As a new WPA, you will find yourself immediately thrown into conversations and decisions about the state of your writing program. It is essential that you gather as much information as you can from as many places as you can. Aside from reading all that you can, it's important that you engage in dialogue about your writing program and what it means to the institution. Get a sense of the situation or the conversation, as Kenneth Burke puts it:
In order to begin building your information arsenal, I have highlighted some important talking points and questions within WPA topics. Although these questions shouldn't be the only ones you are asking, it's a great place to start. Please feel free to leave your thoughts, comments, questions, or advice under the points of discussion.
"Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before.
You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending on the quality of your ally’s assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.”
-Kenneth Burke, McMillen & Hill, 2004, p. 6
*For Further Information:
These questions are meant to get the conversation going. For further information and detailed advice from scholars in the field, check out the books that are listed on the bookshelf page or visit the CompFAQs site on CompPile.
