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Pre-Symposium Events on Campus
Pre-Symposium Events on Campus
5 April, afternoon: Anannya Dasgupta (Associate Professor and Director, Centre for Writing Pedagogy, Krea University), one of the keynote speakers, conducted a workshop on the craft of giving feedback to students, for Ashoka teachers, tutors and teaching fellows.
An audience of students and instructors at Shilpa Phadke’s talk. Pictured in the foreground is Anannya Dasgupta, who is to give the opening keynote the next morning!
5 April, evening: Under the aegis of ‘Track Changes’, the flagship speaker series of the UWP, Ashoka students (and staff) enjoyed an evening with Shilpa Phadke, Professor, School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Here we see her in conversation with Kundan Sen of the UWP. Phadke’s talk centred ‘politics, privilege and pedagogy’ in her work on women and ‘loitering’ in urban spaces. It led to several invigorating conversations about womanhood and its political negotiations.
Day 1
Day 1
‘Is it a Thing Yet?’, asked Anannya Dasgupta, of Critical Writing Pedagogies in India, in her keynote address, bringing to the fore the many challenges and specific joys of teaching writing in India, whether in public or private universities.
‘Establishing a space: What are the conditions needed for critical work?’ Panel discussion 1 was chaired by Prof. Aparna Vaidik of Ashoka University, seen here holding the mic. (From L to R: Aparna Vaidik, Namrata R. Ganneri, Rohini Sen, Jyoti Parameswaran, Dakshayini Suresh, Ananya Dasgupta and Arunava Banerjee.)
Conversations from the panels continue over lunch.
‘Teaching by doing: What tools and exercises do we use to cultivate critical reading and writing in our students?' Panel Discussion 2 was chaired by Aditi Sriram of the Shiv Nadar School of Law, seen here standing beside the panelists. (From L to R: Aditi Sriram, Samiksha Bajpai, Kumud Bhansali, Neerav Dwivedi, Rashmi Shaju and Vasudha Katju.)
Giving feedback: how do we negotiate the student-teacher relationship in feedback exercises? Paired Discussion: Sayan Choudhari (Right) and Neha Mishra (Middle); conversation moderated by Rashmi Muraleedhar of UWP (Left).
‘Grappling with language: How do we negotiate linguistic hierarchies in an “English medium” classroom?’ Here we see Jyotirmoy Talukdar, chair, at the third and final panel of the first day, speaking about linguistic hierarchies and its presence in the classroom, alongside panelists. (From L to R: Jyotirmoy Talukdar, Akanksha Varma, Neelima Menon, Vrinda Bhatia, Sarah Talat, Sukhmani Singh.)
Keywords and questions from the panel on ‘tools and provocations’ populate our whiteboard.
Conversations from a packed first day spill over into dinner. Pictured here from left to right are Vrinda Bhatia, Kumud Bhansali and Sayan Chaudhuri.
Day 2
Day 2
Day 2 began with Sayantan Datta’s paper on how a neuroscientist takes on writing pedagogy. (They were to have presented on the ‘Teaching by Doing’ panel on 6 April but owing to unavoidable circumstances, they were able to come in only on the 7th.)
‘Teaching through a subject: How do critical thinking and writing teachers navigate their own disciplines and training?’ The fourth panel discussion, on the question of specialised subjects in writing pedagogies, was chaired by Krittika Bhattacharjee of the UWP (extreme left). Pictured here is S. Satish Kumar presenting their paper questioning the place of theory and jargon within disparately situated classroom contexts. (From L to R: Krittika Bhattacharjee, Sayantan Datta, Satish Kumar, Vivek Tewari, Madhura Lohokare, Nikhita Thomas, Sumathi N.)
The panel takes a question from Sarah Talat, lecturer at Azim Premji University. Talat’s paper on building critical competencies within English Language Learner classrooms was one of the papers commended with the Ashoka-SAGE Prize for Critical Writing.
Kundan Sen (L) and Arpita (R) Das of UWP in a special session discuss Why Loiter and how their respective classrooms have engaged with the text in a critical writing context.
The symposium closes with a talk by Shilpa Phadke about a work-in-progress, her translation of Parvati’s diary. Parvati was Phadke’s great-grandmother, and the diary dates back to the 1920s, providing poignant insights into historical perspectives on urban life. These intimate glimpses into the everyday experiences of an Indian woman, navigating the streets of London, underscored the enduring challenges of, identity, language, and representation faced by Indian emigrants in the UK and connects poetically - if tangentially - to Phadke’s own work on Mumbai.
Pictured here are the winners of the first Ashoka-SAGE Prize for Critical Writing, alongside our jury. (From L to R, Aditi Sriram, Vrinda Bhatia, Sarah Talat, Shilpa Phadke, Anannya Dasgupta, Sayantan Datta, Vivek Tewary and Krittika Bhattacharjee.)
We paid attention! (Volunteers and UWP Instructors on Day 1)
A glimpse of the UWP control room just before the commencement of the symposium. (Two team members are missing. Arpita Das (pictured in the special session) and Chinmoy Saikia (lead author of this photo essay and lurking in a few photos) were teaching their classes at the time of this picture!)
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