Introduction

Pandemic Writing Pedagogy

Methods

Results

Discussion

The goal of this survey was to begin a longer study that collects reflections from WPAs to better learn about how writing programs worked in a particular moment of crisis, and from even this preliminary survey data, we can start to make connections to issues of pedagogy, institutional support, and care work.

As a doctoral student, there were things I learned even just from research design: first of all, that not everybody who does WPA work has a WPA title (as McLeod [2007] reminds us), which is why the revision to my inclusion protocol was needed. A second major takeaway as a researcher is that, when you ask WPAs to help you with your research, they help: direct recruitment brought in not only more responses but multiple encouraging notes, and over three quarters of folks who took the survey marked that they might be interested in the interviews in Phase Two of the study. (Of course, we aren’t surprised by this.)

As the study moves forward, I look forward to learning more from the firsthand stories of WPAs who were supporting their writing programs in a critical moment. Right now, though, we have the following takeaways to think through:

Technology mattered and matters.

This is the most readily apparent takeaway, and the literature we already have from post-March 2020 agrees: we could have had more teacher training when it comes to online instruction. At the same time, there is a rich and growing body of work on OWI that we can use; while I won't attempt to answer the question, "Why didn't we use it sooner?", there is the indication from many of these responses that many instructors were reluctant to teach online pre-pandemic, and therefore were not familiar with online teaching strategies.

Even with our existing OWI knowledge, many programs and instructors had to approach their courses and goals with more open experimentation: trial-and-error is mentioned in responses (and the House of Lore referenced in Hewett & Warnock 2015, from North 1987, lives on). This is another reason that the teaching and program-specific reflections, like those in the literature review, are important to continue to collect. In some ways, the Spring 2020 term was a massive online instruction experiment under some of the worst possible conditions; I posit we can still learn from it. We must, as Hewett & Warnock urge, continue cataloging those experimentations. Although we can hope that no more crises emerge and online instruction can be saved for the teachers and students who want to use it, the contexts of online instruction–and of teaching as a whole–will continue to change, as will the technology we use to deliver our courses.

What is and isn't the WPA's job?

Beyond OWI, there was the question of balancing WPA work with IT work: one response said, "I'm not responsible for teaching people how to use" their LMS. This is something that varies based on institutional contexts: who is offering online course support, other than the program head also responsible for pedagogy and curriculum? How robust is that support system for online courses?

Among other infrastructural issues at the university is the ability of student populations to switch to remote instruction on a moment's notice, including cases where campuses closed and students needed to travel elsewhere. One response indicated a wish that faculty could have been better prepared for how students would handle the switch; Mitchum, et al. (2020) addressed these student needs as a program with their correspondence packets. My data here suggests that, perhaps, institution type wasn’t much of a deciding factor in whether a participant indicated they felt resource constraints when supporting their faculty, although more data is needed to say this decisively. So, WPAs and other higher education administrators need to ask: how can we build up these resources? How can learning to use and adapting to new technology be continuous and part of the local culture, rather than just something that is needed during a crisis or when the school switches their LMSes? More urgently, how can teacher training be adjusted so that good pedagogy can be sustained, rather than retaught, when uncertain times or big changes occur?

Hewett and Warnock (2015)’s discussion of online instruction and pedagogy becoming a larger and larger part of composition means that WPAs also have the opportunity to stop separating online instruction training from regular teaching training. Even face-to-face courses use LMSes and digital composing tools. Professional development opportunities, we will find if we haven’t already, can be catered to all potential course modalities.

We have the opportunity to reconsider priorities and more concretely theorize care work in these contexts.

Ethics of care in writing programs in the early pandemic days, according to the literature we have like Mitchum et al. (2020) and Nagelhout and Tillery (2021), appeared as additional accessibility considerations and reducing workloads for students and instructors in terms of assigning and grading writing. This doesn't mean the classes became pointless: multiple responses indicated critically considering the program's goals, and as one put it, "Learn[ing] what your priorities and values really are."

This conversation becomes complicated in the age of the long-pandemic: When do we return to our normal outcomes and assignment sequences and grading practices? Of course, some have suggested that we don't. This ties into the discussions of antiracism and pedagogy given exigence by the two summers following March 2020: in Summer 2020, during mobilization of many Black Lives Matter protests, and in Spring/Summer 2021, during mounting criticism of the Council of Writing Program Administrators and their Outcomes for First Year Writing. This is to say, there is a growing consensus that, whatever the outcomes and norms were before March 2020, we cannot return to them. The discussion of reconsidering outcomes because of their basis in whiteness runs parallel to discussions of not going back to priorities we had pre-2020 because of their exclusions of conversations around course accessibility and best online teaching practices.

These multiple calls to reconsider values and priorities go hand-in-hand with what I see as an opportunity to more concretely theorize what self-care and working with an ethic of care look like for the WPA. When I began this study, I was interested in how empathy could be understood through the ways WPAs supported their faculty in this critical moment. Indeed, our earlier definition of care work focuses on others' needs. What these survey results and our other discussions are revealing is that, to perform an ethic of care and focus on others' needs, one's own needs must be met. Survey responses that mentioned focusing on survival tell us that, for many, an ethic of care pre-pandemic was focused on delivering care to others before considering the care needed for the self. After these survey results, we can begin to approach empathy from another angle: how does someone--in a position to make policy and support others (such as at the head of a writing program), yet with abilities often limited by factors like faculty status, resources, time, and upper administration--approach caring for themselves so they may care for others in these critical moments? Further, what infrastructural changes can make this care work easier? For example, a few responses indicated concerns for contingent faculty who may have contracts put at risk by the pandemic; some indicated groups of instructors who needed additional support during the switch. Another common theme was that WPAs couldn’t make policy decisions for their programs because the policy decisions of their superiors were unclear; how can we consider caring for yourself and your faculty when the way forward is unclear?

We can begin to see some themes in the specific pieces of advice that were coded for self-care: a need for flexibility; lowering expectations for self and others; refocusing labor on what’s important; prioritizing people, not assignments or outcomes; and taking care of self to take care of others. This is something more to explore in the future. When we consider the relationality of teaching and administration with an ethic of care, we should fully conceptualize what that care is on both sides of that relationship. What we do know, however, is that those previous processes–with less attention to how care and equity may influence our goals–are unsustainable in uncertain times.

WPA work presents a site where intellectual and scholarly work in Composition and OWI meet practice and institutional power, meaning that capturing this particular moment in WPA work allows us to think about how these areas of scholarship and practice interact, especially when put under pressure. As I continue this study into Phase Two, I will continue to examine what it means to be prepared for continued uncertainty and what that ethic of care means in uncertain times. Further study of this kind of work will, hopefully, enrich both our theory and practice going forward, highlighting good work and resilience. In other words, we did our best, and we should articulate what, exactly, that means.


This author is indebted to the participants of my study, who have been nothing but generous with sharing their knowledge, experience, and thoughts with me. Additional thanks to Dr. Irwin “Bud” Weiser, who provided relevant readings and feedback on early versions of this project in his Empirical Methods course; to my advising/peer mentoring group, the “Disseminar,” who have also provided feedback and support in this process; and to my dissertation advisor, Dr. Bradley Dilger, who provided feedback and mentorship through the whole project.

This study is ongoing at the time of publication! You can stay up-to-date on how it’s going, or find more information, at myerace.com/diss.



References

New Priorities in Strange Times