[Teaching_Composition] Agency, Advocacy and Advancing Writing *hello*

[Phyllis Mentzell Ryder]

Thanks, Debra, for an interesting topic.  As an assistant prof in a 
brand new "independent" writing program, your question of "ownership" is 
really timely.  Here are some thoughts--

* Faculty in our writing program "own" our courses in that we can design 
course assignments, topics, readings, etc so long as they meet our 
course goals as specified in the course template.[ 
http://www.gwu.edu/~uwp/fyw/fyw-about.htm ]  Since the teaching methods 
of the course have not been standardized, I assume that we are seen as 
experts in the teaching of writing who know how develop appropriate, 
engaging, and effective syllabi to meet these goals.  On the other hand, 
I know I always feel some anxiety that the professors in sophomore or 
junior level classes will question my writing-faculty expertise when my 
students arrive in their classes still making grammatical errors.  
(Never mind that they much more capable of asking viable research 
questions and organizing their analysis to meet audience needs--I sense 
that we writing faculty are not in control of the definition of "good 
writing" at our University.)

* Faculty in our writing program do not "own" our courses because none 
of us (and indeed no composition experts) created the course template.  
The template was composed by a multi-disciplinary Task Force that 
designed the whole new writing program.  (I was invited on to that 
committee near the very end, after the template had been established.)  
In many ways it's a fine template, one that is expansive (or "capacious" 
I might say--a word I've picked up from Kathi Yancey and like to say as 
often as I can.)  And yet it's also a difficult template to work with 
because the course objectives include so many different components that 
they are challenging to measure them.  We can't stray too far from the 
current wording without setting off Administrative alarms the that we're 
trying to "work around" the template .  (Consider how to set up an 
assessment to measure this: "A functional grasp of rhetorical 
principles: the purpose or genre of each piece of writing, the 
expectations of various audiences, and the use of formats, evidence, 
tones, lengths, and levels of formality appropriate to a range of 
contexts.") 

* Faculty in our program do not "own" writing in the University at large 
because we do not have much interaction with those faculty across the 
University who have been recruited/ cajoled into teaching Writing in the 
Discipline courses.  We are not permitted to teach WID sections because 
a) this might reduce the incentive of faculty in the Disciplines to 
teach writing and b) we don't have enough faculty to teaching first-year 
writing and so can't afford to loan ourselves out to the other 
departments. 

* We're working now on a middle ground--UWP faculty may serve as 
liaisons in other Departments to help them articulate what "writing" 
looks like in their disciplines and what they might do in their classes 
and what they might expect from students coming out of our first-year 
course (and why the students probably won't arrive in their classes 
already knowing everything about how to write "properly" in that 
discipline.)

Phyllis

-- 
phyllis mentzell ryder | assistant professor of writing |university writing program | the george washington university |  2100 fox hall road | washington dc 20007 | pryder@gwu.edu | academic center 107 [mt vernon]|fax: 202.242.6669 | 202.242.6667 


Everything will be okay in the end.  If it's not okay, it's not the end.


Debra Dew wrote:
> Hello everyone~
>
> I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss some of my favorite 
> administrative terms--agency, advocacy, advancing the discipline--with 
> all of you here on the Teaching Comp List and to likewise learn a good 
> deal from your local experiences, whether they be successes or 
> struggles, probably some of both.
>
>
> I thank Anne and Chris for their generous invitation to discuss 
> administrative and instructional experiences and those theoretical and 
> ethical principles upon which we act  to advance writing as a 
> professional enterprise in all of its teaching and learning dimensions.
>
>
> The topic is--how do we theorize agency to defend and protect, advance 
> and enhance the writing enterpise writ large?
>
> To begin, I invite you to situate your teaching and/or administrative 
> selves relative to the following . . .
>
> 1) In your local case, do you and your writing colleagues *own 
> writing* without an essential understanding of what *ownership* does 
> and does not mean in your context?
>
> I will begin by situating myself within the UCCS Writing enterprise, 
> where I have been the Director of the Writing Program with its various 
> programmatic subsets, including FYC, advanced, creative, and then this 
> year, prof/tech as well.  So perhaps, I might say--I do OWN 
> writing--because I am the only tenure-track faculty member in writing 
> on campus.  Our program is staffed with 25 career instructors.  I have 
> been the *owner* for six years, and this is now my seventh year in my 
> tenure-track line.
>
> Locally,  I have always *owned* writing in the sense that I am she who 
> technically accounts for the current state of writing instuction and 
> assessment across campus contexts.  All matters related to writing are 
> mine for the overseeing, but I must also reflect on this question--Do 
> I own writing in the sense that Doug Hesse's Chair address of 2005 
> invokes?  In his sense, owning writing might mean I locally enjoy 
> first rights or primary rights by disciplinary training to "order" 
> students' writing experiences for all of our UCCS students.  To own 
> writing locally may also mean that colleagues and administrators 
> unconditionally recognize and affirm my ordering and framing authority 
> over the UCCS writing enterprise.
>
> That has not always been my experience, nor yours locally, I imagine.
>
> As WPA, I have brazenly invested MOST of my intellectual energy for 
> the past 6+ years advocating for writing such that our local 
> stakeholders 1) see writing as a disicipline with due 
> rights--theoretical, curricular, material rights--to equitable 
> academic relations with disciplinary peers of all kinds, 2) to 
> performatively *own* writing when such rights are readily granted, but 
> then largely 3) to relentlessly pursue a greater degree of 
> disciplinary ownership of writing in all the dimensions of my 
> professional work here at UCCS.
>
> I will share several accounts of local advocacy and defense 
> initiatives as we move along in our discusion.
>
> I could quite clearly summarize my WPA mission for the whole of my 
> tenure at UCCS as a WPA's  PURSUIT of disciplinary happiness in 
> strategic collaboration with an extraordinary crew of committed 
> writing faculty.  Our aim has been nothing short of Hesse's vision of  
> *owning* our writing enterprise in the local instituional case.
>
> I am anxious to hear from the rest of you . . .
>
> Best,
>
> Debra
>
>
>
>
>
>
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