"Threshold Conscripts explores the ways in which graduate teaching assistants are prepared to enter the field of rhetoric and composition. By viewing teaching and learning from the perspective of the TAs themselves, the chapters, personal narratives, andprogram profiles that make up this collection speak to the diversity and complexity found within and beyond university walls and deepen our understanding of how these preparation programs shape TA identities and practices. Through their stories and reports, the contributors to this volume provide insights into the programs, realities, and experiences that shape their work in rhetoric and composition"--
This richly textured edited collection explores the ways in which graduate teaching assistants are prepared to enter the field of rhetoric and composition.
This richly textured edited collection explores the ways in which graduate teaching assistants are prepared to enter the field of rhetoric and composition. By viewing teaching and learning from the perspective of the TAs themselves, the chapters, personal narratives, and program profiles that make up this collection speak to the diversity and complexity found within and beyond university walls and deepen our understanding of how these preparation programs shape TA identities and practices. Through their stories and reports, the contributors to this volume provide valuable insights into the programs, realities, and experiences that shape their work in rhetoric and composition.
Contributor Map |
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ix | |
Foreword |
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xi | |
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Introduction. "Begin as You Intend to Finish": Considering the Multiple Liminalities and Thresholds of RCTAships |
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3 | (32) |
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SECTION 1 APPROACHING THE RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION TEACHING ASSISTANTSHIP |
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35 | (126) |
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Chapter 1 Putting Learning First: Challenges and Possibilities for New Writing Teacher Research |
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39 | (28) |
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Narrative 1 First Day of Class |
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65 | (2) |
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Chapter 2 "The Gift of Authenticity": Writing Center Pedagogy and Integrated Identity Work in TA Education |
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67 | (22) |
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Narrative 2 Locating Sound While Learning How to Teach |
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87 | (2) |
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Chapter 3 Adapting, Not Resisting: A Preliminary Understanding of TAs' Relationships with Writing Pedagogy Education |
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89 | (26) |
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Narrative 3 More Than My Teaching |
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113 | (2) |
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Chapter 4 Coming to Teaching: Moving Beyond a Blank-Slate Model of Developing Pedagogical Expertise |
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115 | (22) |
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Narrative 4 Back to the Start: The Transition from Adjunct Professor to Ph.D. Student |
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135 | (2) |
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Chapter 5 Becoming and Belonging: The Three Domains of New Teachers of Writing |
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137 | (24) |
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Visualization. Approaching the RCTAship Visualization |
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159 | (2) |
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SECTION 2 INHABITING THE RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION TEACHING ASSISTANTSHIP |
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161 | (122) |
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Narrative 5 Student, Teacher, Teaching Assistant: Janus and Institutional Identity |
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165 | (2) |
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Chapter 6 "Survival is Insufficient": Reimagining TA Orientation as Meaningful Threshold Boundaries |
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167 | (20) |
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Narrative 6 Teaching Rhetoric Without a License |
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185 | (2) |
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Chapter 7 Shifting Roles and Negotiating Identities: TA Learning in Landscapes of Practice |
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187 | (22) |
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207 | (2) |
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Chapter 8 Doorways to Disciplinarity: Using Threshold Concepts to Bridge Disciplinary Divides and Develop Theory-Practice Praxis |
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209 | (30) |
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Narrative 8 Always Beginning: Inhabiting the TAship after a Career |
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237 | (2) |
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Chapter 9 International Teaching Assistants' Needs and Undergraduate Native English-Speaking Students' Expectations: Meaning Negotiation as a Rhetorical Strategy |
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239 | (30) |
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Narrative 9 "Who is That Girl I see?" Navigating the Identities of Student and Administrator as a Graduate WPA |
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267 | (2) |
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Chapter 10 I Feel It in My Body: WC Teaching and Administration as Embodied Praxis |
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269 | (14) |
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Visualization. Inhabiting the RCTAship |
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281 | (2) |
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SECTION 3 TRANSCENDING THE RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION TEACHING ASSISTANTSHIP |
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283 | (114) |
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Narrative 10 Collegiality as Transcendence Beyond the TAship |
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287 | (2) |
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Chapter 11 The Pursuit of (Un) Happiness in Composition and Rhetoric TAs' Experiences |
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289 | (24) |
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311 | (2) |
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Chapter 12 Anti-Colonialist Listening as Writing Pedagogy |
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313 | (26) |
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Narrative 12 Multiple Atypical Identities |
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337 | (2) |
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Chapter 13 From Deficit to Asset: Rethinking Graduate Student Narratives |
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339 | (28) |
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Narrative 13 Mom, Cancer Patient, Doctoral Candidate, TA |
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365 | (2) |
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Chapter 14 Integrating the Marginalized and the Mainstream: Women of Color Graduate Instructors' Experience with Identity, Difference, and Belonging |
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367 | (30) |
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Narrative 14 Teaching is Physical, Emotional, and Intellectual Labor |
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385 | (2) |
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Visualization. Transcending the RCTAship |
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387 | (2) |
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Afterword. The Elephant in the Room |
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389 | (8) |
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SECTION 4 GRADUATE TASHIP PROGRAM PROFILES |
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397 | (58) |
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Program Profile 1 Choose Your Own Adventureship: Diversity, Context, and Casuistry in Graduate Student Professionalization |
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399 | (6) |
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Program Profile 2 Disciplinary TAs Exploring the Reciprocal Effects of Providing Writing Feedback in Physics |
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405 | (6) |
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Program Profile 3 TAs as Administrative and Teacher Researchers: Professional Development at The University of Arizona |
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411 | (2) |
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Program Profile 4 A Focus on Education and Professional Development |
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413 | (4) |
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Program Profile 5 Equity Through Leadership: The Graduate Student Administrator at the University of Alabama |
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417 | (6) |
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Program Profile 6 University of Delaware Program Description, or, Redefining RhetComp Professional Development |
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423 | (4) |
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Program Profile 7 Holistic Mentoring to Advocate for Social Justice |
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427 | (6) |
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Program Profile 8 Chapman University: Bridging the Gap with Action Research |
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433 | (6) |
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Program Profile 9 Negotiating Plural Identities Through Transfer and Inclusion: Program Revision at Bowling Green State University |
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439 | (8) |
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Program Profile 10 Teaching Teaching as a Process: San Jose State University's TA Program and the Development of Pedagogical Thinking |
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447 | (8) |
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Editors and Authors |
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455 | |
William J. Macauley Jr. is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he has been the University Writing Center director (2011-2015) and served as director of the Composition and Communication in the Disciplines program (2015-2019). Macauley has been teaching since 1987 and leading writing centers and programs since 1990. He has authored more than 20 professional publications and taken on leadership roles in multiple international, national, regional and local professional organizations.
Leslie R. Anglesey (she/her) is Assistant Professor of rhetoric and composition in the department of English at Sam Houston State University. Her research interests focus on disability studies, composition pedagogy, mentorship, and rhetorics of health and medicine. She is a co-editor of the collection Standing at the Threshold: Liminality and the Rhetoric and Composition TAship (Utah State University Press). Her work has also appeared in College Composition and Communication, Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments, The Peer Review, and Works and Days, as well as the edited collections Interrogating Gendered Pathologies and Strategic Interventions in Mental Health Rhetorics.
Brady Edwards is Professor of English at New Mexico Junior College, where he teaches developmental writing, first-year composition, and sophomore literature courses. His first co-edited collection Standing at the Threshold: Working Through Liminality in the Composition and Rhetoric TAship was published by Utah State University Press in 2021. Besides teaching assistantships, Brady is interested in writing program administration, contingent labor, and first-year composition. He has published essays and reviews in The Peer Review, Southern Discourse in the Center, and Literature and Belief.
Kathryn Lambrecht completed her Ph.D. in rhetoric and composition at the University of Nevada, Reno and is currently Assistant Professor of Technical Communication at Arizona State University, Polytechnic. Her research draws on rhetoric, corpus linguistics, composition theory, and data visualization to strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration as well as communication between experts and public audiences, particularly in STEM environments. Her research has been published in Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Bulletin of American Meteorological Society, and Journal of General Education. Her interdisciplinary focus has led her to work with the National Weather Service, public health, engineering communication, identity studies, and writing in the disciplines.
Phillip K. Lovas is Lecturer in the Karen Merritt Writing Program at the University of California, Merced, where he teaches courses in first-year writing and research, professional writing, upper division academic writing, and interdisciplinary seminars for first-year students. The Karen Merritt Writing Program has an interdisciplinary approach to writing that offers students the opportunity to work with creative writing, professional writing, and writing in the disciplines. His research interests are focused on students writing in the disciplines, professional and technical communication, genre theories, and how students transfer information beyond the classroom.