My First Conference

I went to my first academic conference this weekend, the Mid-Atlantice Writing Center Association conference at Temple University in Philadelphia. It was a wonderful experience. My paper presentation went really well. Every time I glanced up from my reading, my listeners seemed to be alert and engaged, a stark contrast to the dead-eyed stares I often see from my 110 students. As I finished, I noticed several people smiling with apparent appreciation. Then a couple people asked questions about my paper, including requests for bibliographic information about my subject. When I offered my entire paper (I came prepared to give -- and to take back with me -- copies of my paper), they seemed very happy to receive them. I also met several nice people and asked for some of their papers. All in all, it was great to go from room to room of intelligent people who were passionately discussing topics of common interest. It was like one Socratic Symposium after another, minus the drunkeness and togas.

Among the many things I learned about this weekend, a couple are worth briefly mentioning here. First, one presenter analyzed Academic Discourse in terms of personality types, concluding that Academic Discourse has a INTJ or perhaps a INFJ personality type. Rather than teach students to become INTJs, however, we should teach students to "method act," becoming the persona of the academic personality. Second, some writing center directors and tutors are beginning to dialogue with professors about their expectations for and instruction of students. For example, one tutor sent about twenty-five e-mails to the same instructor in the same day (they were required to bring their paper in), all explaining the same exact difficulties understanding the assignment. Finally, the tutor sent an e-mail telling the instructor to consider re-teaching this area. The instructor was all too happy to take this suggestion. As a T.A., this anecdote makes me want writing center tutors to provide me with this kind of valuable information, both for individual students and my classes as a whole. Although I have never wanted to require Writing Center visits, I think having tutors' feedback on an entire class would be invaluable.

I also was able to see a lot of Philly in a short amount of time. My hotel was in the middle of downtown. I walked to City Hall, down to Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Carpenter's Hall, a couple other sights, a couple war memorials, and the nightlife scene of South Street. Jim's Steaks truly are the best Philly Cheese Steaks in the world!

The highlight of the entire trip, however, was seeing Stephen Colbert walk out of Independence Hall and film a segment for his show! Amazing! Pictures will be posted to Facebook soon.