58.081 - Exploring Authorship in the Age of Mass Literacy: The Rise of Writing in People's Everyday Lives

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This panel takes up the central question Brandt (2015) raises in her recent book: “What happens when writing overtakes reading as the basis of people's daily literate experience?” As more people are writing for school, work and leisure--and, crucially, writing among others who also write--Brandt argues we are entering a new phase of mass literacy that remains relatively uncharted, with profound political, social, cultural, and economic implications. Responding to these claims about the rise of writing, this session examines contemporary writing practices in online, disciplinary, civic, and community contexts. Participants explore the possibilities and tensions that emerge as writing becomes sponsored and valued in new ways, in and beyond institutions and as a form of labor with particular social arrangements.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Writing and Literacies

Chair

• Amy Stornaiuolo, University of Pennsylvania

Papers

• What's Rising? Writing and Semiotic Remediation in Trajectories of Disciplinary Becoming - Paul A. Prior, University of Illinois

• Redesigning Civic Education for a Rhetorical Age: Participatory Politics in the Context of Mass Composition - Elyse A. Eidman-Aadahl, University of California - Berkeley

• When Everyone Is a Writer: Social Composing in the Wattpad Online Writing Community - Amy Stornaiuolo, University of Pennsylvania; Veena Vasudevan, American Museum of Natural History

• "Pretty for a Black Girl": Afro-Digital Black Feminisms and Mobile Black Sociality in and out of Classrooms - Carmen Kynard, John Jay College of Criminal Justice - CUNY

Discussant

• Maisha T. Winn, University of California, Davis