Dr. George Wes Houp
Assistant Professor
Writing Center Director

Office: PH 386, Phone/Voice Mail: 494-7673

Wesley Houp comes to MTSU from Union College and University of Kentucky, where he taught composition and literature courses as well as a graduate course in composition pedagogy. His research interests include writing pedagogy, qualitative methodologies, and literacy education policy. In 2009, he became director of the Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center.

See Publications

Selected Presentations:

• “Writing toward the revolution: Poetics of relation.”  PCA/ACA.  New Orleans, LA, October 2011.
• “When ‘all our relations’ disgust us: The University Free-Speech Zone as contested space.”  CCCC.  Atlanta, GA, April 2011.
• “Rolling in, riding on (and turning?) the tide:  Writing Center in motion.” SWCA. Tuscaloosa, AL, February 2011.
• “The full-class workshop: An alternative to individual conferences.”  TNADE.  Dickson, TN, October 2010.
• “Bringing Creative Back: Outreach and Writing in the Center.” International Writing Centers Association Collaborative @ CCCC. Louisville, KY, March 2010 (with Rachel Strickland, Stacia Watkins, Caty Chapman, Meagan McManus, and Jamie Smith).
• “Encouraging Creativity to Reappear: Outreach and Writing in the Center.” East Central Writing Centers Association. East Lansing, MI, April 2010 (with Rachel Strickland, Stacia Watkins, Caty Chapman, Meagan McManus, and Jamie Smith).
• “The Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting: Creating and Using Archives in Freshman Composition.” (CCCC) 60 th Annual Conference on College Composition and Communication. Special Interest Group (SIG), San Francisco, CA, 2009.
• “Making Waves Downstream: Taking Coal out of the Mountains.” (CCCC) San Francisco, CA, 2009.
• “Creating Ecological Archives in Southern Appalachia.” (CCCC) New Orleans, LA, 2008.
• “Dialogism and the Messy Text: Using Berthoff's ‘Interpretive Paraphrase' in Writing Tutorials.” (SWCA) Southeastern Writing Center Association Annual Conference. Savannah, GA, 2008.
• “Public Labels, Personal Literacies: Lana's Transformation.” (CCCC-RNF) San Francisco, CA, 2005.
• “Transforming Possibilities: Applying Narrative Theory in Community-Based Literacy Research.” Narrative: An International Conference, Louisville, KY, 2005.
• “An Assignment Sequence in Orientation: Writing the Way from Home to university.” (CCCC) San Antonio, TX, 2004.
• “Rewriting Space: Decoding Campus and Community in Freshman Composition.” (PCA/ACA) Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference. New Orleans, LA, 2003.
• “Collecting (and Reflecting) the Data: Transforming Possibilities through Narrative Inquiry.” (CCCC) New York, NY, 2003.
• “Voices, Memories, Stories: Multiple Reflections on Learning to do Narrative Inquiry.” (QUIG) Annual International Conference on Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies. Athens, GA, 2002.
• “When ‘The Street' Resists Our Telling: Reconfiguring Literacy in Community-Based Research.” (CCCC) Chicago, IL, 2002.
• “The Unfolding of Lived Lives: Graduate Students Doing Narrative Research.” The Pennsylvania English Conference . Indiana, PA, 2001.
• “Unavailable Stars: Narrative, Poetics, and Academic Discourse.” Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Graduate Student Conference. Indiana, PA, 2000.
• “Warning and Welcome: Reflections on Designing a Syllabus for a Course in Writing.” Pennsylvania College English Association Annual Conference. Altoona, PA, 2000.