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Teaching ideas. Collaboration opportunities. Expert advice. Get plugged into the Norton Composition Community for upcoming events, workshops, blog posts, and more.

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2022-23 Workshops
See it in Action: Digital Resources for Reading, Writing & AI

Presented Dr. Laura Panning Davies and Sarah Purnell

Thursday April 18th at 1 PM ET

You’re invited to join us for a thirty-minute webinar with author and teacher Laura Davies alongside Norton composition specialist Sarah Purnell as they provide an overview of how Norton digital resources can help instructors:

• Scaffold critical reading strategies for students

• Address generative AI in the classroom

• and more!

We’ll conclude with an additional thirty minutes of open office hours for any questions or discussion.

Exploring Generative AI in the Writing Classroom: A Conversation with Dr. Laura Allen, Dr. Bill Hart-Davidson, and Dr. Laura Panning Davi

Presented by Dr. Laura Allen, Dr. Bill Hart-Davidson, and Dr. Laura Panning Davies

The date of this workshop has passed

Watch this collaborative session featuring brief presentations from our panel of speakers as they share their perspectives, strategies, and assignment ideas for navigating generative AI’s impact on teaching and learning. Specifically:

• Considering policy changes that address the use of AI in academic work, and that preserve commitments to integrity, honesty, and quality.

• Exploring the intersection of generative AI and race/gender, from known knowledge about bias in AI tools to how we can center marginalized communities in our conversations on AI and writing.

• Investigating AI’s capabilities and impact—how these technologies can be used productively in the writing process, why writers might use them, and what they help us uncover about our assumptions about writing and values as writers—including preliminary results from a survey of first-year students about their understanding of AI writing technologies.

The workshop will include time for discussion via Q&A and breakout groups, and we’re pleased to offer certificates of completion to attendees. Whether you are excited, nervous, intrigued, or all of the above when it comes to generative AI—there will be something for you in this event, and we look forward to seeing you there.

Strategies for Teaching Close, Active Reading

Presented by Tom Cooley and Amara Hand

The date of this workshop has passed.

This one-hour session and Q&A models practical strategies you can use to encourage your students to read closely and respond purposefully.

• Tom Cooley discusses the relationship between close reading and writing using the says/does approach to reading. By showing how most academic writing uses proposition and support, he demonstrates how students can close read at the paragraph level and look out for topic ideas and sentences to better understand what a text says—and how.

• Amara Hand explores active reading as a textual conversation and presents how she encourages students to respond personally, intellectually, and contextually to foster meaningful learning and understanding. She will share the “rhetorical reading triangle” she uses to help students read and respond with a purpose.

Featured Workshops
Practical Strategies for Teaching Peer Review and Peer-Reviewed Articles: Incorporating Meta-Meetings and Students’ Expertise

Assigning peer review and peer-reviewed articles in first-year writing? Join this workshop for practical strategies you can use to promote a more effective and equitable exchange of peer feedback, foster academic literacy, and encourage students to see a future for themselves in scholarship. In this collaborative one-hour session, you will hear from:

• Brian Gogan, who will share a research-backed, equity-minded approach to peer review through the “Feedback Meta-Meeting” model. With examples and case studies from his department, Brian will outline the three-part structure of the model and provide concrete ways instructors can improve the effectiveness and equitability of peer review practice.

• Marianne Kunkel, who will then discuss how she helps students see the connections between sharing their writing with each other and the “peer-reviewed” box they check when searching library databases. In her hands-on activity, students write as experts on a chosen subject—from horror films to anime to making ramen—and then act out the roles that are part of the scholarly peer review process.

Celebrating Student Voice: A Conversation and Q&A with the Judges of The Norton Writer’s Prize

Hosted by Melissa Goldthwaite (Saint Joseph's University), Africa Fine (Palm Beach State College), and Paul Butler (University of Houston)


How do you empower students as writers? How do you identify and celebrate outstanding writing by college writers? And what makes writing outstanding, anyway? Join us for an insider's look at how the judges of the Norton Writer’s Prize evaluate hundreds of nominations from instructors at two- year and four-year schools, and for a discussion more broadly about national trends in student writing and assignment design.

Highlights from Past Events

Want to learn more about using Norton Composition resources in your courses? Visit the links below to view available videos in each series.

Archived Events

“Strategies for Teaching Close, Active Reading” with Tom Cooley and Amara Hand, November 16, 2022

This one-hour session and Q&A models practical strategies you can use to encourage your students to read closely and respond purposefully.

• Tom Cooley discusses the relationship between close reading and writing using the says/does approach to reading. By showing how most academic writing uses proposition and support, he demonstrates how students can close read at the paragraph level and look out for topic ideas and sentences to better understand what a text says—and how.

• Amara Hand explores active reading as a textual conversation and presents how she encourages students to respond personally, intellectually, and contextually to foster meaningful learning and understanding. She will share the “rhetorical reading triangle” she uses to help students read and respond with a purpose.

“Language Awareness as Raciolinguistic Justice in First-Year Writing: Ideas for Collaborative Classroom Practices” with Dr. Jeanine L. Williams and Dr. Emily K. Suh, October 6, 2022

While many instructors understand that a raciolinguistic justice approach to teaching first-year writing integrates critical language awareness and antiracist education perspectives, they may be looking for support and ideas on how to actually do this work in their classrooms. Raciolinguistic justice is achieved when students and instructors journey together in an examination of the intersections of race and language in reading and writing. This presentation demonstrates this collaborative reflexive practice using prompts that can be added to any writing course that includes reading and writing tasks.

Join us as we explore how these small, targeted prompts—easily adaptable to any assignment—can foster self-reflection and lay the groundwork for critical language awareness and raciolinguistic justice in first-year writing.

“Engage, Energize, and Experiment: Writing Activities that Foster Belonging in the Composition Classroom” with Deb Bertsch (Columbus State Community College) and Harun Karim Thomas (Daytona State Community College), April 12, 2022

Two instructors share what they’ve recently been experimenting with in their first-year writing courses —offering class-ready ideas that can easily be adapted for any course or modality, from “unlikely love letters” to self-written letters of recommendation and more.

“Keep Calm (and Compassionate)—Move Everything Online" with Shelley Rodrigo (University of Arizona), March 19, 2020

This webinar focuses on strategies for teaching writing online that keep instructors calm, cool, collected, and, most importantly, compassionate. Shelley Rodrigo shares a wide variety of online course activities and concrete suggestions that can immediately be used in an online writing course.

"Using InQuizitive for Writers in Your Course" with Garret Johnson (Lone Star College–CyFair), April 15, 2020

Garret Johnson shares his experience assigning InQuizitive, with special attention to how he incorporates it into his syllabus and how he would recommend making the most of the program in online courses.

"Selecting Readings and Sparking Dialogue in First Year Writing" with Russel Durst (University of Cincinnati) and (SUNY Cortland), April 27, 2021

A Q&A with Russel Durst and Laura Davies, coauthors of They Say / I Say with Readings and theysayiblog.

"Teaching Composition Online with Readers from Norton" with Thea Nicolaides (Hillsborough Community College), June 25, 2020

Thea Nicolaides shares strategies for teaching composition online, with special attention to how to incorporate more interactive resources available with Norton’s readers. She provides specific assignment ideas and demos activities from InQuizitive for Writers.

"Flexible Teaching for Fall with The Norton Field Guide" with Deborah Bertsch (Columbus State Community College), July 14, 2020

Join Deborah Bertsch for a lively overview of strategies for teaching flexibly and effectively with The Norton Field Guide to Writing. Longtime adopter and coauthor of the Instructor’s Guide for The Norton Field Guide, Deb also shares advice on incorporating more of the interactive resources.

"Preparing for Fall: Teaching with Everyone’s an Author" with Brittney Farrand (Folsom Lake College), July 24, 2020

Drawing on her background in instructional communication and online pedagogy, Brittney Farrand covers best practices for online teaching, advice on utilizing Norton resources to build curriculum, and a demo of InQuizitive for Writers and materials for learning management systems.

"Practical Strategies for Teaching Information Literacy and Research" with Laura Davies (SUNY Cortland) and Erin Ackerman (The College of New Jersey), November 12, 2020

Focusing on how to infuse information literacy skills into the first-year writing course and reframe research assignments, Laura J. Panning Davies and Erin Ackerman share course-ready activities designed to promote students’ development as critical thinkers, researchers, and writers.

“Strategies for Teaching First-Year Writing with ‘They Say / I Say’” with Kristie Boston (Lone Star College), July 29, 2021

The little book that does a lot for your course, “They Say / I Say” offers a range of options to engage students and build their confidence making the moves of academic writing, reading, and researching. Hear from Kristie Boston as she shares strategies from her 15 years of assigning the book.

“Strategies for Teaching First-Year Writing using Norton Resources for The Little Seagull Handbook and Let’s Talk” with Norton author Michal Brody and Dr. Raina Kostova (Jacksonville State University), August 10, 2021

To help instructors make the most of the resources available with these two titles, Michal and Raina offer suggestions for assigning InQuizitive for Writers—and its new activities—alongside LetsTalkLibrary and a learning management system.

“Strategies for Teaching First-Year Writing using Norton Readers and Resources” with Casey Ford (Lamar University), July 12, 2021

Learn more about how you can use your book’s resources to deliver a course in which students at varied levels of ability can design their own composition themes and maximize their engagement and learning with resources such as InQuizitive for Writers.

“An Inside Look at What's New in The Norton Field Guide" with authors Rich Bullock and Deb Bertsch, February 22, 2022

“Remix, Reflect, Think Rhetorically: Practical Strategies for Teaching Remix in First-Year Composition” with Deborah Bertsch (Columbus State Community College), October 21, 2021

Remixing—creating a new text by adapting, modifying, or transforming existing texts—is an important twenty-first-century composing process, and engaging in that process in first-year writing classes can help students develop greater rhetorical awareness and dexterity.

“Getting Started with Resources for The Norton Field Guide to Writing, Sixth Edition,” May 4, 2022

Norton composition specialist Elizabeth Pieslor will host an overview of the new and expanded resources available with The Norton Field Guide to Writing.

"Writing & Research in an Age of Misinformation: An Online Lecture and Q&A" with Andrea Lunsford (Stanford University), September 21, 2020

In this virtual guest lecture for both students and instructors, Andrea Lunsford offers practical advice on how to identify misinformation and lies, how to examine and to understand personal biases as well as those of others, and how to engage respectfully with people who may hold views very different from our own—essential strategies for students of writing and rhetoric today.

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Copyright © W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2021
(Bertsch Photo) Courtesy of Olivia Harris; (Durst Photo) Courtesy of Kathy Durst; (Davies Photo) Courtesy of John Austin Davies; (Devices) iStockPhoto.com/lvcandy; (Lunsford Photo) Courtesy of Andrea Lunsford