I’m currently living in my nerdiest of fantasies where I’m a Ph.D. wielding professor at a small university who teaches composition, current education theory, and high schoolers on the side and who is unabashedly and unequivocally adored by my students. This small university is grateful enough for me to send me to the greatest of rhetorical composition conferences—the famed Conference on College Composition and Communication, or the 4Cs. I meet up with my professor friends, watching each other give presentations on research and theories that we are backing and oohing and ahhing over the celebrities in the field that we spot in the 15 minute passing periods. In my dream vision, the secondary education pedagogy dovetails with the rhetorical composition research to burst into a beautiful theory bird that threads its music throughout the sessions I attend.
In an attempt to normalize my life, late November last year I wrote up a proposal to present my research at a poster session at some conference I didn't know anything about. Now I’m at the 4 Cs with my blue lanyard, talking to other people who care about writing, introducing myself to scholars who I cited in my thesis, and walking around Pittsburgh like I own the place.
It’s probably the most explicitly social-justice-committed place I’ve ever been to, from signs on the bathrooms saying that everyone is welcome to beginning each session with a land acknowledgment (which means naming the indigenous people who live on the land where the conference is) and a no-punches-pulled keynote about how well-meaning white people perpetuate white supremacy even when they think they are giving students the right to their own language. My liberal heart is bursting, and the more mainstream part is a little taken aback by it all. It feels like a lot of performative gestures (Kristine, that one was for you) but as they say, ya gotta fake it til you make it.
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After being in a Christian school and going to a Christian college, I was actually surprised when I didn’t hear, “Let’s open in a word of prayer” from the first speaker. I had forgotten that people usually just start going into their speeches and don’t offer that kind of acknowledgment. Obviously I’ve been to other places where not everyone is Christian, and I don’t expect everyone to pray before everything, but it jumped out to me a lot more than it hard before. I realized I missed it—that routine, that nod towards God—and started to see that I actually do find some value in opening prayers.
As my roommate (another undergrad poster presenter) and I walked past the Catholic church next to our hotel, she asked, “Are you super religious?” While I should have expected the question after telling her about giving social media up for Lent and going to a Christian college, I stammered around the question. I had a moment the day before where I walked outside of the convention center and looked over the river that it bordered, and all I could think was “I miss you God.” I couldn't really make sense of that. So am I super religious because I think about God and give things up for Lent? “I mean, maybe? I think I want to be, but I'm just not there yet,” I said, unsure if that hedging answer was enough to edge me out of the “religious fanatic” category in her mind.
I had an amazing time, weird religious interludes aside. I bonded with my thesis advisor Kristine on our drives between Grand Rapids and Pittsburgh, ate a lot of all-American (read: all-greasy) food, visited some classrooms themed after different nations in University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning, took public transit in Pittsburgh (I swear I saw a bus on every street every time I was walking because the buses are so dang frequent), and reevaluated my stance on Andy Warhol so now I just think he’s a (pack rat) little overrated rather than completely overrated.
I loved being at 4 Cs because it prompted me to come up with all these new ideas of how I can leverage writing theory in the classroom (writing fellows! Incoming surveys about genre experiences! Making the purpose of the assignment clear!*), but more importantly, it furthered my growing sense of professionalism. Being surrounded by people who were teaching and relatively situated in their field and the little tendrils of student teaching that followed me to Pittsburgh—mostly in the form of frantic student emails and digital check-ins via Google Classroom—both make me feel like I’m being propelled closer and closer to a new era of life. Maybe that era will continue in more 4 Cs conferences; maybe not.
In an attempt to normalize my life, late November last year I wrote up a proposal to present my research at a poster session at some conference I didn't know anything about. Now I’m at the 4 Cs with my blue lanyard, talking to other people who care about writing, introducing myself to scholars who I cited in my thesis, and walking around Pittsburgh like I own the place.
It’s probably the most explicitly social-justice-committed place I’ve ever been to, from signs on the bathrooms saying that everyone is welcome to beginning each session with a land acknowledgment (which means naming the indigenous people who live on the land where the conference is) and a no-punches-pulled keynote about how well-meaning white people perpetuate white supremacy even when they think they are giving students the right to their own language. My liberal heart is bursting, and the more mainstream part is a little taken aback by it all. It feels like a lot of performative gestures (Kristine, that one was for you) but as they say, ya gotta fake it til you make it.
———
After being in a Christian school and going to a Christian college, I was actually surprised when I didn’t hear, “Let’s open in a word of prayer” from the first speaker. I had forgotten that people usually just start going into their speeches and don’t offer that kind of acknowledgment. Obviously I’ve been to other places where not everyone is Christian, and I don’t expect everyone to pray before everything, but it jumped out to me a lot more than it hard before. I realized I missed it—that routine, that nod towards God—and started to see that I actually do find some value in opening prayers.
As my roommate (another undergrad poster presenter) and I walked past the Catholic church next to our hotel, she asked, “Are you super religious?” While I should have expected the question after telling her about giving social media up for Lent and going to a Christian college, I stammered around the question. I had a moment the day before where I walked outside of the convention center and looked over the river that it bordered, and all I could think was “I miss you God.” I couldn't really make sense of that. So am I super religious because I think about God and give things up for Lent? “I mean, maybe? I think I want to be, but I'm just not there yet,” I said, unsure if that hedging answer was enough to edge me out of the “religious fanatic” category in her mind.
I had an amazing time, weird religious interludes aside. I bonded with my thesis advisor Kristine on our drives between Grand Rapids and Pittsburgh, ate a lot of all-American (read: all-greasy) food, visited some classrooms themed after different nations in University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning, took public transit in Pittsburgh (I swear I saw a bus on every street every time I was walking because the buses are so dang frequent), and reevaluated my stance on Andy Warhol so now I just think he’s a (pack rat) little overrated rather than completely overrated.
I loved being at 4 Cs because it prompted me to come up with all these new ideas of how I can leverage writing theory in the classroom (writing fellows! Incoming surveys about genre experiences! Making the purpose of the assignment clear!*), but more importantly, it furthered my growing sense of professionalism. Being surrounded by people who were teaching and relatively situated in their field and the little tendrils of student teaching that followed me to Pittsburgh—mostly in the form of frantic student emails and digital check-ins via Google Classroom—both make me feel like I’m being propelled closer and closer to a new era of life. Maybe that era will continue in more 4 Cs conferences; maybe not.
———
*Understand that not all students will be academics! Create curriculum that is designed for a diverse population of students rather than retrofitting the assignments and texts! Help students see the context of the skills they are learning and how to decontextualize and transfer those skills to other situations! Use writing as a way to negotiate difficult transitions! Think about threshold concepts for reading and education (and for my own classroom? Maybe)
Love it.
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