TITLE: Writing Center & Writing Program Administration as Social Justice
COURSE DESCRIPTION
If you need seriously marketable academic expertise and want your work matter for social justice, look no further than writing program administration. Within any institution of higher education, writing programs (such as first-year writing courses, writing across the curriculum (WAC) programs, and writing centers) are considered central to the development of foundational communication skills. As a result, writing programs are high-impact sites for social justice work. Because writing programs serve as initial points of contact for students entering the university, how these programs are run directly impacts the students with the least amount of cultural capital, making writing program administration (WPA) inherently bound to questions of social justice. A well-intentioned but thoughtlessly administered writing program can be colonizing and oppressive for marginalized students, while a justice-oriented program architecture has the potential to aid students in developing the critical consciousness necessary to navigate higher education. The aim of this course is to offer students an introduction to the academic labor of writing program/writing center administration through the lens of social justice work.
The increasing attentiveness to racial and social justice characterizing recent writing center/writing program scholarship post BLM (2012-2024) will serve as an entry point to discuss how much of the field has shifted towards viewing justice as central. We will then explore how the growing focus on social justice in writing center/writing program administration is enmeshed within paradigm shifts for writing studies, originating in open-admissions issues in the 1970s and the field’s social turn in the 1980s. Finally, we will look at how writing programs function within local ecologies using the lens of institutional ethnography to examine ways that practices emerge within complex systems—and consider possibilities for moving towards justice on systemic level.
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Acquire a foundational understanding of a variety of writing programs, such as writing across the curriculum, writing in the disciplines, first-year writing, and writing centers.
- Learn to analyze how writing programs are situated within larger institutional ecologies as well as historical, social, and political contexts.
- Critically evaluate the concept of “social justice” in context of non-western, Indigenous, and other perspectives of justice.
- Demonstrate an ability to apply theories of justice to writing program / writing center administration.
- Develop a basic understanding of programmatic development and assessment.
POSSIBLE ASSIGNMENTS
- Discussion leading (10%)
- Periodic (4-5) 500-word reading responses (10%)
- Genealogy of Justice: 2000-word essay mapping how a student’s understanding of justice emerged, weaving individual histories alongside cultural genealogies of thought (20%)
- Program Profile: 3000-4500 words profiling a writing program along with a meta-reflection (30%)
- Conference proposal: 300-1000 word proposal (dependent on conference) + Annotated bibliography (7-10 pages) on a potential theoretical or empirical project related to writing programs / writing centers (20%)
- In-class presentation: 20-minute conference style presentation with a slide deck, expanding on work done for proposal and annotated bibliography (10%)
POSSIBLE TEXTS
(All articles and book excerpts will be made available via a shared class drive)
Ayash, B. (2019). Towards translingual realities in composition: (Re)Working local language representation and practices. Utah State University Press.
Bawarshi, A., & Pelkowski, S. (1999). Postcolonialism and the idea of a writing center. The
Writing Center Journal, 19(2), 41–58.
Carter-Tod, S. & Sano-Franchini, J. (2021). Black lives matter and anti-racist projects in writing program administration. JCWPA 44(1), 12-22.
Chun, M. N. (2006). Pono: The way of living. Curriculum Research & Development Group University of Hawai‘i.
Davidson-Hunt, I. & O’Flaherty, M. (2007). Researchers, Indigenous peoples, and place-based learning communities. Society and Natural Resources 20(4), 291-305.
Diab, R., Godbee, B., Ferrel, T., & Simpkins, N. (2012). A multi-dimensional pedagogy for racial justice in writing centers. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal 10(1), 1-8.
Godbee, B., Ozias, M., & Tang, J. K. (2015). Body + power + justice: Movement-based
workshops for critical tutor education. The Writing Center Journal, 34(2), 61–112.
Greenfield, L. (2019). Radical writing center praxis: A paradigm for ethical political engagement. University Press of Colorado.
Grimm, N. M. (1996). The regulatory role of the writing center: Coming to terms with a loss of innocence. The Writing Center Journal 17(1), 5-29.
Guerra, J. C. (2014). Enacting institutional change: The work of literacy insurgents in the academy and beyond. JAC 34(1/2), 71-95.
Inoue, A. & Poe, M. (Eds.) (2012). Race and writing assessment. Peter Lang.
Jackson, K. K., & Howard, M. (2019). MSIs matter: Recognizing writing center work at minority-serving institutions. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 16(2), 51-52.
Kana‘iaupuni, S. M., Nedward, B. & Malone, N. (2017). Mohala i ka wai: Cultural advantage as a framework for Indigenous culture-based education and student outcomes. American Educational Research Journal 54, 311-339.
Kells, M. H. (2016). Writing across communities and the writing center as cultural ecotone: Language diversity, civic engagement, and graduate student leadership. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal 14(1), 27-33.
King, L. (2012). Rhetorical sovereignty and rhetorical alliance in the writing classroom: Using American Indian texts. Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, 12(2), 209–233.
LaFrance, M. & Nicolas, M. (Eds.) (2023). Institutional ethnography as writing studies practice. WAC Clearinghouse.
Morrison, T. & Garriott, D. (Eds.) (2023). Writing centers and racial justice: A guidebook for critical praxis. Utah State University Press.
de Mueller, G. Y Ruiz, I. (2017). Race, silence, and writing program administration: A qualitative study of US college writing programs. JCWPA (40)2, 19-39.
Nicolas, M. & Sicari, A. (Eds.) (2022). Our bodies of work: Embodied administration and teaching. Utah State University Press.
Perryman-Clark, S. & Craig, C. (eds.) Black perspectives in writing program administration: From the margins to the center. NCTE.
Poe, M. Re-framing race in teaching writing across the curriculum. Across the Disciplines 10(3). Retrieved from https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/atd/race/poe.pdf
Reiff, M., Bawarshi, A., Ballif, M., & Weisser, C. (2015). Ecologies of writing programs: Program profiles in context. Parlor Press.
Ryan, K. (2012). Thinking ecologically: Rhetorical ecological feminist agency and writing program administration. JCWPA (36)1.