A First Year Writing program is an academic unit that manages the curriculum, budget, teaching faculty, and other aspects of writing classes for first year students as part of a university's general education curriculum. Throughout their daily tasks, the directors of these programs must work with the requirements of their institution, must build relationships with their administrators and campus stakeholders, and must work within the mission and values of their institution. However, as higher education becomes increasingly corporatized, these institutional constraints are sometimes at odds with the research, best practices, and theories of language and learning that these program administrators know and use. In this dissertation, I explore the way these differences in institutional situation and research-based practice affect the writing program. After outlining the way these inputs interact within the writing program and create a condition of tension, I locate the specific strategies of Requesting, Enriching, Learning, Showcasing, Collaborating, and Aligning as value-based forms of action that program administrators take to navigate this tension in positive ways / Ph. D.

In this project, I theorize public pedagogy in rhetoric and composition by examining a series of case studies within the writing programs and departments of the University of Arizona, Syracuse University, and Oberlin College. This cross-institutional study employs comparative analysis of historical, pedagogical, and institutional documents, as well as interviews I conducted with 19 faculty, administrators, and graduate teaching assistants. First, I draw on archival data to construct institutional histories that trace "town and gown" relations and institutional commitments to equality, social justice, religious and moral education, and the ideals of a land-grant mission. Then, building on these histories, I identify administrative practices that offer sustainable models for long-term public pedagogies. This research employs stakeholder theory to examine what is at stake for students and instructors engaging in public pedagogies. More specifically, I use transformative learning theory to discuss the potential rewards for students who "go public" with their writing and experiences. Finally, I examine classroom practices of instructors and argue for a theory of public pedagogy that is rhetorical, transformative, and located. I offer a model that suggests how writing program administrators might locate public pedagogies within their institution, program, and/or classrooms. I also provide instructors of rhetoric and composition with a series of questions and a graphic for usage when developing public pedagogies within their courses. This study contributes to current scholarly conversations about public writing, community outreach, and civic engagement by examining how programs and pedagogies function across different institutional contexts.

abstract: This research works from in an institutional ethnographic methodology. From this grounded approach, it describes the dialectic between the individual and the discourse of the institution. This work develops a complex picture of the multifarious ways in which institutional discourse has real effects on the working lives of graduate teaching associates (GTAs) and administrative staff and faculty in Arizona State University's Department of English. Beginning with the experiences of individuals as they described in their interviews, provided an opportunity to understand individual experiences connected by threads of institutional discourse. The line of argumentation that developed from this grounded institutional ethnographic approach proceeds thusly: 1) If ASU’s institutional discourse is understood as largely defined by ASU’s Charter as emphasizing access and academic excellence, then it is possible to 2) see how the Charter affects the departmental discourse in the Department of English. This is shown by 3) explaining the ways in which institutional discourse—in conjunction with disciplinary discourses—affects the flow of power for administrative faculty and manifests as, for example, the Writing Programs Mission and Goals. These manifestations then 4) shape the training in the department to enculturate GTAs and other Writing Programs teachers, which finally 5) affects how Writing Programs teachers structure their courses consequently affecting the undergraduate online learning experience. This line of argumentation illustrates how the flow of power in administrative faculty positions like the Department Chair and Writing Program Administrator are institution-specific, entangled with the values of the institution and the forms of institutional discourse including departmental training impact the teaching practices of GTAs. And, although individual work like that done by the WPA to maintain teacher autonomy and the GTAs to facilitate individual access in their online classrooms, the individual is ultimately lost in the larger institutional conversation of access. Finally, this research corroborates work by Sara Ahmed and Stephanie L. Kerschbaum who explain how institutions co-opt intersectional terms such as diversity and access, and that neoliberal institutions' use of these terms are disingenuous, improving not the quality of instruction or university infrastructure but rather the reputation and public appeal of the university. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2019

Recuperating Composition’s lore in postdisciplinarity in order to illustrate the polyvalent, multidirectional positionality of our practices, this study argues that Composition’s lore, as it functions in a community of practice, helps locate and address various challenges with the cultural displacement that burgeoning scholars experience as they critically negotiate their practices within the expectations of the academy. Bridging the communities of writing teachers in classrooms and writing centers in a demonstration of institutional polyvalence, this ethnographic study’s participants suggest the reflexive influence of postdisciplinary lore in the cultivation of authority and practitioner identity. As one point of access to this cultural negotiation, the transmission and application of myth contextualizes lore as cultural phenomena affecting both professional and pedagogical development in graduate student teachers and tutors. This study concludes that the reflexivity offered in postdisciplinary sites of cultural engagement encourages a negotiated, recursive power relation between the institution and the practitioner, thus creating multiple, malleable sites of authority and agency within disciplinary culture.

Grounded in computers and composition scholarship, this mixed-methods dissertation project investigates how digital literacy is being represented and instantiated across U.S. writing programs. Using critical theories of technology as my theoretical framework, I draw on three large data sets, including a national survey of 70 Writing Program Administrators (WPAs) concerning programmatic commitments to digital literacy, a multimodal critical discourse analysis of these programs' websites, and follow-up interviews with survey respondents. Based on my analysis of these data sets, I argue that the focus of most programmatic discourses and practices tends to construct digital literacy in terms of how technological tools can be employed to meet rhetorical outcomes. I maintain, however, that with writing programs as a central force in the renegotiation of digital literacies, WPAs are in a unique position, through discourses and practices, to rearticulate digital literacy as not just a skill or means to improving rhetorical awareness for print composing but also an analytic to examine the social, political, and educational forces undergirding electronic texts and technologies—making visible the social relations involved in technology implementation and encouraging examinations of how technologies affect composing processes. This critical approach positions students as not just consumers but producers of new media who are able to become active agents of change in technological environments. Discussing the challenges that come along with taking a critical approach to technology integration at the programmatic level, I suggest a framework for addressing these challenges—including localizing technologies, mapping local practices to national goals, employing a multiliteracies training model, foregrounding assessment, and fostering communities of practice around digital literacy.

A predominant metaphor in the autism community is that the neurotypical world is a "wrong planet" in which people with autism do not belong, and I assert that the university is one such wrong planet. I examine the rhetorical history of autism and argue that the construction and reconstruction of autism have led to learning spaces in higher education that Other students on the autism spectrum. I draw upon Krista Ratcliffe's rhetorical listening as a way to address the inequities that persist in college writing classrooms. However, to avoid a bias toward neurotypicality, I recast rhetorical listening as rhetorical sensing, a term that encompasses the multiple ways of experiencing the world rather than privileging one modality.I apply rhetorical sensing to four aspects of higher education. First, I look at the ways in which students with autism are programmed to rhetorically sense neurotypicals through therapy models such as Social Thinking. I argue that such training is not true rhetorical sensing because the burden of sensing is placed solely on students with ASDs, further marginalizing them. Next, I turn my attention to the college composition classroom and present ways for instructors to rhetorically sense their students with autism. I provide strategies based on universal design that can help all students, regardless of neurodifference, thrive. I then turn my attention to composition instructors who parent children with autism. Drawing upon a rich body of research on working conditions for women in rhetoric and composition, I describe the ways in which adjunctification has left caregivers over-worked, under-paid, and under-insured as they try to provide for their children. Drawing upon Aimee Carrillo Rowe's power lines and Andrea O'Reilly's gynocentric mothering, I propose ways to improve conditions for teachers who parent children with autism. Finally, I focus on ways in which writing program administrators can make programmatic changes in order to foster inclusive learning practices. I propose low-cost training and partnership models that can create an inclusive planet that supports neurodiverse students, faculty, and writing programs.

In "One Foot In: Student-Athlete Advocacy and Social Movement Rhetoric in the Margins of American College Athletics," the author explores student-athlete advocacy of black male student-athletes in revenue generating sports and educational and cultural reforms to NCAA policies and bylaws over approximately two decades (1985-2006). The author examines non-profit organizations--Black Coaches Association, Drake Group, Institute for Diversity and Ethics and Sport, and Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics--who pressured the NCAA to enact measures to restore order and balance to American college athletics. In addition, these measures are designed to increase student-athlete graduation rates, increase opportunities for minority coaches and administrators, and protect college educators who blow the whistle on institutions who commit infractions. The author begins by identifying social movement rhetorical strategies--the "Triple Front" strategy of Harold Cruse and Agitation/Control Rhetoric of Bowers, Ochs, and Jensen--to analyze rhetorical interactions between non-profit organizations and the NCAA, especially how the NCAA responds by using control rhetoric in order to protect itself from outside influences. Finally, the author ends the discussion by using autoethnography to analyze my own experiences as a writing program administrator challenging NCAA hegemony by running a progressive writing program within a traditional student-athlete study hall.

abstract: The discipline of rhetoric and composition established the Writing Program Administrators Outcomes Statement (WPA OS) to fulfill a general expectation about the skills and knowledge students should be able to demonstrate by the end of first-year composition. Regardless of pedagogy used, academic preparation of the teacher, or preference of particular topics or types of assignments, the WPA OS is versatile. This dissertation employs a problem-solution argument showcasing methods to improve assignments through intentional use of the WPA OS for a fluid conversation throughout first-year composition and a more clear articulation of course goals. This dissertation includes summation, analysis, and synthesis of documents that inform first-year composition curriculum from foundational organizations within the field, including National Council of Teachers of English, Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Writing Project, and Conference on College Composition and Communication. This study uses the WPA OS as a lens to examine and revise writing assignments that aid in students' comprehension of the WPA OS with particular focus on the areas of rhetorical knowledge and critical thinking, reading, and writing. Framing assignment design with theoretically grounded content and the use of common topics throughout first-year composition is one way to operationalize the WPA OS. Using common topics throughout course content presents opportunities for teachers to include detailed scaffolding in assignments that expand students' literate practices and engage students as critical thinkers and writers. This study explores how using the topic of family, a common topic to all students, provides a rich bank of social, historical, and cultural elements for research and writing. The topic of family seamlessly employs multimodal composition, which presents students with opportunities for developing rhetorical knowledge and expanding students' literacies. This dissertation displays evidence of praxis of the WPA OS from assignment development to presentation of student samples. This study recommends the use of common topics and intentional application of the WPA OS to construct assignments that clearly articulate learning goals in first-year composition. / Dissertation/Thesis / Appendix H: Cecelia Sound Project / Ph.D. English 2011

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2016-08-16T14:58:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ivana Santiago Bueno.pdf: 1346022 bytes, checksum: 6534bbc9bf66a0f034a747f9262a7274 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-16T14:58:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ivana Santiago Bueno.pdf: 1346022 bytes, checksum: 6534bbc9bf66a0f034a747f9262a7274 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-28 / This research aims to investigate how and if it happens continuing education teacher in the school locus during the ATPC. Currently the teacher needs to learn of knowledge and concepts to re-establish a connection between knowing how to be and know relearn how to be a teacher, become. To do this, knowing mediate with the educational field to show in practice what the theory holds him filling his knowledge. This same theory based on several concepts that transmutes teacher "missionary" to become a teacher today (Assmann, 2007). Faced with this continuing education perspective this research is to study the formation of the teacher, the changes and possible changes to the READ AND WRITE PROGRAM. / Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo investigar como e se acontece a formação continuada do professor no lócus escolar durante o ATPC. Atualmente o professor necessita inteirar-se de saberes e conceitos para restabelecer uma conexão entre saber ser e saber reaprender a ser professor, se transformar. Para tal, saber mediar com o campo educacional ao exibir na prática o que a teoria lhe sustenta preenchendo o seu conhecimento. Esta mesma teoria baseada em diversos conceitos que o transmuta de professor “missionário” para o professor transformado de hoje (Assmann, 2007). Diante desta perspectiva de formação continuada esta pesquisa tem por objetivo estudar a formação do professor, as mudanças e as possíveis transformações perante o PROGRAMA LER E ESCREVER.

University writing programs increasingly serve student populations of growing diversity: more international students, first-generation students, disabled students, racial and ethnic minority students, and LGBTQ+ students, for example. Instructors thus teach in classrooms with many cultures and subcultures represented. Amid increasing demographic diversity, many writing programs seek to internationalize. In this dissertation, I investigate the current state of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) in a university writing program as a potential avenue for internationalization. Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) is a social-justice-oriented, transformative approach to education that views cultural diversity as a resource, restructuring education settings to affirm students’ identities and home cultures. I evaluate CRT among a sample of 10 instructor participants and their students, propose a CRT assessment method, and suggest implementation of CRT as a sustainable, just, and resource-efficient method for writing program internationalization. I implement a mixed-methods research design that draws on both observational and self-report measures of CRT. Results indicate that instructor capabilities for CRT fall along a developmental spectrum. This developmental spectrum provides a useful model for assessment of CRT in a writing program context, as well as a basis for developing the CRT capabilities of instructors at both individual and programmatic levels. <br>