April 22 and 24 meeting in HEAV 306

Our WPA seminar will meet in HEAV 306 (the graduate conference room) next week, April 22 and 24. This space should make it a bit easier to work on the class project.

shirley

Assignment for April 15 and 17

WPAs’ Knowledge in Context: Writing Programs in Higher Ed Institutions
Harris will present his SPA in class on April 15
We will end class in time to attend the English 106 Showcase Awards presentation.

Read the following for discussion on April 15:
Hesse, Douglas. "Understanding Larger Discourses in Higher Education: Practical Advice for WPAs." Allyn and Bacon Sourcebook for Writing Program Administrators. Eds. Irene Ward and William Carpenter. New York: Longman, 2002. 299-314. (coursepack)

McGee, Sharon James. “Overcoming Disappointment: Constructing Writing Program Identity through Postmodern Mapping.” Discord and Direction: The Postmodern Writing Program Administrator. Ed. Sharon James McGee and Carolyn Handa. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 2005. 59-71. (coursepack)

Maid, Barry. "More Than a Room of Our Own: Building an Independent Department of Writing." Enos and Brown. 453-466. (textbook)

Merrill, Yvonne, and Thomas P. Miller. "Making Learning Visible: A Rhetorical Stance on General Education." Enos and Brown. 203-217. (textbook)

Ritter, Kelly. “Extra Institutional Agency and the Public Value of the WPA.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 29.3 (Spring 2006): 45-64 (on disk)

for April 17:
Class will meet in Computer lab in ENAD 138 to work on an online exericise on WPAs in the Borader Higher Education context

Assignments for April 1,3, 8, and 10

Assignment for April 1 and 3:
Professor Rose at CCCC. No reading assignment. Use class time for workshops on projects

Assignment for April 8 and 10
Full draft of Fourth Project is due on April 10.

Megan presents her Situated Performance Activity on April 8.
Cris presents her book review and Harris presents his job description analysis on April 10

Representing WPA Knowledge
Read the following:

Smith, Dorothy. “The Social Construction of Documentary Reality.” Sociological Inquiry 44 (1974): 257-268. (coursepack)

MLA Commission on Professional Service. "Making Faculty Work Visible: Reinterpreting Professional Service, Teaching, and Research in the Fields of Language and Literature." Profession 96. New York: MLA, 1996. 161-216. (coursepack)

Bullock, Richard H. "When Administration Becomes Scholarship: The Future of Writing Program Administration." WPA: Writing Program Administration 11.1/2 (Fall 1987): 13-18. (on disk)

Hult, Christine. "The Scholarship of Administration." Resituating Writing: Constructing and Administering Writing Programs. Ed. Joseph Janangelo and Kristine Hansen. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1995. 119-131. (coursepack)

Roen, Duane H. "Writing Administration as Scholarship and Teaching." Academic Advancement in Composition Studies: Scholarship, Publication, Promotion, Tenure. Ed. Richard C. Gebhardt and Barbara Genelle Gebhardt. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996. 43-55. (coursepack)

Bushman, Donald. "The WPA as Pragmatist: Recasting 'Service' as 'Human Science'." WPA: Writing Program Administration 23.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1999): 29-43. (on disk)

Speculation: Consider this week’s reading in the context of our other reading, writing, and discussions this semester. All of these readings are at least a decade old. Based on your own reading of more recent scholarship, would you say that it is time to update these discussions/descriptions of WPA scholarship? If so, what would be the most effective form for this updating to take? If not, what ideas about WPA scholarship seem to be most resistant to change? Your response can take any form, but should be equal to a 500-word short essay in scope.

We'll begin our discussion of the readings on Tuesday and continue on Thursday. Please have your response ready for Tuesday's class.

Assignment for March 27

Full draft of Third Project is due.

Focus: Writing Program Assessment as as Knowledge-Making Activity

In-Class: Assessment Project: We will particpate in the ICaP assessment project with Paul Lunch and Kristine Johnson

Preparation Reading:
Schneider, Barbara and Richard Marback. “Judging WPAs by What They Say They Do: An Argument for Revising ‘Evaluating the Intellectual Work of Writing Administration’.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 27.3 (Spring 2004): 7-22.

Harrington, Susanmarie. “The Place of Assessment and Reflection in Writing Program Administration.” Discord and Direction: The Postmodern Writing Program Administrator. Ed. Sharon James McGee and Carolyn Handa. Logan, UT: Utha State UP. 140-157.

Juergensmeyer, Erik and Karen P. Pierce. “Becoming the Learner: Collaborative Inquiry, Reflection, and Writing-Program Assessment. “ WPA: Writing Program Administration 30.3 (Spring 2007): 29-56.

Assignment for March 25

Documentation Strategies for Archiving WPA Knowledge
Last 20 minutes of class on March 25 will be spent on prep for assessment activity on March 27

Read

Rose, Shirley K and Irwin Weiser. “The WPA as Researcher and Archivist.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos, ed. Matwah, NJ; Earbaum, 2002. (textbook)



L'Eplattenier, Barbara. "Finding Ourselves in the Past: An Argument for the Need for Historical Work on WPAs." The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1999. (on reserve)



Mirtz, Ruth M. "WPAs as Historians: Discovering a First Year Writing Program by Researching Its Past." The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1999. (on reserve)



Guba, Egon G. and Yvonna S. Lincoln. "Using Documents, Records, and Unobtrusive Measures." Ch. 8 in Effective Evaluation: Improving the Usefulness of Evaluation Results Through Responsive and Naturalistic Approaches. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981. (coursepack)


Choose one of the following options

Option #1

After reading these essays, examine the following article by E. Shelley Reid and note the number and kinds of documents that are mentioned in this narrative. Develop a tentative set of categories for classifying these documents:

Reid, E. Shelley. “A Change for the Better: Curriculum Revision as Reflective Practice in Teaching and Administration.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 26.3 (Spring 2003): 10-27. (on disk)



Option #2

Imagine the following scenario: Due to a natural disaster, paper will not be available for the next semester of classes. All communication and record-keeping will have to be managed using some other means. The good news is that electronic and other resources for these alternative means of communication and record-keeping are virtually unlimited.As the Associate Director of your writing program (choose whatever program you wish), you are responsible for documenting the program’s activities and practices and maintaining the program’s archive. How will you carry out this responsibility for the coming semester? Develop a plan for documenting and archiving the writing program for the coming term. Your plan should be ready for presentation to and review by the Director of the program, and, of course, can be in any appropriate format.

Hint for March 20 WPA Seminar meeting

Seminar members--
Unfortunately, the discussion on WPA-L for the last couple of days has not been as heavy as usual, so it may not provide a very good sampling as a good basis for the exercise for class tomorrow (March 20). I recommend you spend a few minutes browsing the WPA-L archives at this URL http://lists.asu.edu/archives/wpa-l.html if you haven't been reading WPA-L regularly.

Shirley

Reminder WPA Seminar Assignment

Thi is just a reminder that the following readings scheduled for discussion in our March 18 meeting are all available on the CD of digital files I distributed.

Reflective Practice as a Mode of WPA Knowing

Brady, Laura. “A Greehnouse for Writing Program Change.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 29.3 (Spring 2006): 27-43.

Blakesley, David. “Directed Self-Placement in the University.” WPA: Writing Program Adninistration 25.3 (Spring 2002): 9-40.

Graban, Tarez Samra and Kathleen J. Ryan. “From ‘What Is’ to “what Is Possible’: Theorizing Curricula Document Revision as In(ter)vention and Reform.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 28.3 (spring 2005): 89-112.

Stancliff, Michael and Maureen Daly Goggin. “What’s Theorizing Got to Do With It? Teaching theory as Resourceful Conflict and Reflection in TA Preparation.” WPA: Writing Program Admnistration 30.3 (Spring 2007): 11-28.

CFPs for conferences

Please note the call for proposals for the WPA conference in Denver this coming July; proposals are due March 15:
http://wpacouncil.org/2008confCFP

Also note the call for proposals for the Watson Conference at the University of Louisville; proposals are due March 3: http://wpacouncil.org/node/1082

Both conferences have themes that are realted to the planned collaborative course project. some of you may also be interested in presenting soemthing based on other work for the WPA Seminar.

Asignments for March 3 and 5

Next week, we will hear from two Purdue faculty about how they have learned as WPAs.

Tuesday: Professor Weiser, Department head and former Director of Composition, is guest instructor Please review the WPA "Intellectual Work Document."

Thursday: Professor Linda Bergman, Director of the Purdue Writing Lab, is Guest Lecturer.

Assignment for Feb 28

Full draft for second project is due

WPA as Theorist
Read the following:
McClintock, Charles. “Administrators as Applied Theorists.” Advances in Program Theory. New Directions for Program Evaluation #47, Fall 1990. 19-33. (coursepack)

Weiser, Irwin and Shirley K Rose. "Theorizing Writing Program Theorizing." The Writing Program Administrator as Theorist: Making Knowledge Work. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook-Heinemann, 2002. 183-196. (on reserve)

Gunner, Jeanne. "Ideology, Theory, and the Genre of Writing Programs." The Writing Program Administrator as Theorist: Making Knowledge Work. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Boynton/Cook-Heinemann, 2002. 7-18. (on reserve)

Bishop, Karen. "On the Road to (Documentary) Reality: Capturing the Intellectual and Political Process of Writing Program Administration." The Writing Program Administrator as Theorist: Making Knowledge Work. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook-Heinemann, 2002. 42-53. (on reserve)

Peeples, Tim. "Program Administrators as/and Postmodern Planners: Frameworks for Making Tomorrow's Writing Space." The Writing Program Administrator as Theorist: Making Knowledge Work. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook-Heinemann, 2002. 116-128. (0n reserve)

Jablonski, Jeffrey. "Developing Practice Theories Through Collaborative Research: Implications for WPA Scholarship." The Writing Program Administrator as Theorist: Making Knowledge Work. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook-Heinemann, 2002. 170-182. (on reserve)

Reflection: Three of these readings on WPAs as Theorists are by recent graduates of Purdue’s Ph.D program in Rhetoric and Composition (Bishop, Peeples, and Jablonski) and are based on their dissertation projects. Using these chapters as your primary evidence, briefly characterize the goals of Purdue’s Ph.D. Secondary Area in Writing Program Administration. Your characterization can be in any format or genre that seems appropriate—list, short essay, cartoon (with commentary), etc.

Assignment for WPA SEminar Feb 26

WPA as Researcher

Read the following:
Popken, Randall. “The WPA as Publishing Scholar: Edwin Hopkins and The Labor and cost of the Teaching of English.” Historical Studies of Writing Program Administration: Individuals, Communities, and the Formation of a Discipline. Ed. Barbara L’Eplattenier and Lisa Mastrangelo. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2004. (in coursepack)

These chapters from
Rose, Shirley K and Irwin Weiser, eds. The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1999 (on reserve at Hicks)

Rose, Shirley K and Irwin Weiser. "WPA Inquiry in Reflection and Action." (v-xi)

Bamberg, Betty. "Conflicts Between Teaching and Assessing Writing: Using Program-Based Research to Resolve Pedagogical and Ethical Dilemmas." (28-39).

Anson, Chris M. and Robert L. Brown, Jr. "Subject to Interpretation: The Role of Research in Writing Programs and its Relationship to the Politics of Administration in Higher Education." (141-152)

Weiser, Irwin. "Local Research and Curriculum Development: Using Surveys to Learn About Writing Assignments in the Disciplines." 95-116.

Writing Assignment:Drawing from the descriptions of and insights into WPA research provided by these selected readings, choose a particular writing program (such as ICaP or PW at Purdue) and identify 3 questions a WPA in that program might need to conduct research in order to answer. What areas of expertise would the WPA need to draw from? What inquiry methodologies would be appropriate? What would be the genres of documents in which the research outcomes might be reported?

Assignment for Feb 14

WPA Seminar Members--
In class Tuesday, I indicated that I'd ask each of you to investigate one of the early surveys mentioned by Heckathorn or McLeod. This will take longer than I initially expected, as some of the articles and books are hard-to-find, so this task will be postponed until and if we decide on a survey as a class project. I have put in some requests to Interlibary Loan already, in any case.

The following is the assignment for tomorrow, as distributed on the detailed calendar:

Professional Development and Community: WPAs’ Collective Knowledge-Making

How do WPAs learn from each other? How do they collectively develop disciplinary knowledge? What is the relationship between learning and knowledge-development for WPAs?

As a way to help you develop some ideas for a tentative response to these questions, look at one context for WPA learning/knowledge-making: the workshop reports from the first ten years of CCCC meetings.

These workshop reports were printed in the October issue of the CCC journal every year and are available through Purdue Libraries, using J-Stor. Many of the workshop topics were repeated year after year.

Scan the reports, then choose one workshop topic and closely examine the reports from those workshops for 5 to 10 years. If the workshop continues after 10 years, does it morph?What do these reports demonstrate about the ways WPAs learn from each other? Prepare a brief discussion of the results of your examination the reports--250-300 words, or the equivalent for a mixed media presentation.

What does this history do for us?

My question for class is what exactly does historicizing writing program administration do for us?

I think Heckathorn and McLeod makes cases for why it should matter, and I don't think any of us would necessarily disagree. But when we discussed a WPAs "ways of knowing" I don't think that historical knowledge of the field was on the list. Was it? At the very least we (meaning us in this class) seem to be prioritizing other "ways of knowing" like curriculum development, placement testing, politics, and others above historical knowledge.

Maybe another way to state this is "where does historicizing writing program administration fall in terms of prioritizing WPA knowledge?" Is it essential? Is it a luxury?

TS

Assignment for Feb 12

Professional Histories: Creating a Knowledge-making Community

This week we will be looking at collective knowledge-making by WPAs. Please read:

Heckathorn, Amy “Moving Toward a Group Identity: WPA Professionalization from the 1940s to the 1970s.” Historical Studies of Writing Program Administration: Individuals, Communities, and the Formation of a Discipline. Ed. Barbara L’Eplattenier and Lisa Mastrangelo. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2004. 191-219

McLeod, Susan. “A History of Writing Program Admnistration.” Chapter 3 of Writing Program Administration. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2007.

Use the class blog http://680wsp08.blogspot.com/ to post a discussion question related to these readings for us to consider together in our meeting on Feb 12. Please use comment feature, replying to this post, for posting your question.

Jaci's reading

Hi, guys,

I'll read the Gunner article.

Jaci

Tom will read McAllister

I will read McAllister and Selfe for Tuesday, but I'm willing to trade to a different one if someone really wants that one.

Megan's Reading

I'll read the Ferganchick piece. My only reason for this choice is that I like her name...

WPA Seminar Assignment for Feb 5

Pragmatic Learning: On the Job Experience
For general discussions of pragmatic learning of WPA knowledges, everybody read:

Recchio, Thomas and Lynn Z. Bloom. “Initiation Rites, Initiation Rights.” WPA 14.3:21-26. (on disk)

Hesse, Douglas D. “Politics and the WPA: Traveling through and Past Realms of Expertise.”The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos. Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 2002. 41-58.

For examples of ways WPAs have reflected on their pragmatic learning in specific areas of knowledge, look at the following articles and chapters. Please scan all of them, but choose one to read closely. Please post your choice to the blog so we get distributed coverage.

Gunner, Jeanne. “Collaborative Administration.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos. Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 2002. 253-262.

Anson, Chris M. “Figuring It Out: Writing Programs in the Context of University Budgets.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos. Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 2002. 233-252.

Brown, Stuart. “Applying Ethics: A Decision-Making Heuristic for Writing Program Administrators.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 2002. 155-164.

Schell, Eileen E. “Part-Time/Adjunct Issues: Working Toward Change.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos. Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 2002. 181-202.

Ferganchick, Julia K. “Contrapower Harassment in Program Administration: Establishing Teacher Authority.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos. Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 2002. 331-340.

McAllister, Ken S. and Cynthia L. Selfe. “Writing Program Administration and Instructional Computing.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos. Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 2002. 341-376.

All of the authors in this list draw from, perhaps even explicitly discuss, their on-the-job or pragmatic learning of one or more areas of WPA knowledge. Yet, their preparation of these chapters for this collection suggests that they believe this knowledge can be learned formally.

Choose one of the areas of knowledge that one or more of the authors are arguing that WPAs need, then do the following:
1) identify the scholarly discipline in which that kind of knowledge is formally developed;
2) find and bring to class an example of the scholarship of that discipline (a book or an article);
3) write a brief (no more than a page) discussion of what how you think a WPA might use the information or ideas in that publication; and
4) investigate whether Purdue offers coursework in the area.

For example, one of the authors might discuss the importance of time management. What discipline studies time management? A bit of investigation leads me to the tentative conclusion that the members of the scholarly discipline of decision sciences do research on time management. A sample of work coming out of that field of study is the article “Learning to Make Decisions in Dynamic Environments: Effects ofTime Constraints and Cognitive Abilities” in the journal Human Factors.

Persuasive Games

If I've done this right then the blog will contain two examples of "persuasive games." Although we will not be producing a computer game (should we decide to pursue the WPA board game project), these links should provide examples of how arguments can be embedded in "fun activities."

Also, if it helps, I think it's useful to think of this project as the production of a rhetorical text that grapples with the roles, challenges, and types of knowledge associated with writing program administration. Although none of us are experts at "making games," we all have some expertise in making arguments. Ultimately, I think our ability to articulate those arguments will determine the relative success or failure of the project.

Ayiti: The Cost of Life

Persuasive Games

TS

WPA Seminar Assignment for Jan 29 and 31

Assignment for Tuesday, January 29 and Thursday, January 31
What Does a WPA Need to Know? How is it learned? Part Two:
Arguments and Assumptions about Graduate WPA Apprenticeships/ Experiential Learning

For Tuesday’s meeting (Jan 29),
please read the following discussions of graduate students’ WPA work, which discuss learning modes that could be located chiefly near “experiential learning” in Phelps’s continuum from formal learning to experiential learning to pragmatic learning. As you read, please consider the following question:

Do these discussions suggest that different areas of WPA knowledge are learned in different ways? Create a visual representation of the relationships between these areas and ways. I encourage you to be playful with developing your representation.

Desser, Daphne and Darin Payne. “Writing Program Administration Internships.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos. Matwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. 89-99.

Long, Mark C., Jennifer H. Holberg, and Marcy M. Taylor. “Beyond Apprenticeship: Graduate Students, Professional Development Programs and the Future(s) of English Studies.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 20.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1996): 66-78.

Thomas, Trudelle. “The Graduate Student as Apprentice WPA: Experiencing the Future.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 14.3 (Spring 1991): 41-51.

Jukuri, Stephen Davenport; W.J. Williamson. "How To Be a Wishy-Washy Graduate Student WPA, Or Undefined But Overdetermined: The Positioning of Graduate Student WPAs." Kitchen Cooks, Plate Twirlers & Troubadours: Writing Program Administrators Tell Their Stories. Ed. Diana George. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1999. 105-119 (coursepack)

Brown, Johanna Atwood. "The Peer Who Isn't a Peer: Authority and the Graduate Student Administrator." Kitchen Cooks, Plate Twirlers & Troubadours: Writing Program Administrators Tell Their Stories. Ed. Diana George. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1999. 120-126. (coursepack)

Richard McNabb, et al “Future Perfect: Administrative Work and the Professionalization of Graduate Students” (A Symposium). Rhetoric Review 21.1 (2002): 40-87. (coursepack or online)

Micchiche, Laura R. “More than a Feeling: Disappointment and WPA Work.” College English 64.4 (March 2002): 432-458. (coursepack or online)

For Thursday’s meeting (January 31),
consider this question about these same articles:

Some might argue that writing about graduate student writing program administration is a distinct subgenre of WPA discourse. What are some shared qualities or features of these articles and essays in this week’s reading? Create a list of generic features of gradWPA discourse OR draw from these articles to draft a manifesto for gradWPAs OR devise your own synthesis of these articles.

Assigment for Thurs, January 24 Meeting

Professor David Blakesley, Director of the Professional Writing Program at Purdue, will be the guest leader for the January 24th seminar meeting.

He has suggested that you read his article "Directed Self-Placement in the University" and says, "In honor of this occasion, I've worked on that issue of the archives, so it's now online: http://wpacouncil.org/wpa25n3"

Professor Blakesley is also the web developer for the Council of Writing Program Administrators, so I recommend that you do some browsing of the site beforehand. By now, you should also have signed up for the WPA-L listserv and have monitored posts for awhile.

I will be out of town on Thursday and will not be able to attend this meeting of the seminar.

"Formal Preparation for WPA Work" Readings

I will read Stygall, Miller, and Enos.

Tom

Hello,

I'll read Miller, Barr-Ebest, and Rose & Weiser.

See you soon,

Megan

My readings

Hi, guys. I will read the Stygall, Enos, and Rose and Weiser articles. Have a good long weekend!

Assignment for WPA Seminar meeting on Tues Jan 22

the following is the assignment I announced at our seminar meeting on January 25 (see below). Please post a comment to the blog indicating which 3 of the 6 readings in the second group you plan to focus on (everybody does Phelps)

Topic: Formal Preparation for WPA Work: What Does a WPA Need to Know” and How is it learned? (Part 1)

For this class session, we will read several relatively recent articles addressing preparation for WPA work.

As you read, consider the following questions and make notes from which you could present your observations to the class:
--What areas of knowledge (“content”) does each author assume or argue are the most important for WPAs develop?
--What kinds of knowing are required of WPAs? (use any means of classification /description that seems useful)
--How is that knowledge developed—who develops it in what settings by what means, etc.?

Readings: Everyone should read:

Phelps, Louise. “Turtles All the Way Down: Educating Academic Leaders.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos. Matwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. 3-39.

For helpful further context-building (not required, but recommended), read:
MLA Commission on Professional Service. “Making Faculty Work Visible: Reinterpreting Professional Service, Teaching, and Research in the Fields of Language and Literature.” Profession 96. New York: MLA, 1996. 161-216. (coursepack)

Each person choose three from the following group.

Stygall, Gail. “Certifying the Knowledge of WPAs.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos. Matwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. 71-87.

Barr-Ebest, Sally. "The Generation of WPAs: A Study of Graduate Students in Composition/ Rhetoric." WPA: Writing Program Administration 22.3 (Spring 1999): 65-84(on disc)

Miller, Thomas P. “Why Don’t Our Graduate Programs Do a Better Job of Preparing Students for the Work That We Do? WPA: Writing Program Administration 24.3 (Spring 2001): 41-58. (on disc)

Enos, Theresa. “Reflexive Professional Development: Getting Discipline in Writing Program Administration.” The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource: A Guide to Reflective Institutional Practice. Ed. Stuart C. Brown and Theresa Enos. Matwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. 59-69.

Rose, Shirley K and Irwin Weiser. “Beyond ‘Winging It’: The Place of Writing Program Administration in Rhetoric and Composition Graduate Programs.” Culture Shock: Training the New Wave in Rhetoric and Composition, Susan Romano and Virginia Anderson, Eds. Hampton Press, Cresgill, NJ: in press. (in coursepack)

Your own review of WPA course syllabi available on the web. Look at CompFAQs at this URL: http://comppile.tamucc.edu/wiki/WPA-GraduateCourses/ListOfSchools but also see what else you can find online.


Remember that our visiting candidate for our position in rhetoric and composition will be sitting in on our class on Tuesday.

Notice re WPA class Jan 17 and Jan 22

WPA Seminar Members--
On Thursday, January 17, we will forego our regular meeting in order to attend the Research Presentation of one of our candidates for the Rhet-Comp position from 1:30 to 2:30.

On Tuesday, January 23, one of the candidates will be sitting in on our seminar meeting.

Shirley

Meetings of Interest to WPA students

WPA Seminar members:

Barbara Dixon, CLA Associate Dean for Administration, has encouraged me to pass along this information about Purdue's participation in the VSA to any students who are interested in WPA work--particularly assessment issues. I've cut and pasted from her email message:

As you probably know, Purdue is planning to participate in the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA), which is a joint project of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC). VSA will provide a Web format titled "College Portrait" to publicize information about the universities who participate, including tuition costs, retention rates, and institutional performance in students’ writing and critical thinking. My current understanding is that 7 of the 9 public universities in the Big Ten are also planning to be a part of VSA.

A week from Wednesday representatives from the testing services will be on campus to present their tests, and respond to questions. I particularly want to invite ... any colleagues or students with an interest in writing evaluation.
Wednesday, January 23,
from 1-4 pm in STEW 302-306.
1 pm--MAPP: Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress by Education Testing Services

2 pm--CLA: Collegiate Learning Assessment by Council for Aid to Education

3 pm--CAAP: Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency by American College Testing

If you have a chance, please come give feedback about the tests. Light refreshments will be available.
Thanks,
Barbara

I encourage you to pass along this information to other students interested in WPA issues.

Follow-up from 1-10-08 class

Here's the citation for the article I mentioned in today's meeting when we discussed Tom's question about what research had been done on institutional expectation of WPAs:



Olson, Gary A., and Joseph M. Moxley. "Directing Freshman Composition:
The Limits of Authority." College Composition and Communication
40.1 (February 1989): 51- 59.



Olson and Moxley did a survey of English department chairs, asking them about the perceptions of the WPA's role.

Assignment for Tuesday, January 15

Assignment for Tuesday, January 15
Read the texts below and consider whether the role definition of a WPA has changed over time; include the “Portland Resolution” and the WPA Intellectual Work Document.


“Administration of the Composition Course: The Report of the Workshop No. 13.” CCC 1.2 (May 1950): 40-42. (J-stor)

“Administration of the Composition Course: the Report of Workshop No. 13.” CCC 2.4 (December 1951): 24-26. (j-stor)

Horner, Bruce. “Redefining Work and Value for Writing Program Administration.” JAC 27.1 & 2 (2007): 164-82. (coursepack)

Welcome

Welcome to the Assignment Blog for our Spring 2008 WPA Seminar at Purdue. Details about reading assignments and discussion questions will be posted here periodically.