Welcome to the website for the North Carolina Symposium on Teaching Writing.

The symposium will take place on October 16-17, 2009, at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.

Registration is still open until September 25th!

The keynote speaker for this year’s symposium will be Kathleen Blake Yancey, Kellogg W. Hunt Professor of English and Director of the graduate program in Rhetoric and Composition at Florida State University, as well as past president of the National Council of Teachers of English and incoming editor of the journal College Composition and Communication.

Keynote address: "High School, College, and the Space Between: Cultures of Writing and Ways They Connect"

Abstract: High school and college teachers have a lot in common. We teach writing and reading; we engage students; we bring a passion to their work that extends far beyond the school day. At the same time, the contexts in which we teach differ. High school teachers have an entire year to work with their students, but they have a raft of tests that, some say, interrupt that work. College teachers don't have to put up with as many tests, but they have less time with students, and they are often held responsible for student writing success by colleagues in disciplines far and wide. Given these similarities and differences, how can we understand the continuum of writing development from high school into college, and what models of transition from high school writing to college composing might we draw upon? In this presentation, I'll sketch out some tentative answers to these questions.

The North Carolina Symposium on Teaching Writing is interested in facilitating discussions focusing on student writing in high school, community college, and university environments. While the examination of issues regarding any of these environments is important, it is also crucial for scholars to consider the transition from secondary to post-secondary education and how instructors at each level can work with students who are developing writing expertise.