First Semester: Graduate Students, Teaching Writing, and the Challenge of Middle Ground

Studies in Writing and Rhetoric

by Jessica Restaino

Jessica Restaino offers a snapshot of the first semester experiences of graduate student writing teachers as they navigate predetermined course syllabi and materials, the pressures of grading, the influences of foundational scholarship, and their own classroom authority. With rich qualitative data gathered from course observations, interviews, and correspondence, Restaino traces four graduate students’ first experiences as teachers at a large, public university. Yet the circumstances and situations she relates will ring familiar at widely varying institutions. First Graduate Students, Teaching Writing, and the Challenge of Middle Ground presents a fresh and challenging theoretical approach to understanding and improving the preparation of graduate students for the writing classroom. Restaino uses a three-part theoretical construct—labor, action, and work, as defined in Hannah Arendt’s work of political philosophy, The Human Condition— as a lens for reading graduate students’ struggles to balance their new responsibilities as teachers with their concurrent roles as students. Arendt’s concepts serve as access points for analysis, raising important questions about graduate student writing teachers’ first classrooms and uncovering opportunities for improved support and preparation by university writing programs.

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written and empathetic study of the struggles of four graduate students in their first semester of teaching college writing. Restaino draws on Hannah Arendt to argue that a key issue facing these new teachers, and the faculty who support them, is learning how to imagine what they do in the classroom as meaningful intellectual work—or perhaps even a form of intellectual action—rather than repetitious and alienating labor.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is much to admire in Restaino's attempt to foreground the voices and experiences of graduate writing instructors. However, mapping them onto Arendt--while apt--didn't really have much utility. Having read the entire book, I feel more empathy toward these instructors and also feel better positioned to mentor them. I don't feel like understanding their struggles through Arendt's lens has anything to do with that. So, in my mind, what this book was missing was an explanation for why using Arendt matters at all (beyond just novelty).

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book presents itself as a case study, but quickly disintegrates into a literary theory hastily stapled on top of a series of anecdotes. This book fails to follow the scientific method it initially ascribes to, makes sweeping and over-reaching connections between the stories and the Arendt-inspired labor theory it espouses, and fails horribly at any attempt to entertain its readers. This book represents 120 pages' worth of time I'll never get back.

[Bruce Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good study, and the framing of the first semester GTA experience through Arendt is somewhat useful, though the attention to labor, work, action should also be balanced more with Arendt's attention to "public" and how the GTA's public is informed, created, subsumed by the culture of the corporate university and all the administrative pressures on the FYW course. Similarly, attention to public-making _in_ the classroom as created/nurtured/killed by the first semester GTA would also be useful.

[Melissa Stein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is smart, nuanced, and beautifully written. I found the seamless blend of theory and firsthand testimonies particularly compelling--for me, the graduate students' stories made Arendt's theoretical frameworks come alive, while the theory in turn gave the stories context and resonance well beyond the first-year writing classroom. I've already recommended the book to many of my colleagues!

[Emily Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautifully written - an inspired and thoughtful depiction of first year writing. I love the use of Arendt as a lens of making sense of the cases. It gave new meaning to the field.

[Wendy Fall · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are better, more approachable books for teachers new to the college setting.

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very necessary study!