Institute for Writing and Thinking Presents

IWT April Conference

The 2023 April Conference is hybrid. Join us in person at Bard College or online! 

In our classrooms, voice means all kinds of things: the literal voices we invite into conversation, the unique style and personality we recognize in a beloved author’s work, the almost mystical sense of “authenticity” that we hope will vitalize our students’ writing. The 2023 IWT April Conference will be an ambitious, daylong dive into what we value in “voice” and how we teach students to develop their writerly voices. 

The metaphor of voice, writes compositionist Kathleen Blake Yancey, invokes a mix of meanings that are layered, evocative, and sometimes contradictory, ranging from metaphorical to mystical: “You have it or you don’t” or “You know it when you see it.”  Voice, according to Peter Elbow, has become a “warm fuzzy word” that people use to describe writing they like or that does something appealing they can’t quite pinpoint. He adds, “We’re in trouble if we don’t know what we mean by the term.” In small, interactive workshop groups, we’ll work toward a clear, nuanced, and, above all, practical understanding of voice. We’ll aim to eschew the mystical but keep the magic, identifying clear and transparent language that can help our students recognize, develop, and experiment with voice in their writing. We’ll also consider some challenges and dilemmas: how can hesitant writers, for example, or students writing in a second language, tap into voice? Can a strong voice get in the way of an essay’s substance or argument? How do we honor and create space for our students’ diverse voices—both spoken and written? The April Conference will draw on IWT writing-based teaching practices rooted in the interplay of written and spoken voices to explore voice as concept, craft, and conversation.
 
The 2023 conference keynote will feature Peter Elbow, acclaimed author of Writing with Power, who will join us online. Elbow played an instrumental role in the founding of Bard IWT, and we are honored to welcome him back! 

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For more information, call 845-752-4516 x4516, e-mail [email protected],
or visit https://iwt.bard.edu/workshops/april/.

Time: 9:30 am – 4:30 pm EDT/GMT-4

Location: Hybrid Format

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