Discord and Direction : The Postmodern Writing Program Administrator

by McGee, Sharon James; Handa, Carolyn

• ISBN13: 9780874216172
• ISBN10: 0874216176
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-30
• Publisher: Utah State Univ Pr

Summary

The argument of this collection is that the cultural and intellectual legacies of postmodernism impinge, significantly and daily, on the practice of the Writing Program Administrator. WPAs work in spaces where they must assume responsibility for a multifaceted program, a diverse curriculum, instructors with varying pedagogies and technological expertiseand where they must position their program in relation to a university with its own conflicted mission, and a state with its unpredictable views of accountability and assessment. The collection further argues that postmodernism offers a useful lens through which to understand the work of WPAs and to examine the discordant cultural and institutional issues that shape their work. Each chapter tackles a problem local to its author's writing program or experience as a WPA, and each responds to existing discord in creative ways that move toward rebuilding and redirection. It is a given that accepting the role of WPA will land you squarely in the bind between modernism and postmodernism: while composition studies as a field arguably still reflects a modernist ethos, the WPA must grapple daily with postmodern habits of thought and ways of being. The effort to live in this role may or may not mean that a WPA will adopt a postmodern stance; it does mean, however, that being a WPA requires dealing with the postmodern.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Postmodernity and Writing Programs	1	(139)
Sharon James McGee and Carolyn Honda
1 Where Discord Meets Direction: The Role of Consultant-Evaluation in Writing Program Administration	18	(10)
Deborah H. Holdstein
2 Cold Pastoral: The Moral Order of an Idealized Form	28	(12)
Jeanne Gunner
3 Beyond Accommodation: Individual and Collective in a Large Writing Program	40	(19)
Christy Desmet
4 Overcoming Disappointment: Constructing Writing Program Identity through Postmodern Mapping	59	(13)
Sharon James McGee
5 The Road to Mainstreaming: One Program's Successful but Cautionary Tale	72	(12)
Anthony Edgington, Marcy Tucker, Karen Ware, and Brian Huot
6 Developmental Administration: A Pragmatic Theory of Evolution in Basic Writing	84	(11)
Keith Rhodes
7 Information Technology as Other. Reflections on a Useful Problem	95	(10)
Mike Palmquist
8 Computers, Innovation, and Resistance in First-Year Composition Programs	105	(18)
Fred Kemp
9 Minimum Qualifications: Who Should Teach First-Year Writing?	123	(17)
Richard E. Miller and Michael J. Cripps
10 The Place of Assessment and Reflection in Writing Program Administration	140	(18)
Susanmarie Harrington
11 New Designs for Communication Across the Curriculum	158	(23)
Andrew Billings, Teddi Fishman, Morgan Gresham, Angie Justice, Michael Neal, Barbara Ramirez, Summer Smith Taylor, Melissa Tidwell Powell, Donna Winchell, Kathleen Blake Yancey, and Art Young
12 Mirror, Mirror on the Web: Visual Depiction, Identity, and the Writing Program	181	(22)
Carolyn Handa
Notes	203	(4)
References	207	(11)
Contributors	218	(2)
Index	220