Opening remarks from CWRL Director Clay Spinuzzi at the CWRL Colloquium, 11/5/2005

In the past, CWRL colloquia have been two and a half day affairs. They were presentations, based on the model used at large conferences such as CCCC and Computers & Writing. And there was a good reason for this: The colloquium gave staffers a chance to run through presentations that they would later give at those large conferences. That practice was beneficial – but the net result was that presenters ended up talking at rather than with the audience. The discussion was often one-way, and consequently staffers didn't have much opportunity to share their ideas with each other, to engage critically, or to set courses for future development.

This year, we wanted to "take a closer look," as the theme suggests. We wanted to focus tightly on the core mission of the colloquium, which is to share a vision of what we do here. We wanted something that is more intimate, more focused, more conversational. In short, we wanted to foster a collaboration.

Whenever I think of collaboration, I think of a study that Rebecca Burnett published a few years ago. Burnett is very interested in collaborative writing, so one day she had her students pair up and take a writing assignment to work on collaboratively. She also gave them tape recorders and asked them to record their collaborations. When they
brought these back, she graded the papers and transcribed the conversations. And she found three typical patterns of collaboration.

Let's call the first kind "agreement." Essentially, this model involves no conflict whatsoever. This collaboration pattern goes something like this:

Margaret: --for the memo. In fact, I think that this covers most of the memo; this will be, like, 75% of the memo just describing the different -- how we should organize the facts. Um, let's see. The main idea we had for organizing the facts were using titles and subtitles?
Jessica: Yes.
Margaret: And key points and bullets under the titles
and subtitles. Is that correct?
Jessica: Um. Yeah. Titles -- a title for the product name.
Margaret: Okay.
Jessica: And subtitles for a specific product component, coupled with a few descriptive sentences stating their benefits.
Margaret: Okay.

Since the two collaborators never disagreed, they never got a chance to sharpen their ideas. The resulting assignment got the second worst grade in the class.

That's not what we're after.

Let's call the second kind of collaboration "disagreement." Essentially, this model is the opposite of the first: It's all about conflict. It goes something like this:

Josh: What font do you think we should use?
Pete: I personally think we should use Geneva 12-point.
Josh: I kinda like Chicago 12-point. Makes it a little more spacious.
Pete: I'll have to see what happens on the computer
when I put it on, but I really like the Geneva 12.
Josh: Do you? And I prefer the Chicago 12, so --
Pete: Chicago 12 or Chicago 10?
Josh: Chicago 12. It's more spacious.
Pete: Well, we'll see. Geneva comes up better and bolder.
Josh: Yeah. Well, we'll see.

The two collaborators disagreed throughout the collaboration, but on a trivial matter, and neither was able to move the other. The font, finally, was set as Chicago – because Josh was sitting at the keyboard. And, predictably, the resulting paper was the worst in the class.

That's also not what we're after.

The third type of collaboration Burnett calls "substantive conflict." And you can guess how it looks. I won't go through Burnett's dialogue here except to note that the interlocutors were both focused on a larger goal, both respected each other, and both were willing to disagree in order to meet that goal. Their collaboration worked by challenging and sharpening each other's ideas.

That's what we're after.

To that end, we've arranged the presentations as roundtables, and we encourage you to join in on the conversations. Get in on the action; engage in some substantive conflict. Doing so will help us all to sharpen our ideas. It will also draw our attention to possibilities that workgroups will realize in the spring. It will spark discussion that can connect past work with current and future projects. And it will start true conversations: not talking at each other, but to each other.

Thank you.