Conference on the Teaching of Writing

To celebrate the Twentieth Annual Conference on the Teaching of Writing, this year’s conference theme is “Joy to You and Me: Making Space for Joy in the Writing Classroom.” We understand joy as a powerful resource, a mode of resistance, and a pedagogical framework. As writing instructors, challenges to ourselves and our students are innumerable. Finding joy amongst dread, upheaval, and catastrophe can be a practice of resilience, a refusal to accept a status quo that hurts us. We also understand joy in the classroom as an act of care, both for ourselves and for our students. Opportunities for laughter, compassion, and play can both be a needed distraction, but can also act as revelatory gestures of expression that help us frame our experiences in new ways. Joy invites others into our space and fosters community in our classrooms and on our campuses. How do we frame the work we do not merely as keeping up but about flourishing? How might we even understand failure as a kind of flourishing?

We are thrilled to be hosting Stephanie West-Puckett as this year’s keynote speaker. Dr. West-Puckett’s research centers the use of queer interventions for writing studies and assessment. Her current project bridges these pedagogical methods with practices of joy in the writing classroom.

While attending sessions from research panel presentations, to teaching workshops, to research slams, attendees will consider the following questions throughout the conference:

How do practices of joy emerge in the writing classroom?

How can joy be incorporated into assignments and class activities?

How does joy shape our experiences as teachers? How might it shape our students’ experiences?

How can joy influence writing assessment? How might we think about joy and failure as key components to assessment?

How can we think about joy in connection to Writing Program Administration? What’s at stake and what opportunities are there?

How is joy constructed in particular ways according to race, gender, and sexuality?

How can writing practices make room for or create possibilities for joy? How might we situate multimodal writing as specific kinds of joy?

How can resistance and revolt be constituted as joy? How do we explore this in our classrooms or on our campuses?

How can we understand joy as a community endeavor? What opportunities can joy create in our classroom, department, or campus communities?
How can joy be a part of conversations about dual enrollment programs in our learning communities, such as Early College programs that bring first-year writing classes to high school students?

We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Stephanie West-Puckett as the keynote speaker for the University of Connecticut First-Year Writing Program’s Conference on the Teaching of Writing, taking place in Storrs on Thursday, April 24, and Friday, April 25, 2025.

Dr. West-Puckett is an Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric at the University of Rhode Island, where her research explores writing assessment, queer rhetorical interventions, cultural rhetorics, and participatory design. Her scholarship challenges traditional assessment structures, advocating for practices that embrace complexity, creativity, and the diverse rhetorical traditions of student writers.

Her keynote address, Hell Yes, Joy is a Strategy: Reclaiming Play in Writing Assessment, will explore how play, experimentation, and joy can serve as radical strategies for reimagining assessment. Drawing from her latest book, Failing Sideways: Queer Possibilities for Writing Assessment, Dr. West-Puckett interrogates how failure—often seen as a deficiency—can instead be a generative, even liberatory, force in writing instruction. Her work examines the ways in which queer and cultural rhetorics provide alternative frameworks for assessment, creating more inclusive and student-centered approaches to evaluating writing.

Beyond her scholarship, Dr. West-Puckett’s teaching manifesto reflects her commitment to radical inclusion, experiential learning, and collaborative knowledge-making. She envisions writing classrooms as spaces where students can take creative risks, challenge dominant norms, and develop rhetorical agency in ways that extend beyond academic writing.

At a time when writing instruction and assessment practices are being re-examined in response to shifting educational landscapes, Dr. West-Puckett’s work provides a vital perspective on how educators can reclaim joy, play, and experimentation as critical pedagogical tools. We are excited to have her share her insights and invite all conference attendees to engage in this important conversation.

The conference will serve coffee and tea in the morning and lunch in the afternoon (vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options available).

There are many options in Downtown Storrs for dinner, coffee, and/or snacks. We recommend Gansett Wraps, Dog Lane Café, and Kathmandu Kitchen & Bar. There are also numerous other stores and restaurants in this area, including Price Chopper, CVS, Subway, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Starbucks, and Dunkin’.

The Student Union (SU) Building, located a 5-minute walk from the building where the conference takes place, contains a food court and a convenience store.

2024 Conference on the Teaching of Writing

June 10, 2024

UConn First-Year Writing presents the 19th annual Conference on the Teaching of Writing Counterstories, Co-Conspirators, and Composition Saturday, April 20, 2024 University of Connecticut Storrs, Connecticut

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