IV Writing Research Across Borders (WRAB), Bogotá, Colombia, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 February 2017.

With the aim to promote the exchange of researches, ideas and projects related with the writing in different education levels and in different regions across the world, during the days 15, 16, 17 and 18 February 2017 took place the IV International Conference on writing research through borders (Writing Research Across Borders, WRAB) in Colombia, in the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá. Promoted by the International Society for the Advancement in Writing Research, ISAWR and organised by Blanca Yaneth González Pinzón (Colombia), this event gathered in its meeting of 2017 more than 600 speakers, of 278 institutions and from 39 countries.

Renowned specialists ran the plenary conferences: Anne Marie Chartier (CNRS-ENS Lyon), Guadalupe López Bonilla (Universidad Autónoma de la Baja California, México), Theresa Lillis (The Open University, United Kingdom), Virginia Zavala (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú), Perry Klein (University of Western, Ontario, Canada) y Mirta Castedo (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina).

The different conference interventions were organised in ten wide thematic axes: 1) experiences and representations of students; 2) assessment of reading and writing; 3) historical approaches; 4) interculturality L1, L2 and L3; 5) reading, writing and democracy; 6) genres, functions and uses of reading and writing; 7) evolutionary development of the subject for dealing with reading and writing; 8) teaching training and mediation in the room through writing; 9) materials design, use of technology and modalities of education (remotely, rural education...) and 10) institutional initiatives. Seven workshops previous to the conference, different sessions of communications and posters, 37 symposiums of different research international groups and 15 roundtables were organised.

In this framework, Carmen Rodríguez-Gonzalo presented two communications: “Los docentes noveles y la enseñanza de la lectura para el aprendizaje. Análisis de prácticas profesionalizadoras” (Novice teachers and lecture teaching for learning. Analysis of professional practices), on how Teacher Training students act when teaching children of Primary school to understand texts during their internships; and the second, “La revisión de los textos y la autorregulación de la escritura en el aula de Secundaria” (Texts revision and self-regulation of writing in the Secondary school room), on the role of grammar knowledge in the regulation of writing in students of Secondary school. She also participated in the workshop “Escribir en el mundo de la investigación: un enfoque socio-retórico” (Writing in the research world: a socio-rhetorical approach) developed by Paula Carlino (CONICET-UBA) and Desirée Motta Roth (CNPq / Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brasil) on the writing of abstracts for academic publications.

As Luis Bernardo Peña (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá) indicated in the review sessions, the IV WRAB has been a pluralistic conference -diversity of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, several educational levels- and inclusive -from advanced researches to degree theses- and an authentic “advanced course of research in writing”. The excellent organisation of such a complex event was key for the success of this edition, shown by all participants.

This fourth edition of the WRAB gives continuity to the previous meetings held in Santa Bárbara (2008), Washington (2011) and París (2014). The next one, V WRAB, will be held in China in 2019.

More information in: http://wrab2017.com/javeriana/es/

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