Innovative Session Formats

Updated from the MLA Program Committee's article in the Spring 2012 MLA Newsletter

Imagine this scenario. The topic of the MLA panel you were on your way to attend sounded really engaging. You entered the room with the highest of hopes for invigorating exchange. There were four papers scheduled, but each was read in a rushed monotone. The first three papers each went over by five minutes, so the last speaker ran out of time. The panel chair took just one question, and the session ended three minutes late. The audience quickly filed out, as the next group of panelists pressed into the room. Important scholarship may have been presented, but little meaningful exchange occurred. Sound familiar?

This stereotype of the MLA convention panel need not become your reality. Innovative sessions—as well as traditional paper-presentation panels—are welcomed by the Program Committee. We hope to see more interactive, innovative, and exchange-oriented approaches proposed for future conventions. In an effort to make the proposal process as transparent as possible and to encourage greater member input, the Program Committee offers the following ideas to consider as you prepare your next MLA session proposal. Some of these session formats are already part of our convention program, while others remain as yet untried ideas. We hope you will both propose and attend sessions in the formats below, as well as submit additional ideas you have for formats that promote innovative and collegial exchange at the convention. Refer to the Procedures for Organizing Convention Meetings for additional details and complete descriptions.

Session submission forms come in three formats: Panel (allows for up to four panelists with formal presentation titles); Roundtable (allows for up to eight participants but no presentation titles); and Workshop (allows for one or two presiders with no panelists or presentation titles). Each innovative format below includes the suggested format to select when completing your session submission. Working groups and posters have their own special proposal forms.

Preconvention Collaborative Workshops: These informative workshops provide useful member services such as pedagogy training and skills or professional and employment development and support. Workshops are three hours long and may require preregistration and have an additional fee. These cannot be submitted as a guaranteed session. Select the workshop format and then select preconvention workshop.
Seventy-Five-Minute Workshops: Led by one or two facilitators, these intensive discussions emphasize hands-on learning and participation by all attendees. Proposers have an opportunity to present their workshops twice, if desired. Such workshops will likely be offered in two streams, on Thursday and Saturday or on Friday and Sunday, making it possible for more attendees to take advantage of these workshops. Select the workshop format.
Roundtables: Roundtables are intended to focus on open discussion of broad scholarly or professional questions. As a result, there is no space on the roundtable submission form for presentation titles, and we are strongly discouraging formal presentations during these sessions. Proposals must demonstrate an emphasis on engagement between panelists and attendees. Select the roundtable format.
Creative Conversations: These sessions feature free-form dialogues between published authors or other artists and an interviewer. This might include sessions that consider single works, classics, emerging formats, films, plays, artwork, and such. Select the roundtable format.
Electronic Roundtables: These digital-demonstration sessions reconfigure the familiar poster session, allowing participants to identify and exchange findings on topics such as incorporating digital media technologies into teaching, scholarship, and administration; to use digital media to explore a particular issue such as community engagement, student research, or textual editing. These can be designed to have three to eight stations that will be set up around the meeting room with appropriate audiovisual equipment. Select the roundtable format and then select electronic roundtable.
Ignite Talks: This session format includes brief, timed presentations, such as those in the PechaKucha style. In that format, twenty images are shown for twenty seconds each, and panelists talk along with their images. A dynamic form that originated in Tokyo in 2003, PechaKucha draws its name from the Japanese term for the sound of conversation (“chit chat”). This format is notable for its concise presentation mode, and it keeps things moving at a rapid pace. Formats with similarly compressed speaking times and goals, such as “Speed Geeking” or “Lightning Shorts,” have emerged in recent years and would be welcomed under this rubric. Select the roundtable format if you plan to have more than four presenters. Note that this will not accommodate presentation titles. Select the panel format for four or fewer presenters.
Case-Study-Themed Sessions: These sessions could be organized around any single topic ranging from workshops on members’ syllabi to conversations on new approaches to organized learning. Select the workshop format if there will be one or two moderators to facilitate a workshop style event. Select the roundtable format if it’s more of a discussion.
Master Classes: These sessions would center on widely held member interests and might feature accomplished scholars or teachers leading how-to sessions in different presentational styles or structures (workshops, roundtables, panels). Select the Innovative Session format, which can include presentation titles.
Working Groups: Working groups will provide a means for a group of members to meet together to discuss their work in multiple sessions during the convention. Working groups are proposed by individual members who post a call for participation by 28 February and then engage eight to twelve participants to meet together to discuss their work in two or three sessions during the convention, working toward a collective project or outcome. All approved working groups will be required to establish groups on MLA Commons, through which papers and other materials must be circulated to participants and auditors before the convention. Session time will then be used for very brief presentations and extended discussion rather than for the reading of papers. Working groups extend over more than one session, so participants in a working group will not be able to participate in any other sessions. Working groups cannot be submitted as a guaranteed session. Select the Working Group proposal form.
Language and Literature Program Innovation Room presentations: If you are working on a project related to exploring innovative curricular thinking in both discipline-specific and interdisciplinary configurations and wish to engage in one-on-one conversations with attendees, you are welcome to submit a proposal to participate in the Language and Literature Program Innovation Room.

The Program Committee invites your ideas for making the annual conference both successful and engaging through active participation. As much as we revere time-tested traditional session formats, the MLA Program Committee is also committed to enlivening the conference experience with new approaches. We are grateful to hear your thoughts and hope that, as we move forward together, fewer MLA sessions will replay the scenario outlined above and that more innovative formats and enriched exchange will be built into the structure of our convention.

MLA Program Committee