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2026 Future of Writing Symposium

The Future of Writing ‘26:

A Symposium for Teachers

Pedagogy, Process, Potential

University of Southern California,

https://bit.ly/futureofwriting26

Online February 20
In Person February 21
9 am - 5 pm PDT
Deadline: Dec. 6, 2025

The Writing Program at the University of Southern California, the Institute on Ethics & Trust in Computing, and the Viterbi Engineering in Society program invite you to The Future of Writing 26: A Symposium for Teachers, a two-day event in which we look down the road to what is coming next. Free and open to all.

Join lively interactive sessions, lightning talks, and panel discussions on topics from first-year college writing to journalism, from professional to creative writing. Explore the ever-changing norms of digital pedagogy and envision how our choices will shape the classroom praxis of the decade ahead.

Free Registration

Register or Submit a Proposal here

This year’s theme: Adaptability

Sponsored by the University of Southern California Dornsife Writing Program, Viterbi Engineering in Society Program, USC Libraries’ Ahmanson Lab, Levan Institute, and the Humanities and Critical Code Studies Lab & The Electronic Literature Organization

Background

The first wave of generative AI has hit. At the same time, colleges and universities are going into “resilience” mode as we face the loss of federal funding, restrictions on academic freedom, and declines in undergraduate applications. Precarity. Uncertainty. Instability.

Okay, deep breath.

In response to the adversity of the current moment, writing instructors are, as always, on the front lines of higher education, encountering students who are now facing a new set of options. With engaged student-centered pedagogy, with lessons and creativity and critical thinking, with flipped courses that take students out of the classroom, we have never been a community of stagnation. Our chief strength: adaptability.

Whether we are adjusting to ever changing students or responding to an ever-involving information landscape, we have adapted our pedagogy to meet the moment. We explore empathy and affect, accessibility and linguistic variety, ethics and sustainability, and, yes, ways to serve include, invite, and welcome a varied student body into a level learning environment. To teach writing is always to tinker, to try new approaches, and, at times, to return to tried and true techniques.

Let’s gather to share, to discuss, and to question how we can adapt our classes to meet the future of writing.

Questions, Themes, Issues

Future of Writing

  • What will teaching writing look like ten years from now? Or even five?

  • What other disciplines can Journalism, Creative, Professional, and Academic Writing look to for clues and tools?

  • What collaborative, inventive modalities can we learn and build in the present?

  • Where is the space for personal or communal expression?

  • How can we lean into the humanities and our humanity?

  • How can we motivate students to develop their intellectual curiosity?

  • What are the ethical issues of using AI in writing? Where are the red lines? What are the hidden costs and consequences?

  • What do we already know about working with digital texts, unconventional or multi-modal formats, and collaborative tools that can be harnessed in service of the writing process?

  • What alternative texts might we ask students to produce, and how do we apply essential mechanics of composition and revision in less familiar media?

  • How will more pervasive machine translation change our relationship to English?

  • What new forms of assessment will join labor-based writing, contract grading, and ungrading, and how will they evolve?

Future of Artificial Intelligence in Classrooms

What have sci-fi writers been preparing us for that might actually have a place in Digital Pedagogy and an AI-literate praxis? How can we disincentive AI use? How can we make space for experimentation and play? Where could we incorporate non-linear approaches to composition, or social-media-inspired annotations to source work, or multimodal approaches like gestural or visual rhetoric into our sometimes rigid disciplinary spaces? What creativity and invention might these innovations make possible?

Future of Pedagogy

How will our pedagogical approaches need to change to meet the needs of the coming decades? In a world that seems determined to divide and conquer, how can we be more inclusive? What paths can we take to lean more into the human, the embodied, the communal? How can we foster critical thinking as reliance on AI increases? Are there current pedagogical strategies we can forecast into the future to help us prepare for and respond to the increasing presence of AI-supported writing? What can we do to support or even embrace playing with AI as we teach composition, research, or revision? What role might these tools play in providing feedback or structuring our time in the classroom?

What To Send Us :

Proposals of 200-450 words; include a short, 50-100 word bio. Proposals can be for in-person or online sessions.

→ Pitches for interactive workshops on revising materials and activities

→ Lightning Talks (Single and clusters) to share best classroom practices, reflect on how assignments have changed, with examples and a hands on workshop

→Round Table Conversations to get the room talking. Let’s talk! Not lightning talks in disguise, these roundtables will raise questions for the participants and audience to answer.

→ Creativity in Praxis: bring your most imaginative approaches to writing, teaching, producing and revising to share. It may be wacky, off the wall, even messy, technologically inspired and provocative.

→ Creative Work: submit a creative work using these themes to be displayed online.

Some sample topics (a non-exhaustive list):

  • Pedagogy Tactics for professional, academic, creative writing and journalism teachers

  • Inclusive Tech-Assisted Writing and Instruction

  • Short-Circuiting Short-Cuts: Helping students find intrinsic motivation for learning

  • Back to humanity and the Humanities: doubling down on the human

  • Maintaining AI: Academic Integrity

  • Creating a more accessible and equitable classroom

  • Reinventing/Rebranding Composition

  • Engaged Pedagogy: working with communities and orgs

  • The place of empathy

  • Writing unplugged: back to basics

Register or Submit a Proposal here

Dates

Proposal Submission Deadline: Dec 6.

For any questions about developing your proposal or arranging for support needs, contact Mark Marino mcmarino@usc.edu or Z.D. Dochterman zdochter@usc.edu.

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Subject line: Future of Writing Instruction Symposium

Acceptance Notifications: Jan 8

Event date: Feb 20, 2025 online only; Feb 21 2025 in-person.