Friday, November 18th — 1pm-4pm – Rio Grande Campus, Multipurpose Room, 1103.00 (1st Floor)

The presentations will also be available via Zoom.

1:00	Welcome & Introduction
1:10	Errors Ain’t Equal: The Groundwork for Grammar for the Underprepared & Underrepresented	Deanna Johnson, CLS	In person
1:30	Q & A
1:35	Standard English: Teaching the Conflict	Dylan Walsh, CLS	Zoom
1:55	Q & A
2:00	Break
2:05	Session Introduction
2:10	Grammar in Context: Using Grammarly to Provide Just-in-time Grammar Feedback	Alex Watkins, CLS	In Person
2:30	Q & A
2:35	Technical and Business Writing Roundtable	Kathleen Shapley, BGTC, Allison Trahan, BGTC and Susan Meigs, CLS	Zoom
2:55	Q & A
3:00	Break
3:05	Session Introduction
3:10	Direction, Not Discipline: Labor-Based Grading and Inclusive Grammar Instruction	Grant King, CLS	In Person
3:30	Q & A
3:35	Getting Meta: How to Talk about Audience and Academic English Together	Amber Clontz, CLS	In Person
3:55	Q & A
4:00	Closing

Errors Ain’t Equal: The Groundwork for Grammar for the Underprepared & Underrepresented – Deanna Johnson, CLS

The presentation will discuss techniques I utilize in class to help students understand that grammar errors are not isolated to them, and they, too, can learn the rules and be grammar-effective. I bring them into the grammar-world by using their everyday writing/verbal tools of usage, such as social media and text language, to identify errors and then resolving them. Basically, I am using real-world elements, versus a textbook, to make them feel comfortable in exploring grammar and learning how to apply the rules with their newfound tools.

Standard English: Teaching the Conflict – Dylan Walsh, CLS

My presentation would address questions related to the extent to which (if at all) writing instructors should reinforce the idea that it’s necessary for students to learn and use something called “standard English” in composition and literature courses. Of course, on the one hand, as teachers, we’re trying to help students learn to write and communicate effectively in academic and workplace settings. On the other hand, as Vershawn Ashanti Young argues in his article “’Nah, We Straight’: An Argument Against Code Switching,” for many writing teachers, our notions of what constitutes effective writing (including standard grammar) in such settings are derived from our imaginary ideas about the linguistic practices of white, upper-middle-class people—and this is problematic for a number of reasons.

Grammar in Context: Using Grammarly to Provide Just-in-time Grammar Feedback – Alex Watkins, CLS

Although teachers have long bemoaned students’ lack of knowledge of grammatical rules and spent countless hours trying to hammer these lessons home, research suggests that decontextualized grammatical teaching is ineffective, and in some instances, exclusive of marginalized groups. In this presentation, I will discuss how teaching with Grammarly empowers students by providing a tool they can use to produce standard edited American English and learn to identify and correct common errors in their own writing.

Technical and Business Writing Roundtable – Kathleen Shapley, BGTC, Allison Trahan, BGTC and Susan Meigs, CLS

Three ENGL 2311 instructors (Kathleen Shapley, Allison Trahan, and Susan Meigs) will share their approaches to teaching grammar in the technical communication classroom. The learning activities emphasize tools over rules by illuminating the human side of plain language and encouraging students to understand their audience and purpose.

Direction, Not Discipline: Labor-Based Grading and Inclusive Grammar Instruction – Grant King, CLS

In my presentation, I’d like to address the ways in which labor-based grading, an evaluative method developed by Asao Inoue, can offer teachers an opportunity to provide grammatical tools to their students while still valuing nonwhite/nonstandard languages approaches. I will begin with an overview of the ways in which white language supremacy is harmful to all students, then offer a look at labor-based grading in general, discuss examples from my own teaching career, and include student responses to labor-based grading (which I’ll elicit from my students this semester, with whom I’m currently using labor-based grading.)

Getting Meta: How to Talk about Audience and Academic English Together – Amber Clontz, CLS

High School students are often told not to use “you” in their academic writing. Looking at examples of student work, we will discover how conversational “you” can be used to introduce metadiscourse, an essential academic writing tool. When practiced first in conversation, metadiscourse can guide students to develop their purpose in writing to a specific audience. Conversational pre-writing activities that make space for “you” can take the pressure off writing in Academic English, creating the experience for students to see how shifts in tone happen.