UC Davis

This dissertation models a heuristic for studying basic writing programs in US higher education in order to leverage methodological tools for change at the systems level. Centered on the methodological framework of institutional ethnography (LaFrance, 2019; Smith, 2005) and drawing from the theories of critical systems thinking (Flood, 1990; Melzer, 2013; Midgley, 1996), and ecological models (Inoue, 2015; Molloy, 2018; Reiff et al., 2015), this heuristic employs a methodological constellation approach to uncover how ideological and material macrostructures existing both within and outside of institutions shape programmatic microstructures like curriculum and pedagogy in basic writing classrooms. The heuristic centers on the metaphor of a funhouse mirror, a type of mirror in which a person’s reflection is distorted in dramatic ways depending on where they stand in relation to the mirror, to illustrate how the perspectives of and actions available to individuals in institutions are shaped by their standpoint in relation to epicenters of power. In this way, this heuristic also reveals how individuals at varying standpoints within institutional power structures perceive of and make use of the same structures and systems in different ways to advance their own agendas. To model this heuristic, this dissertation presents a case study of a cross-institutional basic writing program shared between a University of California campus and a local community college in which the curriculum, assessment practices, instructional policies, and larger programmatic structures were heavily influenced by an exit exam modeled after the UC system’s Analytical Writing Placement Exam (AWPE). In 1993, due to ongoing budget crises in the UC system, instruction for writing courses deemed “remedial” at this campus, defined through UC Senate Regulations 636 and 761 as courses meant to fulfill the UC system’s Subject A writing proficiency requirement, were outsourced to a local community college and saddled with additional exit requirements. A constellation of methods, including interviews with ten faculty and two administrators and analysis of institutional and programmatic archival documents, were employed to uncover how ideological and material macrostructures influenced programmatic microstructures like curriculum, assessment practices, and instructional policies, as well as the experiences of administrators and faculty who worked and taught in the program. Results of this analysis reveal the conflicting ideologies, remedial frameworks, entrenched hierarchies, and interpersonal friction that shaped the history of this program and of the Subject A requirement in the UC system more broadly. This study is among the first to implement institutional ethnography (IE) in research in basic writing and advances the use of this methodology in the field of writing studies by merging IE with the theoretical frameworks of ecological models and critical systems thinking. Basic writing programs are sites both within and over which larger social and institutional conflicts related to literacy standards, language politics, and access to higher education are fought. They are also often rhetorically positioned by institutions as transient (Rose, 1985) and as such, typically occupy profoundly contested, inherently political, and continuously uncertain spaces within institutions. This approach is therefore uniquely suited to research and writing program administration (WPA) in basic writing contexts, given its focus on revealing how institutional epicenters of power shape the everyday teaching and learning work of writing programs. To best comprehend institutional power structures and their impact on campus writing cultures and programs, WPAs in basic writing programs must learn to gaze into the funhouse mirror from multiple standpoints and uncover and leverage various institutional and programmatic perspectives and sources of information to effectively contextualize, understand, and respond to events and pressures impacting their programs.