Join University Writing for the Shug Jordan Lecture and Workshop

University Writing is pleased to welcome Rebecca Nowacek, Rebecca Lorimer Leonard and Angela Rounsaville to present their award-winning research at the third annual Ralph “Shug” Jordan Lecture and Workshop.

Lecture: Relationality in Writing Transfer Research
Faculty across disciplines often ask: How can I help my students use their prior learning in my class? How can I prepare my students to repurpose their knowledge beyond my classroom? This talk addresses these questions by exploring how students’ transfer of learning can be aided through the concept and practice of relationality. Based on a decade-long project that synthesized transfer literature from fields as varied as cognitive and industrial psychology, human resources, second language writing, writing across the curriculum, sports, medical and aviation education, presenters will describe how seeming paradoxes — e.g., learners transfer knowledge both deliberately and automatically; transfer skills are transportable but also bound to context — actually reveal how writers, teachers, texts and contexts are relational, depending on each other for learning to occur. As our talk explores, such a relational approach, when put into practice, has the potential to engage the “dynamic, emergent, embodied, messy” (Prior and Olinger 137) qualities of writing and learning, with the promise of increased transfer to and from our courses.

Workshop: Using Transfer Research to Teach Writing in the Disciplines
This workshop will explore how transfer research can be used to teach with writing in college classrooms. The workshop is based on a decade-long research project in which workshop facilitators engaged in a collaborative transdisciplinary analysis of transfer literature from fields as varied as cognitive and industrial psychology, human resources, second language writing, writing across the curriculum, sports, medical and aviation education. Through hands-on activities, the workshop will consider how concepts from studies of knowledge transfer can productively shape disciplinary writing pedagogy.

The workshop will include three parts. First, facilitators will share a brief presentation of four conceptual themes —intentionality, fidelity, directionality and simultaneity — that emerged from their research study. Second, participants will work in small groups to generate one writing activity or assignment based on one conceptual transfer theme. As they work together, participants will develop a rationale for their assignment/activity connected to their own instructional and discipline-specific contexts. Finally, participants will share and provide feedback on groups’ generated activities or assignments. Participants will leave the workshop with an understanding of transfer research as well as a blueprint for an assignment or activity design relevant to their instructional context.

The Lecture and Workshop will be held in the University Writing Studio (RBD Library 2056) on Friday, Feb. 7. Individuals are welcome to attend, and departmental teams are highly encouraged. Please complete the registration form by Tuesday, Feb. 4, and email universitywriting@auburn.edu with any questions.