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.