11th Annual Lake Superior Summit

At-A-Glance Conference schedule

Full Schedule

Tentative Schedule

8:30 am – 9:00 am: Registration, Coffee, Tea & Snacks

9:00 am – 10:00 am: Keynote

SESSION 1: 10:15 am – 11:00 am

SESSION 2: 11:15 am – 12:00 pm

12:00pm – 1:30 pm: Lunch and Trail Hike or Snowshoe

SESSION 3: 1:30 pm – 2:15 pm

2:30 pm – 3:00 pm: Closing comments

Dr. Dan Lawrence

Machine-Assisted Invention: Writing and Questioning Through the Artificial Intelligence Boom

Dan Lawrence, PhD is Associate Professor of Writing at the University of Wisconsin - Superior. He is the author of Digital Writing: A Guide to Writing for Social Media and the Web (Broadview Press, 2022) and the forthcoming trade book on rhetoric and disinformation, Disinformed: The History of Humanity's Search for Truth (Urano World, 2024). He teaches courses on rhetoric, technical writing, digital writing, and a new class on writing and artificial intelligence at UW-Superior. His research has appeared in Critical Reading and Writing in the Era of Fake News and Online Credibility and Digital Ethos: Evaluating Computer-Mediated Communication, among other places. He received his PhD in Rhetoric & Technical Communication with a specialization in Digital Media Theory from Michigan Technological University.

Registration is closed for this event

Please consider proposing a session or panel for the annual Lake Superior Summit. We welcome sessions from secondary and post-secondary presenters. The Summit is an opportunity for writing and ESL teachers to share practices, problems, and reflections in a supportive, engaging space.

This year’s session theme is “AI: Artificial and Authentic” We welcome proposals relating to the theme, and proposals that stray from the theme. Here some possible theme-related prompts to energize thinking:

• What is AI?
• Human Students meet Artificial Intelligence. What could happen?
• AI in teaching? What’s the place of AI in writing classroom?
• What does the writing classroom of the future look like? Defense for first year writing?
• Where is AI, anyway? Where is it already at work?
• How to encourage authentic voices when AI is ubiquitous and easy?
• Building alternatives to screen-life and creating classroom community in real life (IRL).
• How to encourage authentic living?

Please submit a 4-5 sentence presentation description of via this link by January 26, 2024.

The committee will review all proposals and notify presenters within two weeks of the deadline.

There is No Fee to Attend the conference, thanks to this year’s generous sponsors:

• The College of St. Scholastica
• University of Minnesota, Duluth
• University of Wisconsin, Superior
• Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College
• Lake Superior College
• Northwood Technical College

Please contact Steve Dalager, , with any Summit queries.

Summit attendees can earn 6 hours of Continuing Education Units (CEUs). A CEU certificate will be available on the day of the conference to those who request it on the Registration Form.

The Summit was conceived in 2014 by a group of area writing instructors wishing to meet their colleagues at various educational levels and across states in the Northland. Its purpose is to bring together teachers of writing and literacy to exchange ideas, best practices, common challenges, and innovations in the teaching of writing, whether academic, creative, professional, or otherwise. The Summit values experimentation in our small-group sessions as acts of discovery in teaching and learning. Thoughtful, intelligent sharing in question-and-answer sessions with very active audience participation is the cornerstone of this event.

Since 2015, the conference has been free to attend because of generous donations from area colleges and universities.

Past Conferences

• 2023 Hosted by Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, the Summit focused on connections between writing and environments with the theme “Lessons from the Land: Teaching, Learning, Living, and Writing.”
• 2022 Hosted by the College of Saint Scholastica, the Summit focused on exploring the relationship between secondary and post-secondary writing teachers with the theme “Common Ground or Shifting Sands?”.
• 2021 Hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Superior, the Summit focused on “Essential Innovations” demanded by the limitations imposed by COVID-19, and considered the three themes of “Teaching with Technology,” “Lessons Learned from the Difficult Times,” and “Language & Culture.”
• 2020 Hosted by the University of Minnesota-Duluth, this Summit addressed awareness and visibility in the classroom, diverse narratives and perspectives, and challenging conversations related to the teaching of writing and English as a Second Language, with the theme “Absence to Presence: Nurturing Awareness & Visibility in Our Teaching Spaces.”
• 2019 Hosted by Lake Superior College, this Summit examined the importance of writing for engaging students in a polarized nation at a time of particularly troublesome social and political discord.
• 2018 Hosted by Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College, this Summit explored the role of writing in the lives of both teachers and students inside and outside the academic contexts, and how these related, contrasted, and informed each other.
• 2017 Hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Superior Yellowjacket Union, the Summit theme, “Writing Lives in the Northland,” explored the role of writing in the lives of both teachers and students inside and outside the academic contexts and how these relate, contrast, and inform each other.
• 2016 Hosted by College of St. Scholastica, the Summit was focused around the theme of “Engaging Communities,” both in terms of writing teachers engaging their students, as well as how students can learn through community-based writing.
• 2015 Hosted by University of Minnesota-Duluth, the Summit expanded its focus by collaborating with English as a Second Language colleagues, whose interests dovetail with the teaching of writing. The theme was “Bridging Communities,” a figurative nod to bringing disciplines together, as well as a figurative nod to the bridges connecting the Twin Ports of Superior, WI and Duluth, MN.
• 2014 Hosted by Lake Superior College, the inaugural conference brought college and high school writing instructors in the Northland together for the first time in the existing memories of senior colleagues (upwards of 20 years).

Our Main Campus is located at 2101 Trinity Road, Duluth, MN 55811.

• Parking will be available in Lot 1 (see Parking Map below), the first lot encountered when coming from the Trinity Road lights.
• Enter at the left entrance (of the two visible from Lot 1)
• Opening session will be Hawks Landing, a gathering space on the 2nd floor above the LSC Café. L201 (see Building Map below).
• Breakout sessions will be in clearly marked classrooms nearby.

Maps

• View View Directions, Locations and Parking
• Google Map
• Building Map
• Parking Map