Fall 2025 Workshops
All Workshops Will Be Offered Online Via Zoom.
Human Writing Across the Curriculum: Resisting GenAI in Writing Instruction
With Clare Sandy, Department of Linguistics and Language Development
While the use of generative AI (GenAI) is being heavily promoted in practically everything
these days, including in student writing classes, many writing instructors are taking
a thoughtful and principled stance of "GenAI Refusal" (McIntyre et al., 2025). This
workshop is for writing teachers from any discipline who share or are curious about
an AI-resistant stance in teaching writing. It is particularly geared towards the
context of business writing, computational linguistics, and similar disciplines where
we might expect the highest interest in and adoption of such technology. We will learn
about the rationale behind refusing GenAI in writing classes, and explore strategies
and teaching methods that support this stance.
In this 75-minute workshop, we first discuss the "why" behind refusing GenAI. Some strategies for making this avoidance feasible (and even rewarding) in the context of teaching writing will be presented. Participants will then break into smaller groups to discuss their own experiences and ideas. To wrap up, we will share back ideas and insights with the group. We could create a compiled resource list of resources for future use and/or plan a follow-up meeting if there is interest.
Workshop Dates and Times:
Monday, September 15, 1:30pm - 2:45pm
Thursday, September 25, 12:00noon - 1:15pm
Friday, October 3, 12:00noon - 1:15pm
100WB Collaborative Teaching Exchange: Innovative Practices in Business Writing
With Sian Sloan, Department of English
This one-hour workshop invites ongoing and new faculty teaching 100WB from both the
English and Linguistics and Language Department to a collaborative teaching exchange
and conversation, as well as a potential resource swap. There will be no “experts”,
just colleagues learning from each other. Though this class is taught by over a dozen
members of the SJSU faculty, I’m unaware of any uniform collaboration between faculty
- so let’s meet to learn from each other and potentially collaborate!
In our round table everyone will take a few minutes to share. You could share a favorite or innovative assignment, a classroom activity or strategy you’re proud of, or a current challenge you’d love ideas about. After that we will break out into thematic groups. Each group will share some conclusions to wrap up. We can exchange contact information and arrange an ongoing resource swap if we’d like. We can also plan future meetings if people are interested.
*SJSU offers 33 sections of 100WB in the Fall of 2025: 12 are taught by the English department as Written Communication: Business (10 in person, 2 online); 21 sections are taught by the Linguistics and Language department as Writing Workshop for Business Students (9 in person, 10 online).
Workshop Dates and Times:
Monday, September 22, 3:00pm - 4:15pm
Monday, September 29, 10:30am - 11:45am
Friday, October 10, 12:00noon - 1:15pm
How to be an Effective Student Writer: A Student’s Survival Guide for Writing in Academia
and Beyond
With Todd Cormier, Department of Aviation and Technology
Don’t let the title fool you, this workshop is primarily for instructors. We briefly discuss methods to help their our students write more effectively and at a college level. This makes an instructor’s life easier. Why? Because well written, brief, concise, student writing assignments that provide value to the reader, are the goal. As an instructor, this makes your life easier by improving students’ readability (or at least more interesting reading), which leads to faster grading for you, better grades for the student, and the ability to apply their writing skills to higher academia, and hopefully beyond academia.
Personally, I was shocked at the writing deficiencies of almost all of my 65 aviation students last fall! I had to inform them that although they were aviation students, and we don't expect Shakespeare, they nevertheless should be expected to write at a college level. I ended up being more of an English teacher for the written class assignments, and less of an air traffic control instructor. This included getting ESL students to realize that to be competitive in the job market, they would have to be able to write coherently in English.
The workshop is one session, broken into three parts:
- Part I: Fundamental Academic Writing Concepts
- Part 2: Basics of Mastering In-Class Writing Assignments
- Part 3: Writing Beyond Academia
A few key points (not all-inclusive) for the college student to understand:
Know your audience. In college the audience is your professors. But in the real world it is your peers, your boss, and the public!
Your writing must provide value to the reader! Tips to prepare students for writing for a professional audience, the public, their boss, or to prepare for graduate level assignments.
Aristotle's Rhetorical Triangle. Essential concepts for writing for a technical professional audience, influencing others, etc.
See you there!
Workshop Dates and Times:
Tuesday, September 23, 3:00pm - 4:15pm
Wednesday, October 1, 3:00pm - 4:15pm
Wednesday, October 8, 1:30pm - 2:45pm
Language Stories: Centering Students’ Linguistic Capital in our Classrooms
With Bronwyn Lamay, Departments of English and Teacher Education
“I still remember my first day of preschool and the mix of confusion and nervousness
that I felt as I stepped into the classroom, holding tight onto my mom’s hand. I watched
as my teacher approached the two of us with a welcoming smile on her face, and as
she crouched down to my height, she asked me a question. In that moment, I remember
feeling a strong sense of relief because I understood what she was asking me. So I
responded with one of the phrases my mom had taught me: “Hi, my name is Vanessa.’”
We serve a multilingual community. Yet students can internalize the stigma that their linguistic identity is a deficit rather than a learning asset. When students consider their relationships to language in the context of writing by authors like Amy Tan, bell hooks, or Julia Alvarez, their response is often along the lines of, I didn’t realize I had a language story. But now I know I do.
In this workshop we will consider the deep nature of our students’ relationships to language – and our own – from a storied and theoretical perspective. Drawing from a framework of culturally sustaining pedagogy and raciolinguistics, we will define “language stories” as our lived experiences of navigating family, community, culture, society, and school spaces within the politics of language. From a writing perspective, we will explore strategies for facilitating genre-blended pieces that ask students to wrap their language stories in a theoretical lens, inviting us to centralize their lived experiences within our academic curriculum. We will also consider how linguistic privilege and bias shape our relationship to language -- including Standard English – in academic spaces.
As we discuss what is important to know and respect about how our students navigate their worlds through their languaging practices, we will consider how their writing in our multilingual classrooms can invite their languages – all of them – to be alive.
This workshop will meet weekly for four consecutive weeks, beginning the week of October 13 and ending the week of November 3. Participating faculty will earn $500.
Vote for a Day and Time to Meet
Integrating LLMs into the Writing Curriculum: A Faculty Development Workshop
With Vishnu S. Pendyala, Department of Applied Data Science
This project is a four-week workshop designed to equip faculty with the knowledge
and skills to effectively integrate LLMs into their writing courses. The workshop
will first introduce current LLM technology (e.g., Gemini, ChatGPT), discussing the
ethical considerations and challenges of using LLMs in writing instruction, including
issues of plagiarism, authorship, and bias. The use of LLMs for specific writing tasks
such as brainstorming, drafting, revision, analyzing, evaluating, and feedback will
be discussed next. The workshop will then focus on developing assignments that promote
critical thinking, creativity, and ethical use of technology. Participants will work
on and share feedback on assignment designs. The workshop will conclude with takeaways
in the form of guidelines and best practices and include discussion of how to assess
student writing in LLM-enhanced courses. It will also explore strategies for addressing
potential challenges, such as detecting and preventing plagiarism.
This workshop will meet weekly for four consecutive weeks, beginning the week of October 13 and ending the week of November 3. Participating faculty will earn $500.
