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Session/Proposal: Workshop: Wednesday Afternoon Level Emphasis: All Area Cluster: 2) Community, Civic and Public Session Title: Writing Democracy 2012: Envisioning aFederal Writers' Project for the 21st Century This workshop provides an overview of the1930s FWP and current universitycommunity projects to frame a discussionabout a new network--FWP 2.0--for the 21st century. Seventy-five years ago during the GreatDepression, a division of the Works Progress Administration called the Federal WritersProject employed writers and researchers to create a new roadmap for the culturalrediscovery of America via local guidebooks, oral histories, and folklore. Today, collegewriting programs, service-learning programs, and scholars across the disciplines areengaging in university-community partnerships that might together create a similar roadmap forrediscovering 21st century America. After the 2008 crash, numerous commentatorssuggested the idea of a new FWP. Although it became clear by late 2009 that Obamasstimulus package would not fund such a project, the idea inspired an informal meeting atCCCC 2010 and a conference Writing Democracy: A Rhetoric of (T)here in March2011 at Texas A&M-Commerce, and further developed during a follow-up meeting at CCCC2011. Another venue for dialogue about the idea is a forthcoming special issue of theCommunity Literacy Journal. Over 150 scholars, students, and communitymembers convened in Commerce in March 2011 looked at place, history, local publics, andpopular movements in an attempt to understand and promote democracy throughresearch, writing, and action. It is precisely this existing infrastructure of university-communityprojects that suggests the direction Writing Democracy might take to enact what ErnestBoyer calls the scholarship of engagement in local communities: local histories of aneighborhood school in Brooklyn (Mutnick), publications co-authored by undergraduateresearchers and local community centers and museums (Grobman), video and audioremixes of archival materials featuring local histories of traditionally underrepresentedgroups (Carter). The primary goal of the proposed CCCCWorkshop is to extend the conversation that began in 2010 at CCCC and continued inCommerce, and thus to further examine the possibilities for creating a national network thatcould link existing local projects and give rise to new ones. Participants will be invited to submittextual, video, and/or audio representations of local projects two weeks before the conferenceat writingdemocracy.org. Through this portal, workshop leaders will facilitate an onlinediscussion regarding a wide range of projects nationwide, analyzing commonalities anddifferences and drawing conclusions about how they might form the basis of FWP 2.0. Part I of the proposed workshop will feature abrief presentation by Jerrold Hirsch (Truman University), a historian who will set the currentinitiative in the historical context of the FWPs achievements and impediments. Hirschsemphasis on what we can learn from the FWP in the 1930s will set the stage for contemporaryexamples of how we can contribute to a peoples history of the U.S. in the 21st century.

Contemporary local projects will be featured ina short video montage drawn from depictions provided by participants before the conferencevia the Writing Democracy portal. SessionDescription: For Part II of the workshop, invitedRespondents will offer 5-10 minute prepared remarks in response to local projects featuredon the video and at writingdemocracy.org within a broader context, setting the stage for aplenary for the development of a productive plan for FWP 2.0, utilizing the interactive,collaborative, user-generated capacities of the Web to collect, curate, disseminate, andarchive multimodal writing about communities, places, and people that might be to futuregenerations what FWP narratives are to contemporary scholars. Respondents will helpguide the discussion of potential linkages and overarching goals from different angles,including community publishing, digital humanities, and writing across communities. The Workshop concludes with a plenary on themission, structure, and goals of Writing Democracy and FWP 2.0. Small groups willexplore and debate methods, theories, goals, and outcomes of university-communityprojects, extrapolating best pedagogical, rhetorical, and research practices andidentifying key themes. Discussion leaders will help facilitate small group discussion. Reportsto the full group will be used to draft a mission statement which will then form the basis for afinal discussion about building the Writing Democracy network, envisioning FWP 2.0, andgenerating new questions about the potential for linking existing and future projects acrossdisciplinary, geographical, and social gateways. Framing Questions: 1) Using the FWP as a model, can we developa typology for what these projects look like now? 2) What pedagogical methods best supportuniversity- community projects? Are the goals of such projects compatible with the goals ofcollege writing instruction? 3) What outreach and collaborative methodsbest support partnerships with communities? How can academic partners best meet theneeds of community partners? 4) How can Writing Democracy/FWP 2.0 createa national or even internationalnetwork of local projects (guides, ethnographic studies,oral histories, and multimodal essays)? What resources and support will be needed to sustain such an effort? Through these framing questions, we hope toformulate an overarching set of methods, goals, and practices, while generating newquestions about existing and possible projects. During the CCCC Workshop, we will use thisknowledge from the field to envision a network that might replicate and go beyond the FWPsachievements seventy- five years ago. Half-Day Session Schedule: Part I 1:30-1:40 Welcome and Introductions 1:40-2:00 Historical Context of the FWP(Jerrold Hirsch, Truman University) 2:00-2:15 Scenes of American Life VideoMontage (Shannon Carter, Texas A&MCommerce; Deborah Mutnick (Long IslandUniversity-Brooklyn)

2:15-2:30 Small Group Discussions -Relevance of the 1930s FWP to Contemporary Projects Part II 2:30-3:00 FWP 2.0: Writing Democracy in the21st Century (Stephen J. Parks, Syracuse University; Laurie Grobman, Penn State Berks;Brian Hendrickson. University of New Mexico; David Jolliffe, University of Arkansas) 3:00-3:30 Learning from the 1930s FWP;Envisioning FWP 2.0 (Catherine Hobbs, University of Oklahoma, Harvey Graff, TheOhio State University; Jeff Grabill, Michigan State University; Kathi Yancey, Florida StateUniversity) 3:30-3:40 Break 3:40-5:00 Plenary: Mission Statement and NextSteps (Small Group Discussions, followed by Report to Large Group) Names of additional presenters anddescriptions of local projects will be available online (writingdemocracy.org) and at theworkshop. Workshop organizers commit to continued communication and requests forinvolvement, posting mission statement, goals, and forum for next steps, which will likelyinclude the organization of Writing Democracy 2013 in Brooklyn, NY (Long Island University). This presenter has agreed to adapt the presentation forgreater accessibility Participants DeborahMutnick, Chair Shannon Carter, Co-Chair JerroldHirsch, Speaker 1 StephenParks, Speaker 2 LaurieGrobman, Speaker 3 BrianHendrickson, Speakeradditional DavidJolliffe, Speakeradditional JeffreyGrabill, Respondent KathleenYancey, Respondent Harvey Graff, Respondent CatherineHobbs, Speaker 4