City College of New York · The City University of New York
A national conference revisiting Shaughnessy’s foundational work and its lasting influence on writing instruction, language equity, and the politics of access in higher education.
About the Conference
In 1977, Mina Shaughnessy published Errors and Expectations, transforming how educators understood the writing of underprepared college students. Half a century later, we gather at the institution where she taught — City College of New York — to assess her legacy, contest her limitations, and ask what basic writing means today.
In an era of corequisite mandates, accelerated timelines, and shifting language ideologies, this conference brings together scholars, teachers, administrators, and students to reckon honestly with the past and imagine more just futures for writing instruction.
Conference Themes
Reassessing Errors and Expectations fifty years on — its contributions, contradictions, and contested afterlives.
Critical perspectives on CUNY’s corequisite mandate and accelerated models of writing instruction.
Centering translingual, multimodal, and community-based literacy practices.
Centering the histories, identities, and intellectual lives of students labeled “basic.”
Case studies and assessments of writing program transformation at CUNY and beyond.
Conference Leadership