2018 CCCC Annual Convention

Earlier this March, I had the privilege of traveling to Kansas City, MO with Dr. James Holsinger and Dr. Heather Lettner-Rust to present at the Conference on College Composition and Communication. This was my first time in Kansas City and my first time at this type of conference. I was amazed at how many college educators and graduate students there were at this conference! While I was at the conference, I met educators from all over the country. I attended several sessions at the conference, but the one I found most interesting was titled “Crossing Multiple Borders: Re-Languaging Space/Place in Relation to Writing Practices in ESL, Hearing-Impaired, STEM, Transcultural, and Digital Practices.” I was immediately drawn to this session because of my special education background. This panel consisted of four graduate students from Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, and each one talked about one of the aspects listed in the title. One of the key things I took away from this presentation is that people who are hearing-impaired ought to be considered second language learners in addition to being a part of those with disabilities. I had always considered students with hearing impairments to be solely part of the disabled community, so this was a new concept for me.

This conference was also beneficial because I got to practice my presentation skills. I was very nervous to present because I had never presented at a conference before. When the time came to present, though, I felt more at ease because we had practiced so much. Our session also included presenters from Christopher Newport University. It was a neat experience to be able to present a study at a conference with people from a different university who were also researching a similar topic.