The Power of Writing Dialogue Day

March 5, 2004
Chandler-Gilbert Community College
Student Center Pavilion 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.
Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided. /span>

featuring...
Dr. G. Lynn Nelson
Professor of English, Arizona State University

Writing is a powerful vehicle for personal and academic growth and understanding. It is also essential to several instructional initiatives in higher education including critical and creative thinking, classroom assessment, and general education assessment. This dialogue day is all about experiencing for ourselves the power of writing. We will begin the day with Lynn Nelson, talking about teaching, writing, and the human spirit. Then, through writing and discussions, we will discover how writing activities and assignments can be meaningful, interesting to read, and demonstrate our students' understanding of the material.

For teachers to engage students in the power of writing, we need to write ourselves. Yet, how many of us take the time for regular writing on a variety of topics, and how many of us, especially faculty from disciplines other than English, feel confident about assigning and evaluating writing that is meaningful and will likely foster the very personal and intellectual growth desired?

Based on a national model established by the National Writing Project, events such as this dialogue day gather faculty together to write--in an effort to better define writing, understand what it takes, and adopt it as part of routine pedagogy in all disciplines. This event teaches writing by having faculty write. By engaging faculty in the writing process, we will better comprehend implications for requiring writing of our students.

At the dialogue day, we will also discuss further opportunities for the type of work we will be doing on that day, including participating in the Greater Phoenix Area Writing Project at ASU in June. This project will gather teachers of all levels and representing various disciplines from across Arizona. We hope to have a large group of college instructors this year.

About the speaker...
The keynote speaker will be Dr. G. Lynn Nelson, Professor of English at Arizona State University. Dr. Nelson is the director of the Greater Phoenix Area Writing Project, which is part of the National Writing Project.

He is a nationally recognized expert on teaching writing and using writing to learn. His publications include his book Writing and Being and recently published articles, "Warriors with Words: Toward a Post-Columbine Writing Curriculum" and "Writing Beyond Testing: The Word as an Instrument of Creation." Dr. Nelson's talk is titled, "Beyond Composition, Toward Communion: A Larger Vision for Teaching Writing."

The Power of Writing: A Multidisciplinary Experience Dialogue Day

Faculty Professional Growth