Call for proposals

Writing centers are places where human collaboration meets concrete writing materials. In our centers, we are reminded that writing is a sensory activity—we listen to music, hear the pencil scratch against paper or our fingers tap against the keyboard. We are heartened by the light from windows and the smell of coffee wafting through the air. We recognize that writing is a “materially contingent practice” where writing tools color what emerges from a writing session (Blewett et al., 2016). Raign (2023) traces this material reality all the way back to Mesopotamia, where students learned to write in center-like tutorial sessions on clay tablets or cylinders.

In Raign’s (2023) description of an early writing space, she also highlights a second characteristic that echoes in our centers today: the diverse nature of the people who inhabit them. She describes a multicultural, multilingual population of tutors and writers, where “a translingual model was the norm” (p. 430), much like the population of tutors and writers in our own centers today. Increasingly, writing centers support a variety of languages among tutors and writers, recognizing the value of a translingual approach to tutoring (Rafoth, 2015). Thus, writing centers are the convergence of the material nature of writing (whether carving letters into clay tablets or tapping text out on a keyboard) and the cultural variety writers and tutors bring to their work.

As writing materials have developed, from the clay tablet to the computer, writing centers have adapted and for the most part embraced the power and flexibility these tools offered. Computers and online appointments helped us navigate the COVID pandemic (which put us completely in digital spaces) and became increasingly important in writing centers. The advent of Large Language Models (LLMs) creates new questions for writing professionals, raising the concern that what writing centers offer could be eclipsed by technology that supplies faster, easier answers to our writing questions but also strips away linguistic and cultural markers in our writing (Shariatmadari, 2026; Turk, 2025). This is but one of the challenges writing centers are facing today, as budgets across campuses diminish and we are asked to do more with less space, fewer tutors, and more technology.

Those of us who work day-to-day with tutors and writers understand this tension between the lure of fast-tech and the power of human and material connection. And we understand that nothing replaces the productive friction of a writing center session where we never work just with text, but with our whole selves. As McNulty and Selimaj (2025) write, “we bring our bodies, our languages, our biases, our educations into each session” (p. 5). Working with writers and tutors with different perspectives and identities allows us to grow in our outlook and hone our ideas. Thus, focusing on the material, embodied nature of writing helps us to maintain the physical and textual identities that make our work so meaningful (Knoblauch, 2012).

Writing centers are places where we value the material: the whole human and the physical text. In many ways, our centers are perfect places to resist the threat to the very material and embodied nature of writing. While we embrace the power of the new tools at our disposal (and learn to use them wisely), writing centers (and writers in general) still utilize the tangible tools of the past—if not clay tablets, then paper, pens, pencils, post-its, and whiteboards, to name a few. And we recognize the value of two humans, often with very different identities, sitting side-by-side working on a text.

In this conference we hope to explore the intersection of the material objects we use in a writing center and our own selves as material beings. In other words, in an increasingly digital and automated world of writing, we wish to explore both the material nature of writing centers – texts and tools-- and the “material” (linguistic, cultural, bodily) nature of those who inhabit them.

We invite presentations on a wide range of questions related to writing center work, including:

• How does multilingualism/translingualism live /thrive within our centers?
• How might we resist the flattening force of writing technologies employed in our institutions and by our writers?
• How does acknowledging the identities we carry in our bodies affect our tutoring, our learning, our writing?
• How does difference (language, culture, gender, age, discipline) act within a writing center appointment? How can we capture the known benefits of bodily presence and difference in digital/online appointments?
• How can evolving technologies enhance our material/in-person/collaborative work in the writing center?  What are best practices for using these new tools?
• How do peer tutors see the emergence of LLMs in writing center work? Do tutors see LLM use as a lasting trend in writing centers?
• How do physical/material texts enhance our work—printed materials, writing by hand, drawing, mapping on whiteboards, etc.  How do we get students to embrace these practices in our centers and in our writing classrooms?
• In addition to traditional writing tools (penicils, paper, post-its), how do materials such as board games, modeling clay, building blocks, and other learning tools enhance our work? How might we bring back more of the “material” in our writing centers and classrooms?
• How does the physical environment of the writing center affect the use of these materials among writers and tutors?  How might we use this understanding to advocate for certain types of spaces and materials for our centers?
• How should we take up questions of materiality to support neurodivergent writers? How do various materials or interfaces best support these writers?
• How does material and digital resources enhance accessibility in our centers?

Ideally, an effective proposal will reflect the following:

• It engages meaningfully with the conference’s overall theme.
• It presents new data, theories, and/or pedagogy from original research.
• It demonstrates an understanding of relevant theories and/or pedagogies in writing center studies or writing instruction.
• It describes its intended audience, expectations for participants, and desired outcomes/takeaways.

Sessions at MAWCA 2027 will be 50 minutes long. We welcome proposals of the following types:

• Individual Presentation: 15-minute presentation. You will be grouped with 1-2 similar presentations to form a panel.
• Panel Discussion: Panels of 3-4 presenters, 10-15 minutes per presenter with Q&A/discussion time.
• Roundtable Discussion: 50-minute facilitated discussion of an issue or topic related to the conference theme; can include hands-on activities, reflection, group discussion, or small-group work.
• Special Interest Group (SIG): 50-minute facilitated conversation designed with the goal of creating community among a subset of writing center practitioners; can be designed as an affinity group (e.g. BIPOC tutors, queer and trans tutors, neurodivergent tutors) or around a specific theme (e.g. advocating for writing center resources) or type of institution (e.g. HBCUs, HSIs, community colleges).
• Workshop: 50-minute interactive learning session on an aspect of writing center practice that relates to the conference theme; can include guiding questions and/or short opening presentations by facilitators.
• Works in Progress: Participants who are working on a manuscript related to the conference theme or who are developing a new writing center initiative will gather to introduce and receive feedback on their projects. Participants may be asked to read others' abstracts in advance of the conference to allow for more productive time together.

References:

Blewett, K., Morris, J., & Rule, H. J. (2016). Composing environments: The materiality of reading and writing. CEA Critic, 78(1), 24–44. doi.org/10.1353/cea.2016.0007

Knoblauch, A. A. (2012). Bodies of knowledge: Definitions, delineations, and implications of embodied writing in the academy. Composition Studies, 40(2), 50–65.

McNulty, M., & Selimaj, A. (2025). “Dear colleague”: Upholding multilingual voices and pedagogies in writing centers against flattening forces. The Writing Center Journal, 43(3), 1–9. www.jstor.org/stable/27462608

Rafoth, B. (2015). Multilingual writers and writing centers. Utah State University Press. doi.org/10.7330/9780874219647

Raign, K. R. (2023). Decentering the history of the writing center: A case for the Mesopotamian edubba as an early writing center. College Composition and Communication, 75(2), 418–452. doi.org/10.58680/ccc2023752418

Shariatmadari, D. (2026, July 4). How AI is changing language. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/jul/04/future-of-fiction-next-great-novel-ai-language-chat-gpt

Turk, V. (2025, April 29). The great language flattening: Chatbots learned from human writing. Now it's their turn to influence us. The Atlantic. www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/04/great-language-flattening/682627