as Gerald Graff has described) outsiders to most academic fields of study. Are our disciplinary expectations beyond the grasp of most students? Or are we simply not helping students learn how to make the moves that the best kind of academic writing calls for? The Institute invites secondary and college teachers of all academic fields to join with college faculty in history, economics, and literature, and with faculty associates of the Writing and Thinking Institute, to first identify what counts as good writing in different academic fields—what we find engaging and memorable in papers, monographs, and essays—and second, to write and talk about how to translate these values into what we ask from students. Format: Through panel presentations, small group writing workshops, and whole group discussion, we will ask: What can we learn from current examples of creative non-fiction and how such writing handles factual information and precision? Is the academic paper, as it is currently understood in the secondary and college classroom, the best way for students to learn how to engage a topic? to refine a question? to wonder? Should we re-define the academic paper or essay? The panel of scholars and teachers in economics, history, and literature will talk about what makes for good writing in their fields, what they expect from student papers and how they convey those expectations to students. We will also ask panelists (and conference participants) to define classroom practices (e.g., assignments, use of drafts, methods for revising) that teach students how to write better academic papers. Conference participants will receive a packet of readings in advance. The packet will contain excerpts from provocative as well as conventional examples of academic writing in history, anthropology, and economics. The readings will provide the occasion for talking about: the uses of narrative in the academic paper, the virtues of creative non-fiction, and the disciplinary conventions of academic writing. Samples of papers written by high school and first year college students will be the focus of another workshop session where we will address the issues of audience, revision, and methods for responding to students’ papers. Panelists: Robert Frank, Professor of Economics at Cornell University, Mark Lytle, Professor of History, Bard College, and Nancy Leonard, Professor of English, Bard College and Institute faculty associate. Frank Cioffi, Director of the Writing Program at Scripps College will moderate the panel discussion. Workshop leaders: Darlene Forrest, Director of Faculty Development, Expository Writing Program, New York University, Alfie Guy, Jr. R.W. B. Lewis Director of the Yale Writing Center, Susan Kirschner, Senior Lecturer in Humanities, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Irene Papoulis, Lecturer in the Allan K. Smith Center for Writing and Rhetoric at Trinity College, Hartford. Conference schedule: Friday, April 21: 8:15–9:00 a.m. Registration and Coffee 9:00–9:15 a.m. Welcome and Introduction 9:30–11:00 a.m. Workshop Session I 11:15 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. Panel Presentation followed by Q&A 12:30–1:45 p.m. Lunch 200–3:30 p.m. Workshop Session II 3:30–4:00 p.m. Break 4:00–5:30 p.m. Workshop Session III 5:30–6:30 p.m. Reception The fee for this conference is $125; it does not include housing. To register, please complete the registration form below, and return it with full payment to Judi Smith. For further information, please contact Judi Smith at 845-758-7484 or jsmith@bard.edu.
Forms of Freedom: Reflections on Freewriting as Discovery Since Peter Elbow wrote these words, high school and college teachers of English and composition have experimented with forms of freewriting as a practice for getting words on the page, for eluding the critical and judgmental voice that blocks writers, and as a kind of aspirin to cure the young or insecure writer's most frequently voiced complaints: "I can't think of anything to write about" or "I'm stuck; I don't know where to go with this." As a practice that helps the writer begin a story, an essay, or research paper, freewriting breaks through mental and emotional static, creates a space to breathe, fosters creativity, and liberates energy. But, as with aspirin, there is always the risk of irritation, leaving the writer with an abundance of words on paper, but little sense of how to shape a form or create a structure. Freewriting—and forms of informal writing that have evolved from it, such as focused freewriting, reflective or process writing, and loop writing—is also a method for thinking through writing, for discovering ideas about a subject, and for initiating classroom discussion. Since its inception in 1982, the Institute has emphasized freewriting as a valuable practice for thinking creatively and energetically through writing, for finding a point of departure for a writing project, for unblocking. But what is freewriting's connection to other kinds of writing, such as the essay and the research paper? Can freewriting support critical thinking and skillful revision? Or does freewriting erode the writer's ability to think critically about either the subject or the writing itself? Does it leave the writer unable to find a way through the writing, or discourage intelligent and rigorous editing? The Institute's April conference invites secondary and college teachers to take freewriting seriously: to consider what freewriting is, and what happens to language and thinking when writers use freewriting in various ways. The conference hopes for a rich discussion and careful examination of freewriting as an end in itself and in comparison to more structured forms of writing. We aim for lively responses to questions such as: How can writers remain connected to the creativity, energy, and agency unlocked by freewriting, while fostering the order and structure required of a good essay or research paper? How can we integrate critical thinking into the writing process without losing the energy, creativity, and discovery generated in freewriting? Formal presentations, plenary discussions, and small group workshops provide the setting for experiencing freewriting as discovery, for hearing how teachers of composition, English, history, anthropology, and biology make use of freewriting in their classrooms, and for learning about how Bard's Workshop in Language and Thinking—established in 1981 by Peter Elbow—has developed practices that balance the creativity and energy of freewriting with analytical writing that furthers thinking. Featured speakers Keynote Peter Elbow, professor emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; author, Writing with Power, Embracing Contraries, and A Community of Writers Respondent Robert D. Whittemore, associate professor of anthropology, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, Connecticut Participant/Observer Pat C. Hoy, professor of English; director, Expository Writing Program, New York University; author, Instinct for Survival
Revision: Lessons from Artists and Writers The Institute’s one-day April conference seeks to re-define revision and asks the questions: Why do students, and often teachers, experience revision as a task outside of, apart from, writing? Where is revision in the act and construction of writing? Where is revision in a sequence of freewriting, close-reading, collaborative learning and "writing to read" activities through which the writer explores, plays with, rejects, and clarifies her ideas, perceptions, and questions--constructing the elements of an essay, story, or paper along the way. Through presentations and small group workshop, we will ask, what if part of revision is the restlessness that invites rethinking, questioning, wondering? What if it is all part of the creative process? To enrich our thinking about revision, this conference looks outside the classroom and lessons on the teaching of writing to ask what we can learn about the process of revising from the arts where revision is often collaborative and public. We imagine that from learning more about the decisions made in making a film regarding how a section of a film is cut and shaped into scenes, background music added; how an initial concept for a dance is changed as dancers perform initial steps; and how a director works with actors to interpret a play’s meaning, will offer teachers a unique frame for thinking about revision. Both teachers and students are often short of time. How many teachers have time to read and respond to multiple drafts? How many students expect to re-write/revise papers once submitted? But the question itself implies that revision is a separate part of writing; something done following submission of a first "draft," or that revision is fixing, where the only revisions for which there is sufficient time are correcting errors of punctuation, spelling, grammar, and final proof reading for words or sentences omitted. Revision in many cases is already happening, it's in the writing and preparation for writing an essay, it's in the thinking, in the note-taking. Reflecting on where revision is in our assignments for students and in class work helps us become more aware of revision as construction and the revising happening that we may take for granted. By becoming more aware of our expectations of revision as a "part of writing," we will have more agency in helping students develop as more confident and skillful writers. One way of re-seeing revision in writing is to look at it from an odd-angle, from different perspectives. The presentations/demonstrations will allow conference participants to step back from the concerns and preoccupations about how to "get students to revise their work" and to enter into another way of doing and thinking about revision. By considering definitions of revisions from film, dance, and editing, we hope to enlarge the field of thinking about revision in the secondary and college classroom. Website: http://www.bard.edu/wandt/teachers/registration/form.shtml |