Dr. April Conway and Students Present at Computers and Writing Conference

Dr. Conway, Shoupra Shankwana, and McKenzie Shaw presented their poster, "Sparks of Wonder: Social Media and Teaching Composition", at the 2017 Computers and Writing Conference. Dr. Conway is an alumni of the Rhetoric & Writing Ph.D. program and former GSW instructor. Shoupra and McKenzie, former students of Dr. Conway, are BGSU seniors majoring in Adolescent Young Adult Language Arts Education. This national conference took place in June at The University of Findlay in Findlay, OH.

The theme for the conference was "Techne: Creating Spaces of Wonder" and invited proposals "that emphasize the interplay of multimodal spaces (physical and digital) and how composing in these environments creates opportunities for wondering (potential, curiosity, and reflection) and wonder (awe, interest, and marvel)". As stated in the project’s abstract, “the poster shared multimodal composition projects the students completed that engage high school learners through social media. With both projects, students offer and gain new perspectives on national histories through self-expression and collaboration as mediated through social media.” Through the use of a QR code, conference attendees were also able to interact with and access the poster digitally.

About the collaboration, Dr. Conway said, "It was great working with McKenzie and Shoupra--I learned from them!"