The diverse stories CCCC Documentarians craft about their experiences help answer the question “What is a conference experience?”
Why Participate?
We’re hoping the Documentarian experience will
- help you make sense of your experiences at the 2026 CCCC Annual Convention in a more focused and purposeful way;
- allow you to compose a story that will be circulated to others in your professional community–others who need to hear it;
- invite you to set goals for future participation; and
- allow your voice to contribute to growth in the Convention and in the field more broadly.
What Does a Documentarian Do?
Before the Convention
- Complete an instructional module and the demographic survey.
During the Convention
- Complete daily surveys that will be delivered to you each morning and evening of the conference.
- Document your experience as you move through your day.
- Possibly map your locations as you move through each day of the Convention.
- Take notes on your experiences with people, panels, and events.
After the Convention
- Complete a reflective survey within one week after the Convention.
How Can I Join?
Every year, you have the opportunity to express your interest when you submit a proposal for the CCCC Annual Convention. Those who commit to being Documentarians in advance have a spot on the CCCC program.
However, you can still join later! To do so, email documentarianscccc@gmail.com.
Purpose of Documentarians
We’re hoping to use this experiential data for future Convention planning informed by a deeper understanding of varied, individual experiences—to learn, for example,
- what aspects of the Convention hold value for (which) attendees,
- what kinds of social and professional interactions take place and what makes them meaningful or valuable, and
- how people interact with planned Convention events and virtual spaces and how they potentially make their own spaces in pursuit of Convention experiences they desire.
We may also share portions of the anonymized information reported in the surveys with others in the wider professional community.
Why is Documentary-Making Important?
Documentary-making is a methodology of forecasting learning—because emergent stories (such as stories about a Convention we have not yet finished attending) are representations of things that the documentary makers did not yet know when they began documenting their experiences. And given this approach to their making, documentary stories are stories of learning. Telling documentary stories of learning is a task of recollection: making selections from the many documents generated along the path to the learning identified in the documentary story.
These evolving documentary stories are facilitated by acts of projection (prior to the experience) and collection (during the experience) directed at and by our knowledge of that future forensic act of recollection otherwise known as documentary storytelling (after the experience).
We offer that the more that documentaries can be recollections of documented events, the more they can enable discoveries of developing experiential learning (see Lindquist and Halbritter, 2019).
Your work as a Documentarian will inform two sorts of documentary stories:
- The story of the world we have in common, as an aggregate of diverse experiences
- The story of the world as you (yourself) experience it
Together, these stories comprise an archive of member experiences that can be used for learning about our field and Convention experiences.
History of the CCCC Documentarian Project
Inspired by the work of Documentarians for the Conference on Community Writing, the CCCC Documentarian Project took shape in 2019 in preparation for the 2020 Conference on College Composition and Communication Annual Convention. Project leads Julie Lindquist, Bree Straayer, and Bump Halbritter designed a reflective survey protocol for Documentarians to use to gather notes on their experiences across the Convention week. The data provided by these reflective surveys allows CCCC to “learn more about the needs and experiences of its members” (Lindquist et al. 1); through reflecting on their experiences and reviewing them in light of the whole data set, Documentarians craft their stories for the CCCC audience.
In 2020, Documentarians reflected on their experiences during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, including during the week that CCCC was canceled. In 2021 and 2022, Documentarians explored their experiences during the all-online Convention events. In 2023 and 2024, Documentarians captured their experiences in Chicago and Spokane. The early work of the Documentarian project is captured in two volumes: Recollections from an Uncommon Time: 4C20 Documentarian Tales (NCTE / CCCC / WAC Clearinghouse, 2023) and Recollections from Our Common Places: 4C21–23 Documentarian Tales (NCTE / CCCC / WAC Clearinghouse, 2025).
In 2025, Adrienne Jankens and Jennifer Grouling assumed facilitation of the Documentarian project.
2026 Documentarians
Dibya Darpan Adhikari
Habiba Akter
Masuma Akter
Zainab Aldaoseri
Chioma Amadi
Desire Ameigh
Erin Andersen
Zia-ur-Rehman Ansari
Nancy Bou Ayash
Mali Barker
Mahasweta Baxipatra
Sara Beam
Nicholas Behm
Purna Chandra Bhusal
Sandra Boateng
Elizabeth Boluch Wood
Gwendolyn Britt
Cedric Burden
Jessica Campbell
Yvette Chairez
Thais Cons
Adrienne Jones Daly
Pinki Rani Das
Liezel Datulio
Michelle Davidson
Misun Dokko
Suchismita Dutta
Michelle Fanara
Christine Fena
Jennifer Foster
Malaka Friedman
Maria Galiano
Priyanka Ganguly
MiSun Garrison
Saroj GC
Anne Ruggles Gere
Sami Grayson
Elizabeth Green
Charles Grimm
Yuan Gu
Menuka Gurung
Fangzhi He
Cody Hmelar
Titcha Ho
MD IMRAN HOSSAIN
Md Mozaffor Hossain
Peter Huk
Zita Hüsing
Adrienne Jankens
Raquel Johansen
Ambir Khadka
Ananta Khanal
Renuka Khatiwada
Ann Kim
Kathleen Klompien
Kayla Landers
Christopher LeCluyse
Jeanette Lehn
Ruth Li
Daocheng Lin
Heather Listhartke
Violet Livingston
Joseph Mayaki
Rachel Mazique
Ashley McClelland
Megan Mericle
Craig A Meyer
Patricia Carmichael Miller
Tina Montgomery
Cristina Montufar
Don Moore
Mary Morgan
Nilima Mow
Munira Mutmainna
Spencer Myers
Krystia Nora
Eugenia Novokshanova
Daune O’Brien
Christie Okocha
Ildi Olasz
Megan Palmer
Parva Panahi
Khushi Patel
Shelagh Patterson
Angela Pennington
Patricia Poblete
Shekher Pokhrel
Meridith Reed
Jameson Reid
Lisa Reid
Thomas Reynolds
Rachel Rickel
Jenny Rissen
Jessica Rose
Miriam Rowntree
Robert Ryder
Heidi Saenz
Madina Sanatbekova
Joseph Saufley
Kirsten Schwartz
Kellie Sharp
Mafruha Shifat
Jennifer Grouling Snider
Kyle Stedman
June Straight
Michelle Stuckey
Emi Stuemke
Benjamin Taylor
Karen Tellez-Chaires
Catherine Tetz
Jason Tham
Mahendra Bahadur Thapa
Harun Thomas
Eva Thor
Katherine Tirabassi
Susmita Davi Trisha
Tracey Tull
Kimberly Tweedale
Rachael Tyler
Nicole Guinot Varty
Manuel Gonzalez Velasco
Darrell White
Shauna Wight
Charitianne Williams
Liping Yang
John Young
Yanhong Zuo
