Ecologies of Writing Programs: Program Profiles in Context

Edited by Mary Jo Reiff, Anis Bawarshi, Michelle Ballif, and Christian Weisser Writing Program Administration Edited by Chris Carter and Laura Micciche Information and Pricing 978-1-60235-511-8 (paperback, $34); 978-1-60235-512-5 (hardcover, $68); 978-1-60235-513-2 (PDF, $19.99) © 2015 by Parlor Press. 415 pages with illustrations, bibliographies, and index. Bookstores: Order by fax, mail, or phone. See our "Sales and Ordering Page" for details. About This Book Ecologies of Writing Programs: Program Profiles in Context contributes to our understanding of writing programs as complex ecological systems. The collection includes profiles of fifteen exemplary and innovative writing programs in their fluid, dynamic, and relational contexts, highlighting the ways in which writing programs—like all discursive systems—are ecologies. By examining writing programs as they exist within the context of interrelated, emergent institutional systems that are in constant flux, this collection complements broader perspectives on the history, theory, and practices of writing program administration, shifting the focus to how research and theory within the field of rhetoric and composition get enacted in particular programs and how histories and practices are enabled and constrained by particular institutional locations, contexts, and exigencies. With a focus on the constraints and challenges of developing writing programs, Ecologies of Writing Programs also extends important critical discussions of the working conditions of WPAs, highlighting material and managerial matters, along with the conflicting cultural and institutional issues that shape and are shaped by WPA work. The organization of each section highlights these complex and dynamic interrelationships, reflecting how writing programs are located in their institutional sites (from first-year composition to writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines to undergraduate majors in rhetoric and composition); how the activities of writing program administrators carve out new spaces for collaborative relationships and interactions; and how WPAs reposition programs and are themselves repositioned as they explore new sites for writing program administration. About the Editors Mary Jo Reiff is Professor of English at the University of Kansas, where she teaches courses in rhetoric and composition theory, public rhetoric, writing research, and composition pedagogy. Her books include Approaches to Audience: An Overview of the Major Perspectives (2004); Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy (with Anis Bawarshi, 2010); and the textbooks Scenes of Writing: Strategies of Composing with Genres (with Amy Devitt and Anis Bawarshi, 2004) and Rhetoric of Inquiry (with Kirsten Benson, 2009). Articles related to her research on writing programs, writing knowledge transfer, audience theory, critical ethnography, and public genres have appeared in Written Communication, Composition Studies, Composition Forum, College English, JAC, and WAC Journal.   Anis Bawarshi is Professor of English and former Director of the Expository Writing Program at the University of Washington, where he teaches courses in composition theory and pedagogy, rhetorical genre theory, discourse analysis, rhetoric, and knowledge transfer. He is currently series co-editor for Reference Guides to Rhetoric and Composition with Parlor Press and Program Profiles Co-Editor for the journal Composition Forum, and serves on the editorial board for the journal College Composition and Communication. His publications include Genre: A Historical, Theoretical, and Pedagogical Introduction (2010; with Mary Jo Reiff); Genre and the Invention of the Writer (2003); Scenes of Writing: Strategies for Composing with Genres (2004; with Amy J. Devitt and Mary Jo Reiff), A Closer Look: A Writer's Reader (2003; with Sidney I. Dobrin); and articles and book chapters on genre, uptake, invention, and knowledge transfer in composition. Michelle Ballif is Associate Professor of English at the University of Georgia, where she teaches courses in rhetoric, composition, and contemporary theory, and where she directs the campus-wide writing-in-the-disciplines program that she founded. She is the former managing editor of the journal Composition Forum and the current Associate Editor of Rhetoric Society Quarterly as Editor for Special Issues. Her research focuses on the intersections between classical rhetoric and poststructuralist theory. She is the author of Seduction, Sophistry, and the Woman with the Rhetorical Figure; co-author of Women's Ways of Making It in Rhetoric and Composition; co-editor of Twentieth Century Rhetoric and Rhetoricians and Classical Rhetorics and Rhetoricians; and editor of Theorizing Histories of Rhetoric. Christian Weisser is Associate Professor of English at Penn State Berks, where he coordinates both the Professional Writing Program and the Writing Across the Curriculum Program. Christian teaches courses in technical writing, environmental rhetoric, and the discourse of sustainability. He has served as Editor of Composition Forum since 2005. He is the author or editor of numerous publications including Moving Beyond Academic Discourse: Composition Studies and the Public Sphere (2001), Ecocomposition: Theoretical and Pedagogical Perspectives (2001, with Sid Dobrin), Natural Discourse: Toward Ecocomposition (2002, with Sid Dobrin), The Locations of Composition (2007, with Christopher Keller), and Sustainability: A Bedford Spotlight Reader (2013).