Kitchen Cooks, Plate Twirlers and Troubadours : Writing Program Administrators Tell Their Stories

by George, Diana Hume

• ISBN13: 9780867094565
• ISBN10: 0867094567
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-08
• Publisher: HEINEMANN (T)

Summary

Like many good stories, this collection opens with origins. In Part I, the writers tell of personal histories that intersect with their professional lives and that help them define the job of writing program administrator. Part II presents the writing program within the context of institutional realitiesfirst-year student orientation, TA rebellions, expected but unfunded programs. In Part III, these WPAs tell of projects that are interdisciplinary, of programs developed over time and in the spirit of collaboration, and of the changing demands that technology is placing on writing instruction. The collection closes with an essay on the importance of mentoring in our profession.

Table of Contents

Who We Are; What We Would Be

Critique's the Easy Part: Choice and the Scale of Relative Oppression, R. Miller

"The Way the Rich People Does It": Reflections on Writing Center Administration and the Search for Status, N. Grimm

On Coming to Voice, M. Holt

The WPA as Father, Husband, Ex, D. Hesse

Surviving the Honeymoon: Bliss and Anxiety in a WPA's First Year, or Appreciating the Plate Twirler's Art, M. Pinard

WPAs at Work

Taking It Personally: Redefining the Role and Work of the WPA, A. Gillam

Orient Express, M. Helmers

Mothers, Tell Your Children Not to Do as I Have Done: The Sin and Misery of Entering the Profession as a Composition Coordinator, K. Rhodes

Catching Our Tail: A Writing Center in Transition, R. Wahlstrom

How to Be a Wishy-Washy Graduate Student WPA, or Undefined but Overdetermined: The Positioning of Graduate Student WPAs, S. Jukuri ; W. Williamson

The Peer Who Isn't a Peer: Authority and the Graduate Student Administrator, J. Brown

WPAs in Collaboration

The Teaching Circle, The WPA, and the Work of Writing in the University, K. Yancey

The Writing Committee at Work, T. Fulwiler et al.

Envisioning Literacy: Establishing E-mail in a First-year Program, B. Daniell

Writing Program Administration and (Self)-Representation: Paradoxes, Anomalies, and Institutional Resistance, M. Tiernan Coda: On Being an Accidental Administrator, J. Harris