Writing Development in Higher Education 2012
Enacting thoughtful pedagogies and inclusive values in writing development
Faculty of Education, Liverpool Hope University (UK)

Conference keynotes:

• Gunther Kress, Professor of Semiotics and Education, Institute of Education, University of London, UK
• Joan Turner, Director, Centre for English Language and Academic Writing Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Working with Academic literacies: Research, Theory, Design Panel, convened by Theresa Lillis, The Open University, UK; Kathy Harrington, London Metropolitan University; Mary Lea, The Open University, UK; and Sally Mitchell, Queen Mary, University of London, UK.

Call for papers
WDHE 2012 aims to offer a vital, educative space where researchers and practitioners can meet to consider the role of writing in higher education. This conference aims to maintain a clear and established commitment to sustaining an academic community for those concerned with teaching, researching, supporting and developing academic writing in its many forms.
Writing practices appear to be central to assessment systems in higher education yet underutilised in learning processes. Here we aim
to promote a thoughtful approach to interrogating writing development in order to resist implicit and potentially exclusive educational practices. We welcome papers which recognise the educative potential of writing as a powerful social practice for students and tutors. Of further consideration is the role that writing can play in promoting participation in and across formal and informal learning communities.
Inclusivity in writing practices may be interpreted as the ways in which written and spoken language, image and sound can work together to promote understanding. In considering an enactment of inclusive values in writing development participants may wish to consider the dominant role that language has played in learning and the ways in which we might encourage interaction with multimodal environments where the relationships between different texts can be recognised, encouraged and explored.

The following questions are offered as a starting point:

• How might an inclusive approach to ‘text’ enhance our design of writing environments?
• What forms might thoughtful pedagogies take in the development of writing practices?
• How can we create thoughtful spaces for learning through and with writing?
• To what extent do we enact inclusive values when writing within an international academic community?

Abstract submission:
Abstracts should be between 250 and 500 words including any references to key texts that may have informed your work. The deadline for submissions is 31st January 2012. Please email your abstract to wdhe@hope.ac.uk.