Pedagogy in Writing Skills from Humanities to STEM

The 76th Annual Convention is steeped in supporting student writing. The art, chemistry, developmental, English, and history sections welcome all faculty of any discipline to discuss the value of literacy from note-taking and essays to journalism.

Friday, 10:15 – 11:15 a.m. (Developmental Reading and Writing)

Ingredients for Baking a Definition Essay

Ron Burnett, professor of integrated reading and writing at San Jacinto College, will discuss how information from professor to student can get lost in translation

This session will model how to approach an essay, while using various resources so the student has more than enough substance to pull from to deliver what the professor expects and help overcome the challenge students sometimes face. Students will explore the use of similes, metaphors, hyperbole, dialogue, onomatopoeia, and the senses. The presenter will explore these concepts using high-interest readings, video clips, and essay-mapping strategies.

Ron Burnett has taught INRW and GUST for the past nine years at San Jacinto College. He has 25 years of teaching experience. Ron has taught on every level, save elementary. He has a BA in Journalism, an MPA, and Ph.D. in Administration of Justice.

Friday, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (Art) Meaningful Doodles: Combining the Power of Images and Words in Note-Taking to Improve Learning and Memory

Designed for students and instructors of all disciplines, this presentation will explain how adding simple sketches to notes taken in class increases the retention of information by combining images and words to create synthesized content. Notes are taken in real-time while one is actively listening to the information. Students’ examples will be presented along with tips, techniques, and practice. And…no art talent is required.

Meet Mileah Hall, assistant professor of art at Northeast Texas Community College, at this unique session.

Mileah Hall has served as an adjunct art instructor for several organizations during the last few years, serving at Northeast Texas College for the two years. Her love for art started to grow early in her life as her parents enrolled her in art lessons at the age of ten. A native Texan, Hall holds a BS degree from East Texas Baptist University and a MFA degree from the Academy of Art University.

Friday, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (Chemistry) Old and New Ways to Support Student Writing About Chemistry Connections to Systems Thinking

Thomas Holme, professor of chemistry at Iowa State University, joins us to discuss how writing represents a tool to enhance the ways chemistry connects to issues of widespread importance to society.

This presentation will explore how the use of a systems thinking framework for introducing connections of chemistry to sustainability can frame discussions of Earth and societal systems in ways that allow students to synthesize their understanding in writing. It will also describe writing support methods of sound boarding and conversational agents (chatbots) for providing students with help in completing such writing assignments.

Thomas Holme is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Chemical Education. He received a BS in Chemistry and Physics from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and his PhD from Rice University. After postdoctoral work at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the University of Pennsylvania, he participated as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Zambia. He served an assistant professor at the University of South Dakota and then as an associate professor and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is currently a Morrill Professor at Iowa State University.

Friday, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (English) Reflecting with Feeling: The Role of Emotions within Reflective Writing (and Pedagogies to Engage Them!)

Jess Enoch, professor of English at University of Maryland, identifies reflection as a way for student writers to step back from their work with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of themselves as writers and their writing. Reflection as metacognition, or “thinking about thinking,” asks students to consider what they are doing as writers and why they are doing it.

This talk will zero in on an understudied component of reflection: the connection between reflection and emotion, and she will consider how focusing students’ attention on past attachments to writing has the potential to create spaces for new writing practices for the present and future.

Jess Enoch has been the director of the academic writing program at the University of Maryland for twelve years. In 2019, the Conference of College Composition and Communication recognized Jess’ writing program with the Writing Program Certificate of Excellence. She has served on the Executive Board of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and she has won awards and fellowships that recognize her teaching, administration, and mentorship. Among other publications, Jess is co-author of Everyone’s an Author.

Friday, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (Developmental Education) Supporting Student Success Through an INRW and HUMA 1301: Great Questions Co-requisite Pairing

In Fall 2021, Austin Community College piloted a co-requisite pairing that included INRW 0420: Intermediate Reading and Writing Strategies and HUMA 1301: The Great Questions. Our offer a high interest, discussion-based college seminar course with appropriate scaffolding so our incoming students can complete their TSI requirements and gain college credit in the same semester.

Austin Community College presenters, Grant Potts, professor and chair of philosophy, religion, and humanities, and Beth Frye, professor of composition and literary studies, will provide a brief history of this partnership, vision, and discuss the successes and challenges with this collaboration.

Grant Potts has worked for close to a decade with the Great Questions initiative to focus foundational learning on discussion-based classes rooted in student engagement and the reading of transformational texts. Teaching and learning alongside his students, he has been working on developing tools for religious literacy within community colleges.

Beth Frye teaches two levels of co-requisite integrated reading and writing courses. Her professional passion is helping students to use reading and writing to learn in their chosen area of study.

Friday, 4:15-5:15 p.m. (History) Barrio Journalism: Newspapers of the Chicano Movement in Houston

Jesús Esparza, associate professor of history from Texas Southern University, will present on the Chicano Movement.

In Houston, one of the most notable newspapers was Papel Chicano, a community-based newspaper, run primarily by volunteers, which had its finger on the pulse of the struggle and which contributed, as a result, to the many victories of the Chicano Movement within the Bayou City. Using Oral Histories, this program provides a history of Papel Chicano and other Mexican American print media forms and situates these circulations within the larger fight for civil rights and social justice.

Jesús Esparza’s area of expertise is on the history of Latinos in the United States, with an emphasis on civil rights activism. His manuscript, He received his BA and a master’s degree in history from Southwest Texas State University and a PhD in history in 2008 from the University of Houston.

Saturday, 9:00 – 10: 00 a.m. (English) Teaching the Given-New Principle to Enhance Coherence in Student Writing

This Saturday morning session by Mischa Enos, professor of English and developmental studies at Blinn College, will outline classroom techniques for transforming abstract, theoretical constructs into understandable and applicable practices for students to improve the coherence of their written texts. These include methods for improving students’ attention to audience in their writing, coding both published and student texts for patterns of given and new information, completing given-new sentence stems, and roundtable chain paragraphs, among others.

Mischa Enos has logged over 30 years of experience in teaching composition, creative writing, and English as a Second Language to students from third grade through graduate school in both academic settings and overseas in Poland and Chile. She has also worked extensively in literacy research, journalism, and educational consulting.

Check out the art, chemistry, developmental education, developmental reading and writing, English, and history discipline-specific pages for more details on the sessions listed above, and don’t forget to browse the other discipline pages to view the over 150 programs we have lined up! Make this event your own by mixing and matching with the sessions that speak the most to you.

Did you know that several colleges around the state have partnered with TCCTA to cover your registration fee? View the list of participating colleges and register today!

Make your hotel reservations at the Westin Galleria and Westin Oaks Hotels for $135/night online or by calling (713) 960-8100 and mentioning TCCTA to get the discounted rate.

We look forward to seeing you there!