Summary: This article portrays some of the challenges of the WPA through anecdote and analysis. I think the anecdotes are fictitious, but they ring true and are consistent with the other readings. The authors' focus is on the positioning of the WPA within the larger university context--they "want to explore the role of research in the work of WPAs from the perspective it its broader value and institutional legitimacy" (141). Anson and Brown write that "in order to represent themselves, their programs, their beliefs, and the products of their investigations, successful WPAs must critically read their institutions as complex educational cultures with powerful habits" (142). A WPA needs to navigate these currents. The authors focus specifically on WPAs attaining institutional authority (through research and publication), performing local research in the university, and interacting with other disciplines in the context of writing (such as what it means to other departments that we are "composition specialists" and how understandings of writing are discipline-specific).
Response: Interesting, as all the pieces are. This takes a middle ground between very local, specific narrative and more broad WPA concerns. The authors certainly expand beyond the narratives to make suggestions for what WPAs should engage at large. This piece didn't have quite the resonance with me that some of the other pieces did.
Uses: How the WPA functions in the institution. Also, to scare people, because the WPA in the anecdotes is denied tenure because the institution doesn't value her work. :) But she gets another job.
I think it's an interesting rhetorical move when the articles elect to present fictitious incidents rather than actual ones. Louise does that in the Myers-Breslin collection of case studies, but the others I read didn't. I think she did it to provide a more robust scenario to walk around, but I wonder why it's selected here. Same reason? Others? What do you think?
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