Representing 
Writing Program Administration: 
Narratives, Maps, and Metaphors
Seminar in Writing Program
Administration 2000
Purdue University
English 680A
Professor Shirley Rose
 
 
Course Description
Calendar of Class Meetings
Course Requirements
Exemplary Student Work
 Bibliography of Print Sources

Writing Program Administration—General

Hartzog, Carol. Composition and the Academy: A Study of Writing Program Administration. New York: Modern Language Association, 1986.

Bloom, Lynn A., Donald A. Daiker, and Edward M. White, Eds. Composition in the Twenty-first Century: Crisis and Change. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1996.

George, Diana, ed. Kitchen Gods, Plate Twirlers and Troubadours: Writing Program Administrators Tell Their Stories. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1999.

Hilgers, Thomas and Joy Marsella. Making Your Writing Program Work: A Guide to Good Practices. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992.

Janangelo, Joseph and Kristine Hansen, Eds. Resituating Writing: Constructing and Administering Writing Programs. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1995.

Linda Myers-Breslin, ed. Administrative Problem-Solving for Writing Programs and Writing Centers: Scenarios in Effective Program Management. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1999.

Petraglia, Joseph, ed. Reconceiving Writing, Rethinking Writing Instruction. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1995.

Writing Program Administration—Historical Corbett, Edward P.J. "A History of Writing Program Administration." Learning from the Histories of Rhetoric: Essays in Honor of Winifred Bryan Horner. Ed. Theresa Enos. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1993. 60-71.

Crowley, Sharon. Composition in the University: Historical and Polemical Essays. Pittsburgh: U Pittsburgh P, 1998.

Kitzhaber, Albert. Rhetoric in American Colleges, 1850-1900. Southern Methodist UP, 1982 (1953).

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.

Politics/Economics of Writing Program Administration:

Bullock, Richard and John Trimbur. Politics of Writing Instruction:

Hult, Christine. "Politics Redux: The Organization and Administration of Writing Programs." WPA 18 (Spring 1995): 44-52.

Miller, Susan. Textual Carnivals: The Politics of Composition. Carbondale and Edwardswille, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1991.

Schell, Eileen E. Gypsy Academics and Mother-Teachers: Gender, Contingent Labor, and Writing Instruction. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1998.

Subject Position of the Writing Program Administrator: Cambridge, Barbara L. and Ben McClelland. "From Icon to Partner: Repositioning the Writing Program Administrator." Resituating Writing: Constructing and Administering Writing Programs. Ed. Joseph Janangelo and Kristine Hansen. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1995. 151-59

Gunner, Jeanne. "Decentering the WPA." WPA: Writing Program Administration 18 (1994): 8-15.

Gunner, Jeanne, Guest Editor. (Special Issue on Collaborative Writing Program Administration). WPA: Writing Program Administration 21.2/3 (Spring 1998).

Olson, Gary A. and Joseph M. Moxley. "Directing Freshman Composition: The Limits of Authority." CCC 40 (1989): 51-59.

Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. "Telling a Writing Program Its Own Story: A Tenth Anniversary Speech." The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, forthcoming.

Sledd, James. "An Enterprise Founded on Exploitation." The Council Chronicle Sept 1995: 6

White Edward M. "Use It or Lose It: Power and the WPA." Writing Program Administration 15.1-2 (1991): 3-12.

Feminist (Writing Program) Administration

Astin, Helen S. and Carole Leland. Women of Influence, Women of Vision: A Cross-Generational Study of Leaders and Social Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991.

Barr-Ebest, Sally. "Gender Differences in Writing Program Administration." WPA: Writing Program Administration ___ (Spring 1995): 53-73.

Dickson, Marcia. "Directing Without Power: Adventures in Constructing a Model of Feminist Writing Program Administration." Writing Ourselves into the Story: Unheard Voices from Composition Studies. Eds. Sheryl Fontaine and Susan Hunter. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1993. 140-53.

Ferguson, Kathy. The Feminist Case Against Bureaucracy. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1984.

Glazer, Judith S. "Feminism and Professionalism in Teaching and Educational Administration." Educational Administration Quarterly 27.3 (1991): 321-42.

Grundy, Shirley. "Educational Leadership as Emancipatory Praxis." Gender Matters in Educational Administration and Policy. Eds. Jill Blackmore and Jane Kenway. London: Falmer, 1993. 165-77

Holdstein, Deborah. "Gender, Feminism, and Institution-Wide Assessment Program." In White, Lutz, and Kamusikiri, Assessment of Writing. New York: MLA, 1996.____

Miller, Hildy. "Postmasculinist Directions in Writing Program Administration." WPA: Writing Program Administration 20.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1996): 49-61.

Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. "A Constrained Vision of the Writing Classroom." Profession 93. New York: MLA, 1993. 46-54.

Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. "Becoming a Warrior: Lessons of the Feminist Workplace." Feminine Principles and Women’s Experience in American Composition and Rhetoric." Eds. Louise Wetherbee Phelps and Janet Emig. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1994. 289-339.

WPA Job Descriptions

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

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

Bishop, Wendy. "Toward a Definition of a Writing Program Administrator: Expanding Roles and Evolving Responsibilities." Freshman English Notes (Fall 1987): 11-13.

Bloom, Lynn Z. "Bloom’s Laws." WPA: Writing Program Administration 21.1 (Fall 1997): 85-87.

Bloom, Lynn Z. "I Want a Writing Director." CCC 43 (1992): 176-78.

Hult, Christine, et al. "’The Portland Resolution’: Guidelines for Writing Program Administrator Positions." WPA: Writing Program Administration 16.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1992): 88-94.

Janangelo, Joseph. "Somewhere Between Disparity and Despair: Writing Program Administrators, Image Problems, and the MLA Job Information List." WPA: Writing Program Administrator 15.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1991): 60-66.

Recchio, Thomas and Lynn Z. Bloom. "Initiation Rites, Initiation Rights." WPA: Writing Program Administration 14.3 (Spring 1991): 21-26.

Preparation/Professionalism/Professionalization of WPAs

Abbott, Andrew. "The Order of Professionalization." Work and Occupations 18.4 (November 1991): 355-384.

Anson, Chris M. and Carol Rutz. "Graduate Students, Writing Programs, and Consensus-Based Management: Collaboration in the Face of Disciplinary Ideology." WPA: Writing Program Administration 21.2/3 (Spring 1998): 106-20.

Barr-Ebest, Sally. "Preparing the Next Generation of WPAs: A Study of Graduate Students in Composition/Rhetoric." Unpublished ms.

Berkenkotter, Carol, Thomas N. Huckin, and John Ackerman. "Conventions, Conversations, and the Writer: Case Study of a Student in a Rhetoric Ph.D. Program." Research in the Teaching of English 22.1 (February 1988): 9-44.

Bledstein, Burton J. The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America. New York: Norton, 1978. (selected excerpts)

Gunner, Jeanne. "Our Crowd(ing): the WPA Membership and Some Questions on Insularity." Paper presented at the 1998 WPA Conference, Tucson, AZ.

Larson, Magali Sarfatti. The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis. Berkeley: U of California P, 1977. (selected excerpts)

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.

Ohman, Richard. English in America: A Radical View of the Profession. New York: Oxford U P, 1976.

Ohman, Richard. Selling Culture: Magazines, Markets, and Class at the Turn of the Century. New York: Verso, 1996.

Peters, Bradley. "Enculturation, Not Alchemy: Professionalizing Novice Writing Program Administrators." WPA: Writing Program Administration 21.2/3 (Spring 1998): 121-36.

Peterson, Linda. "The WPA’s Progress: A Survey, Story and Commentary on the Career Patterns of Writing Program Administrators." WPA: Writing Program Administration 10.3 (1987): 11-18.

Schell, Eileen E. "Who's the Boss?: the Possibilities and Pitfalls of Collaborative Administration for Untenured WPAs." WPA 21.1/2 (Spring 1998): 65-

Stygall, Gail. "Certifying Knowledge: Options for WPAs." Paper presented at 1997 WPA Conference, Houghton MI.

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

Trimbur, John. "Writing Instruction and the Politics of Professionalization." Composition in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis and Change. Ed. Lynn Bloom, Donald Daiker, and Edward White. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1996. 133-45

 

WRITING PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION AS INTELLECTUAL WORK

General Issues

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

Boehm, Diane, Suellen Duffey, Theresa Enos, and Jeanne Gunner. "Responses to ‘Evaluating the Intellectual Work of WPAs: A Draft’." WPA 20.3 (Spring 1997): 17-?

McClintock, Charles. "Administrators as Applied Theorists." Advances in Program Theory. New Directions for Program Evaluation #47, Fall 1990. 19-33

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.

WPA Executive Committee. "Evaluating the Intellectual Work of Writing Program Administrators: A Draft. WPA 20.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1996): 92-?

 

Writing Program Administrator as Program Designer and Agent of Institutional Change

Bamberg, Betty. "Alternative Models of First-year Composition: Possibilities and Problems." WPA: Writing Program Administration 21.1 (Fall 1997): 7-18.

Crowley, Sharon. "Composition’s Ethic of Service, the Universal Requirement, and the Discourse of Student Need." JAC 15.2 (1995): 227-39.

Chase, Geoffrey. "Redefining Composition, Managing Change, and the Role of the WPA." WPA: Writing Program Administration 21.1 (Fall 1997): 46-54.

Gale, Irene. "Conflicting Paradigms: Theoretical and Administrative Tensions in Writing Program Administration." WPA: Writing program Administration 14.1-2 (Fall/winter 1990): 41-50.

Little, Sherry Burgus and Shirley K Rose. "A Home of Our Own: Establishing a Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies at San Diego State University." WPA: Writing Program Administration 18.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1994): 16-28.

Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. "The Institutional Logic of Writing Programs: Catalyst, Laboratory, and Pattern for Change." Bullock and Trimbur

Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. "Reproducing Composition and Rhetoric: The Intellectual Challenge of Doctoral Education." Composition Studies: Freshman English News 23 (Fall 1995): 115-32.

Sullivan, Francis J., et al. "Student Needs and Strong Composition: The Dialectics of Writing Program Reform." College Composition and Communication 48.3 (October 1997): 372-91.

Weiser, Irwin. "Preparing Students to Write in the Liberal Arts: A Survey of Writing Expectations." The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1999.

Writing Program Administrator as Program Evaluator

Guba, Egon G. and Yvonne S. Lincoln. Effective Evaluation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1982.

Martin, Wanda. "Outcomes Assessment Research as a Teaching Tool." The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, forthcoming.

White, Edward M., William D. Lutz, and Sandra Kamusikiri, Eds. Assessment of Writing: Politics, Policies, Practices. New York: MLA, 1997.

White, Edward M. "The Rhetorical Problem of Program Evaluation and the WPA." In Janangelo and Hansen.

Witte, Stephen and Lester Faigley. Evaluating College Writing Programs. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1993.

 

???? "Selected Bibliography on Postsecondary Writing Assessment." CCC 43 (May 1992): 253-___

Writing Program Administrator as Teacher-Educator

Blakemore, Peter. "An Intentionally Ecological Approach to Teacher Training." WPA 21:2/3 (Spring 1998): 137-149

Irmscher, William. "TA Training: A Period of Discovery."

Writing Program Administrators as Researcher

Anson, Chris M. and Ropbert L. Brown, Jr. "Subject to Interpretation: The Role of Research in Writing Programs and its Relationship to the Politics of Administration in Higher Education." The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1999.

Bamberg, Betty. "Conflicts Between Teaching and Assessing Writing: Using Program-Based Research to Resolve Pedagogical and Ethical Dilemmas." The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1999.

Ferganchick-Neufang, Julia. "Research (Im)Possibilities: Feminist Methods and WPA Inquiry." The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1999.

Gere, Anne Ruggles. "The Long Revolution in Composition." Composition in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis and Change. Ed. Lynn Bloom, Donald Daiker, and Edward White. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1996.

Harris, Muriel. "Diverse Research Methodolgoies at Work for Diverse Audiences: Shaping the Writing Center to the Institution." The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1999.

McKernan, John. Curriculum Action Research: A Handbook of Methods and Resources for the Reflective Practitioner. London: Kogan Page, 1991.

Evaluating Writing Program Administrators

Boyer, Ernest. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton, NJ: the Carnegie Foundation, 1990.

Gebhardt, Richard C. and Barbara Genelle Smith Gebhardt, Eds. Academic Advancement in Composition Studies: Scholarship, Publication, Promotion, Tenure. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1997.

Beidler, Peter. "The WPA Evaluation: A Recent Case History."

McLeod, Susan. "Requesting a Consultant-Evaluator Visit." WPA: Writing Program Administration 14.3 (Spring 1991): 69-77.

Schwegler, Robert. "Defining, Describing, and Evaluating the Intellectual Work of Writing Program Administrators: A Project Proposal." Adopted by the WPA Executive Committee, March 1994.

WPA as Program Archivist

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.

Rose, Shirley K. "Discovering and Preserving Our Histories of Institutional Change: The WPA’s Intellectual Work in the Writing Program Archives." The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher: Inquiry in Action and Reflection. Eds. Shirley K Rose and Irwin Weiser. Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1999.

Smith, Dorothy E. "The Social Construction of Documentary Reality." Sociological Inquiry 44 (1974): 257-68.

Zimmerman, Ray and Ellen Strenski. "Using the World Wide Web for Instructional Development: Writing Program Home Pages, On-Line Course Manuals, and Web-Archived Staff Listservs." WPA: Writing Program Administration 20.3 (Spring 1997): 91-101.

WPA as Para-legal: Legal Issues for Writing Program Administrators

"Buckley Amendment"—Title 20 U.S. Code Section 12329—Student’s Right to Privacy

Miles, Libby and Candace Spigelman. "Flexible, Responsive Classroom Practice; What Writing Teachers Need to Know about Their Fair use Rights." The Council Chronicle September 1998: 8.

Porter, Jim (James E.). "Position Statement," Presented at "Copyright and Consent: What Policies Should Composition Journals and Presses Adopt Concerning Publication of Student Writing and Student-Based Research?" CCCC 1998, Chicago, IL.
Porter, James E. "Legal Realities and Ethical Hyperrealities: A Critical Approach Toward Cyberwriting." Computers and Technical Communication: Pedagogical and Programmatic Perspectives. Stuart A. Selber, Ed. Volume 3 in ATTW Contemporary Studies in Technical Communication. Greenwich, CT: Ablex, 1997.
RESEARCHING WRITING PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION
Bishop, Wendy and Gay Lynn Crossley. "How to Tell a Story of Stopping: The Complexities of Narrating a WPA’s Experience." WPA: Writing Program Administration 19.3 (Spring 1996): 70-79.

Danzig, Arnold B. "Leadership Stories: What Novices Learn by Crafting the Stories of Experienced School Administrators." Journal of Educational Administration 35.2 (1997): 122-37.

 
OTHER
Bishop, Wendy. " Writing Is/And Therapy?: Raising Questions about Writing Classrooms and Writing Program Administration." Journal of Advanced Composition. 13.2 (Fall 1993): 503-16.

RESOURCES

Writing Center Administration

Harris, Muriel. "What's Up and What's In: Trends and Traditions in Writing Centers." Writing Center Journal. 11.1 (Fall-Win 1990): 15-25.

Kinkead, Joyce A. and Jeanette G. Harris. Writing Centers in Context: Twelve Case Studies. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1993.

Christina Murphy, Joe Law, and Steve Sherwood. Writing Centers: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996.

ESL Issues in Writing Program Administration

Belcher, Diane, and George Braine, eds. Academic Writing in a Second Language: Essays on Research and Pedagogy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1995

Ferris, Dana, and John S. Hedgcock. Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process, and Practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1998.

Hamp-Lyons, Liz, ed. Assessing Second Language Writing in Academic Contexts. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1991.

Severino, Carol, Juan C. Guerra, and Johnella E. Butler, eds. Writing in Multicultural Settings. New York: MLA, 1997.

Silva, Tony. "An Examination of Writing Program Administrators’ Options for the Placement of ESL Students in First-year Writing Classes." WPA: Writing Program Administration 18.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1994): 37-43.

Silva, Tony. "Toward an Understanding of the Distinct Nature of L2 Writing: The ESL Research and Its Implications." TESOL Quarterly 27.4 (Winter 1993): 657-77.