Growing a Radical Research Agenda: The Recent Past and Possible Futures of Lifespan Writing Research

 
 

Registration Is Open

Early Bird Registration (through June 1) = $75 USD

Student/Retired/NTT/Global Early Bird Registration (through June 1) = $25 USD

Register through Ohio University: https://commerce.cashnet.com/ohioemkt2

Call for Proposals

The 3rd Conference on Writing Through the Lifespan
July 24-26, 2024 | Charleston, IL, USA

In 2024, the Writing through the Lifespan Collaboration will be in its eighth year of existence.  In that time, there has been considerable development of lifespan writing research, what it is, and how it might be accomplished. In their recent chapter, Dippre & Phillips (2023) argue:

Lifespan writing research is, at heart, deeply radical and … it is radical in multiple ways. We use radical here first as the Middle English origins of the word suggest, referencing the “roots or origin.” Lifespan writing research is committed to understanding and revealing the roots that underlie writers’ changes over time—both the large, obvious, trip-over- able roots and those that are more hidden and more subtle, perhaps only becoming evident over decades or generations. But lifespan writing research is also radical in particular ways: in its attention to context and to the durations of engagement researchers have with writers. Thus, as a phenomenon of interest, lifespan writing offers longitudinal writing researchers a useful framework for thinking in what we refer to as radically longitudinal and radically contextual ways. Drawing on more contemporary meanings of radical as “extreme” (or “at the limits of control”), we use the term radically longitudinal to describe taking longitudinal research to its extreme by studying writing from cradle to grave and, where appropriate, across generations….

As this “radical research agenda” that the Collaboration is pursuing then closes in on its first decade, a number of questions about lifespan writing research remain. Where should we focus our energies next to foster new growth in the field? Who else might join this work? Are there aspects of lifespan writing research that now need pruning? How should we best translate our research findings into policy? In short: How shall lifespan writing research grow? We thus invite contributions from new and established lifespan writing researchers from all disciplines to share research findings and to help consider what the future of lifespan writing research might be.

For our third conference, we seek proposals for presentations, panels, workshops, or works-in-progress that address the following questions:

How should lifespan writing research grow?

  • What are the most pressing issues facing LWR? How might we address them?

  • What other approaches and disciplinary knowledge should be informing our work?

  • What new audiences need to hear about lifespan writing research? How might we invite them to join our work?

  • How can we foster and inform the development of future education or other important policies?

What do we know now/new about lifespan writing? 

  • What new findings can we share?

  • What did the pandemic teach us about writing through the lifespan?

  • What do lifespan writing researchers need to know? Particularly with so many researchers situated in North America and in English/writing programs, what are important findings from other fields, traditions, and contexts?

  • How should LWR choose methodologies? What methodological choices are generating success in conducting LWR? Are there any methods or methodologies that seem particularly problematic or less successful?

What are some of the primary challenges facing lifespan writing research and how might we address them? What might we need to articulate in order for other researchers to see how to join lifespan writing research work?

  • How do we see the relationship between literacy and writing? Between print and multimodality? While some of these issues are settled in some disciplines where lifespan writing research happens, they aren’t (or are even contentious) in others. What questions are so essential that we must consider them and perhaps develop some consensus?

  • How does LWR intersect with the transfer research that is so forefront to much research in North American writing studies?

  • What other hindrances do we need to wrestle with as we move lifespan writing research forward? What ideas do we have for addressing them?

What Is Lifespan Writing Research and the Writing Through the Lifespan Collaboration?

Writing Through the Lifespan (www.lifespanwriting.org) is a collaboration of dozens of scholars around the world who are in the early stages of sharing related and complementary research studies focused on key conceptual and developmental aspects of writing across one’s life. The collaboration has defined lifespan writing research as part of an effort to more clearly define this research agenda and, by extension, strengthen and expand the lifespan writing research happening around the globe. 

Lifespan Writing Research examines acts of inscribed meaning-making, the products of it, and the multiple dimensions of human activity that relate to it in order to build accounts of whether and how writers and writing may change throughout the duration and breadth of the lifespan. (Writing Through the Lifespan Collaboration, 2019)

Lifespan writing research requires diverse expertise from a wide variety of disciplines.  All researchers who investigate writing within and across any population and who adopt (or seek to adopt) a lifespan perspective in their research are encouraged to submit proposals. For more information about the collaboration or the Lifespan Writing Research agenda, visit our website or our book series at the WAC Clearinghouse. For examples of the diversity of previous presentations, please see the program of our inaugural conference at https://www.lifespanwriting.org/2018-conference.

Proposal Submission: Closed

Contact lifespanwriting@gmail.com with questions.