017 awp conference & Bookfair February —11, 2017 • Washington, dc

Derrida on the Rez: Teaching Non-Traditional Texts to Non-Traditional Students. (Charles Hood, Michael Copperman, Jenny Liou, Vernon Ng)

There’s an assumption that teaching theory courses or experimental writing mostly happens in universities. Not true: along the edges and outposts of academia, many of us are bringing Derrida to the rez, Bakhtin to the barrio, language poetry to developmental comp. This panel investigates not just so-called hard (or at least unfamiliar) texts taught in non-traditional settings, but also the stigma attached to the teachers whose careers are centered on serving marginalized students.

Digital Pedagogy for Beginners. (Aubrey Hirsch, Faith Adiele, Brian Oliu, Adriana E. Ramírez, Erin Anderson)

From podcasts to Twitter-essays to. gif novels, digital storytelling is on the rise. This panel is aimed at instructors interested in experimenting with this fascinating and challenging material, but unsure of how to begin. Panelists will work to de-mystify the world of digital pedagogy by offering their experiences integrating new media into writing classes. Panelists will suggest examples, assignments and discussion topics appropriate for literature, creative writing and composition courses.

Essaying on the edge: Teaching alternative forms of nonfiction. (Chelsea Biondolillo, Silas Hansen, Alexis Paige, Marco Wilkinson, Brian Oliu)

Hybrids. Microprose. Hermit crabs. Fraudulent Artifacts. Collage. Experimental nonfiction is an increasingly popular subgenre, inspiring anthologies, contests, and even best sellers. It blurs boundaries and often resists definition—which can make it difficult to model and assess in a classroom setting. Join a panel of experienced instructors with a wide variety of teaching experiences as they offer lesson plans, tips, and tricks for effectively bringing this engaging sub-genre to students.

Evidence RResearch and Imagination: Using Research to Illuminate, Shape, and Expand Creative Writing. (Mary Rockcastle, Paisley Rekdal, Peter Geye, Joni Tevis)

Research can inspire writers to move beyond the limits of the self and to remain alert for knowledge. The panel will take a multi-genre approach to writing creatively using research: as a source of inspiration; a tool for developing characters, plots, settings, and texture; a way into a deeper understanding of the material; a structural device; and a means to increase credibility. We will also share useful research practices and ways of integrating research effectively into the text.

Expand Your Teaching Range: Yes, Writing Can Be Taught Well Online. (David Everett, Godfrey Onime, Sue Eisenfeld, Mark Farrington, Bll Black)

The debate about offering online writing courses ended years ago. Many programs increasingly have no choice, especially in the competitive low-residency field. This panel of experienced online teachers and students – all with onsite time, too – will discuss how they became fans of a concept once universally derided. Along the way, the panelists will present best practices for online discussion, exercises, workshops, and other tools, and how digital components can improve any onsite course.

Hop, Skype, and a Jump: Connecting Authors and Students with Skype. (Jeffrey Bean, Mika Yamamoto, Lisa Coutley, Michael Martone, Liz Whiteacre)

Accessibility to the arts has always been a dual concern: both the public and the artists need it. Skype interviews can create these moments of access for very little investment of time or money. In fact, as a methodology that embraces technology and differentiated instructions, it can be used to obtain internal funding. This panel will give the perspectives of writers, teachers, and students on how Skype can help you achieve authentic learning, community outreach, and funding for the arts.

I Told the Paper with the Pencil: How Refugee and Immigrant Teens Find and Share Their Voices Through Writing. (Sarah Schneider, Richard Russo, Lewis Robinson, Molly McGrath, Sonya Tomlinson)

We understand each other through stories. How can writers and teachers use writing to help the newly arrived balance the challenges they face? How can sharing stories and building community in the teaching setting help students and writers do the same outside of it? The Telling Room of Portland, ME, honored by the White House for its writing program for immigrant youth, will discuss and demonstrate the power of connecting teens to their community through writing—and what we gain when we listen.

In Praise of Junot Diaz and Claudia Rankine: Furthering the MFA VS. POC and AWP 2016 Keynote Conversations. (Allen Gee, David Mura, Faith Adiele, Christine Hyung-Lee, Kiese Laymon)

This panel will address what Diaz calls “the oppressive biases of mainstream workshops,” and Rankine’s statement that “Unintentionally discriminating is as bad as intentionally discriminating.” We’ll speak to how MFA programs can best present writing traditions that all students need, including how to facilitate conflict and move beyond white fragility. We’ll offer strategies for students and faculty of color to thrive; we wish to set new priorities and define an MFA landscape for the future.

Innocents Abroad: Essaying with Study Abroad Students. (John Bennion, Richard Katavoas, Gail Wronsky, Eric Freeze, Stephen Tuttle)

“We do not learn from experience,” John Dewey said; “we learn from reflecting on experience.” Writing journals and essays can aid reflection, but student travelers may not know enough to go beyond stereotypical responses. The process of essaying helps them be better observers, so the drafting process is worth the time spent, even in a busy itinerary. This panel, composed of experienced study abroad leaders, will discuss how to help students essay as they travel.

It's None of Your Business--Or Is It?: When Students Resist Their Own Compelling Stories. (David Hernandez, Lisa Glatt, Emily Rapp Black, Suzanne Greenberg)

How do we encourage students to recognize their unique experiences as potential writing material and to bring those narratives to the page? And where should we, as instructors, draw the line? Can encouragement become prescriptive? Is it fair, for example, to suggest to a student with cerebral palsy that omitting his wheelchair from his work may do a disservice to his writing? This panel examines the limits and rewards of teaching creative writing in truly diverse classrooms.

Magical Realism As an Agent for Social Change. (Tessa Mellas, Gregory Howard, Julia Velasco Espejo, Ron MacLean, Laurie Foos)

Latin American Boom masters assaulted political oppression with Magical Realism. Now, this popular genre is adapted by writers of various subject positions to bolster social justice. This panel of magical realist writer/teachers discusses how to guide student use of the genre to confront inequalities of their time and locale. Topics include differentiating schools of magical realism, talking about subject position, appropriation, influence, and metaphor, designing exercises, and guiding craft.

News of the World: Fact-Based Practice in the Creative Writing Classroom. (Nathalie F. Anderson, Betsy Bolton, Nzadi Keita, Lisa Sewell, Elaine Terranova)

How do we engage undergraduate writers, so often invested in personal expression, in the more analytical processes of fact-based exploration? How do we guide them in incorporating archival and observational materials into their work? How do we encourage them to give dry facts -- scientific or historical or statistical -- new life on the page? Five teachers, including poets, memoirists, and fiction writers, explore this pedagogic challenge through their project-oriented course designs.

No One Thinks They’re a Racist: Conscious and Unconscious Bias and Racism in MFA Programs. (David Weiden, Sarah Rafael Garcia, Ruby Hansen Murray, Misty Ellingburg, Alexandria Delcourt)

This panel will address the conscious and unconscious racial biases that often exist in MFA programs. Students of color frequently experience obstacles in workshop as well as faculty mentors unable or unwilling to effectively critique diverse work. Panelists will discuss these challenges as well as potential solutions for faculty members, program administrators, and workshop participants.

(Not) Just the Facts: Teaching Docupoetry and Investigative Poetics. (Erika Meitner, Rosa Alcala, Philip Metres, Susan Briante, Tyehimba Jess)

How can we help students define and create documentary poems, and tackle ethical dilemmas inherent to documentary? 5 Poets discuss innovative pedagogies, strategies, texts, digital tools, and exercises for teaching documentary poetry in undergraduate and graduate writing workshops, and issues that arise in the process. We will also explore the specific ways we engage in larger conversations around ethics of ‘truth,’ ‘objectivity,’ ‘text,’ language, and representation in poetry in the classroom.

Opening the Doors to Discovery: The Generative Writing Workshop. (Rachel Basch, Baron Wormser, Rebecca McClanahan, Dustin Beall Smith, Kim Dana Kupperman)

No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader, said Robert Frost. How do creative-writing teachers help students open the doors to discovery? This panel will explore generative workshops for adult writers. Panelists have taught many workshops in all genres and developed a sense, practical and intuitive, about the value of using prompts to generate fresh and surprising writing. The notion is reminiscent of Buddhist koans: be in the present and respond to what occurs in the moment.

Postcolonial Perspectives on Workshops of Empire. (Mirabai Collins, Conchitina Cruz, James Shea, Janelle Adsit, Eric Bennett)

This panel responds to Eric Bennett’s provocative new book Workshops of Empire: Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing during the Cold War. By historicizing international writing programs, panelists call for decolonizing approaches to understanding creative writing pedagogy. They examine the University of Iowa’s relationship to creative writing programs in Hong Kong, the Philippines, and among First Nations people in Canada. Author and scholar Eric Bennett will serve as a respondent.

Qualifying the Quantitative: Grading Methods and Alternatives. (Luke Rolfes, Robin Gallaher, Christopher Merkner, Ande Davis, Alyssa Striplin)

Instructors, especially new ones, often feel we can assess which submitted stories, creative essays, or poems should receive a grade of A, B, C, or D in our minds, but marking these scores on creative work carries far more anxiety, connotation, and weight. What substitutes exist for traditional grading methods? Panelists discuss how students respond to alternative and modified assessment modes, the research behind these methods, and how to choose a style that best suits an instructor’s needs.

Reckon and Revise: Feminist Practices for Re-Envisioning the Poetry Workshop. (Sasha Steensen, Lisa Olstein, Hoa Nguyen, Metta Sama, Deborah Paredez)

Too often, inherited practices, power dynamics, and other assumptions embedded in the traditional workshop are perpetuated without examination, limiting and even harming the possibilities for poets and poems. Feminist poet-teachers will explore ways to counter the monolithic workshop model's enactments of patriarchal, white and hetero-normative privilege while redistributing power and shifting modes of engagement in pursuit of more just, dynamic, and transformative conversations and poems.

Red Flags and Gray Areas: When Creative Writing Crosses a Line. (Carla Caglioti, William Ste. Marie, Karen Offitzer, Helen Story, Robert Stein)

When student writing contains disturbing or violent themes, the instructor must decide: red flag or gray area? Is the writing an attempt at art or does it cross the line and become inappropriate or threatening? Is it both? What next? This panel offers techniques to identify red flags, respond compassionately, and recognize when compassion is not enough. Seasoned and novice educators join a psychologist to define the gray areas and flag the red ones.

Reinventing Collaboration: Transforming Arts Education. (Mara Adamitz Scrupe, Michele Kishita, Kathy Rose, Ian Roseen, Anna Beresin)

What would arts education look like if students from the visual and performing arts, and creative writing collaborated and then wrote creatively and critically about their experiences? Five panelists from The University of the Arts’ Common Curriculum discuss proven models for engaging undergraduate students from across the university’s curricula, encouraging team building and innovation, and improving writing and presentation skills as they create boundary-crossing work in the creative arts.

Singular Opportunity: Teaching Creative Writing to One-Time Learners. (Luke Rolfes, Jeff Hess, Jess Bowers, Jenny Yang Cropp, Christopher Merkner)

How do instructors approach students who may or may not receive more creative writing education in their lifetimes? Sometimes bright-eyed, sometimes skeptical non-majors and elective-takers arrive on day one of many writing workshops and courses. These one-time learners may have enrolled to chase a hidden passion, go for an easy A, or simply try their hand. Panelists will discuss expectations for what we can offer these learners and strategies to help our teaching resonate in the long term.

Slow Reading: Creative Writing, Experiential Learning, and Values. (Evan Klavon, Dale Smith, Jonathan Skinner, Angela Hume, Taylor Brorby)

In this media age, students read more, and faster, than ever before—in the form of texts, tweets, posts, emails, etc. What are the differences between this reading and the ways we hope for them to engage with literature? How might students benefit—as writers and as persons—from the attention to experience, ecological thinking, and emphasis on values promoted by the Slow Food / Slow Culture movements? This panel will explore Slow Reading as a concept and its practice in teaching creative writing.

Some of My Best Friends are Octavia Butler and Ursula K. LeGuin: Genre Bias in the Creative Writing Workshop. (Asali Solomon, Victor LaValle, Naomi Jackson, Mary Stewart Atwell, Chris Gavaler)

Many fiction professors were trained to write and teach something called "literary short fiction": realism plus George Saunders. In contrast, many of our students wish to write fantasy and other "genre" stories for young adults. This panel assembles teaching fiction writers with varied genre affiliations to discuss building a more inclusive workshop, acknowledging that snobbery is not sound pedagogy and that a bad fantasy story is not necessarily worse than a bad realist one. (Right?)

Studying Abroad with Writers Not Tourists. (Dionne Irving, Chad Davidson, Kelcey Ervick, Aaron Bremyer)

As more faculty offer writing courses abroad, we wrestle against the essay in which students claim profound self-discovery putting away a croissant near the Eiffel Tower. Panelists will discuss how, why, and in what ways they use writing during their respective study abroad programs based in Italy, China, Jamaica, and Prague. How does travel writing that theorizes the difference between tourists and travelers help students engage in a more authentic and ethical, less problematic form of travel?

Teaching the Literature of Another. (Christina Marrocco, Rabi'a Hakima, Tony Ardizzone, Daniel Shank Cruz, Carl Fuerst)

As teachers of writing we offer our students a diverse literature, not just the literature that matches our own identity (or theirs), but how can we be most effective? How does the Chinese-American teacher teach African American writers? How does the African American teacher bring in Latino writers? How does the Straight, Latino teacher teach LGBT writers? What are the boundaries? This panel of teachers working regularly and thoroughly at such intersections shares their challenges and insight.

The Body Electric in the Ether: Creative Writing Pedagogy Goes Online. (Ryan Sobeck, Caitlin Scena, Belle Gironda, Joseph Rein)

Schools are pushing into the digital era, rapidly expanding their offerings of online and hybrid classes in every subject. But what does it mean to teach creative writing beyond the classroom? What are the affordances and constraints of the online environment? How are traditional practices, like the writing workshop, adapting? Experienced writers, educators, and instructional designers discuss the obstacles, approaches, and developments of online and hybrid creative writing education.

The Body in Words: Teaching Creative Techniques in Sound Symbolism, Sexuality, Silences, and the Feminist Working Class. (Michelle C. Wright, Laurel Perez, Jillian Merrifield)

How do sounds, sexes, silences, and class structures play out in creative making? This multimedia presentation probes into the embodied dynamics that inform not only workshop practices, but also how students take up multiple genres and make sense of creative processes. Questions about race, gender, class, and language and how the body is constructed make for persuasive techniques, asking participants to engage in craft as contributing to social meaning making and alternative knowledges.

The G Word: Writing and Teaching Genre in a Changing Literary Landscape. (Katie Cortese, Art Taylor, Idra Novey, Matt Bell, Porochista Khakpour)

Historically, creative writing workshops shunned so-called genre fiction in favor of literary realism. Today’s college- and graduate-level writing students, though, were raised on graphic literature, flash fiction, hybridity, and novelistic television shows featuring stellar dialogue and world-building, and often want to challenge the constraints of conventional, realistic fiction. The writers and teachers on this panel will discuss how they treat genre in the classroom, and in their own work.

The Nurturing Ballbuster: Interrogating Gendered Pedagogies within Creative Writing. (Kristine Ervin, Lisa Lewis, Keya Mitra, Nicole Zaza, Eva Foster)

This wouldn’t happen if I were a male professor: a response many women have when describing their performance reviews, exchanges with students and colleagues, or experiences on the job market. But rather than uphold a system defined by authority, should we instead adopt and value a different approach, one that breaks gendered binaries? A diverse group of women will discuss challenges they have faced as instructors and their strategies for adhering to or disrupting privileged pedagogical methods.

Theories of Everything: Multi-genre Workshops, Multi-Genre Writers. (Cathryn Hankla, Elizabeth Poliner, Yim Tan Wong, Jenny Boully, Jeanne Larsen)

What is the value of considering fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in the same workshop? Faculty and alumnae from Hollins University (an AWP Founding Member) discuss creative writing pedagogy in the Hollins multi-genre model: strategies, benefits, and challenges. They will read examples of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry from such grad & undergrad alumnae/i as Sally Mann, Will Schutt, Kiran Desai, Lee Smith, Natasha Trethewey, James Tate Hill, Balli Kaur Jaswal, Tara Sim, and Molly Jean Bennett.

This Is My Word For That: Teachers Share Their Most Helpful Invented Craft Terms. (Joseph Scapellato, Matt Bell, Jameelah Lang, Hasanthika Sirisena, Dan Chelotti)

When there isn’t a word for what we’re trying to teach, why not make one up? In this panel, five teachers share the craft terms of their own invention that have helped their students the most. The panelists will also examine the circumstances that the terms are in response to—what pushed them to invent. The goal is to not only offer practical pedagogical tools, but to start a conversation that will guide and inspire teachers to invent their own terms, matched to their own teaching styles.

To Grade or Not to Grade: Assessment and Undergraduate Creative Writing. (Abby Bardi, Kathryn Kysar, Patricia Elam, Robin Marcus, Mark Keats)

In our data-driven era, undergraduate creative writing instructors are caught between the practices of traditional workshop culture and the increasing demand for “measurable course outcomes” that may seem reductionist to creative practitioners. This panel of seasoned and newer creative writing instructors will conduct a lively discussion of grading creative writing from a variety of perspectives, sharing insights and innovative workarounds for navigating the new world of assessment.

Together with All that Could Happen: A Teaching Roundtable. (Michael Martone, Emily Raboteau, David Jauss, Melanie Thon, Josh Russell)

Writing and teaching fiction is recursive process misrepresented somewhat by the conventional language of pedagogy, especially the somewhat cryptic term “teaching philosophy,” which for young teachers necessarily implies that conception and method precede experience. On this panel, experienced teachers and theorists of creative writing craft discuss distinct pedagogical and theoretical viewpoints and how they came to form them.

Tough Stuff: Workshopping Depression and Grief. (Susan Scarf Merrell, Lou Ann Walker, KD Williams, Odette Heideman Baker)

Roger Rosenblatt once counseled not to “write from your knees.” Workshop leaders need to be nimble when presented with works about depression and grief so that writers don’t feel shut down. In an Eeyore sort of way, writers can find themselves in a slump, not understanding the role of hyperbole, satire, and humor in writing about the most difficult subjects. The key is to avoid the dour and the sentimental, to keep characters from becoming caricatures.

Triggered Writing/Creative Warnings: Trauma and Trigger Warnings in Creative Writing Classroom and Communies. (Lee Ann Roripaugh, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Natanya Pulley, Lori Horvitz)

This session will explore the complexities of working with volatile/triggering material—both as writers and as teachers of creative writing—and will attempt to examine and deepen the discussion of trigger warnings: the pedagogical paradox of using trigger warnings while attempting to encourage courageous work in memoir, confessional poetry, and other genres; trigger warnings as potential othering/literary ghettoization; trauma theory and creative writing; and neurochemistry and trauma.

Troubled Waters: Negotiating Disturbing Students and Texts in the Creative Writing Classroom. (Audrey Colombe, Allison Joseph, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Prageeta Sharma, Lisa Norris)

Difficult students in university creative writing classrooms require response—special assistance, intervention, or warnings. Faculty, often women, work within and beyond the boundaries of the classroom to handle disturbing situations without clear models of how to proceed. Presenters with experience at private and public institutions will offer methods for responding to students and managing classrooms—plus a map of institutional support and some practical advice about F.E.R.P.A.

VIDA Count in the Classroom. (Holly Burdorff, Camille Rankine, Sarah Marcus-Donnelly, Prageeta Sharma, Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie)

Panelists will present best practices for incorporating VIDA Count data into a creative writing class -- how to: talk to students about inequities in literary publishing, use Count information to re-shape syllabi, and create assignments which aim to close the reviewing gap. Panelists have a range of teaching experience (with regard to geographic location, grade/degree level and academic affiliation) and as such, they will present on and discuss a wide variety of classroom settings.

We’re Recruiting: Teaching and Enacting Social Justice in the Writing Classroom. (Melissa Febos, Syreeta McFadden, Colin Beavan, Sreshtha Sen, Rachel Simon)

To teach writing is essentially a political act—we give our students the tools to examine and question their culture and the potential to change it. But how much of our own agenda do we bring into our curriculum? How do we teach our students to think and speak critically from their own experience? Teaching writers and activists in realms of racial justice, feminism, LGBTQI, and environmentalism share their methods, successes and failures to integrate social justice and the pedagogy of writing.