College Composition and Communication
65 articlesDecember 2024
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“You could have students who barely speak English with someone who’s almost ready to go to comp”: Latinx Basic Writers in Iowa Community Colleges ↗
Abstract
Latinx students are a growing demographic in postsecondary English classes, but the majority of research on them and on the faculty who teach them is based in the US Southwest at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The purpose of this study is to describe some of the pedagogical and extracurricular considerations of faculty who teach Latinx students in two community colleges in the Midwest in order to support these students, especially in developmental courses. This study draws from qualitative data collected at two community colleges, Mann College and Kinsella College (pseudonyms). This exploratory study provides recommendations for the kind of professional development that faculty may need in order to support Latinx students, the importance of understanding students’ myriad identities, and the ways political forces may shape students’ experiences.
September 2022
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Abstract
Situated in disability studies, this article shares the results from a qualitative research project that examined how three community college students who wrote about addiction navigated the process-based activities assigned in their first-year writing courses. These findings illuminate how such exercises evoke a spectrum of emotion that shapes both process and product.
September 2019
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Two-Year College Teacher-Scholar-Activism: Reconstructing the Disciplinary Matrix of Writing Studies ↗
Abstract
Two-year college faculty have begun articulating ateacher-scholar-activistprofessional identity. After tracing the emergence of this concept and calls for solidarity in two-year college writing studies, we draw on two case studies to advocate for cross-sector disciplinary alliances that expand educational opportunity, improve professional equity, and advance social justice.
September 2014
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Abstract
Reporting on a year-and-a-half-long study of Latina/Latino multilingual students transitioning from high school to a community college or university on the US-Mexico border, this article explores how writing instruction was shaped across the three institutional locations by a variety of internal and external forces such as standardized testing pressures, resource disparities, and individual instructors. In concluding comments, the author suggests ways for composition teachers, researchers, and administrators to build connections between different locations of writing and facilitate student transitions between institutions.
September 2013
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Abstract
Drawing on findings from three qualitative studies, this article explores the distinct professional identities of two-year college English faculty. We examine full-time faculty patterns of engagement with professional organizations, their assertion of professional authority in institutional decision making, and the role of organizational socialization in the shaping of part-time faculty professional identities.
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Abstract
In a photo taken at the community college where my father Julian Medina taught, he’s wearing a tie and a middle-management, short-sleeved buttonup shirt, shaking hands with farm worker advocate César Chávez. As in my father’s proud image, I too work hard to project a professional appearance, often wearing a tie the first few weeks of the semester. I do so because of the often mistaken assumptions students make about my knowledge and the wisdom of assigning readings by writers of color. Unfortunately, this feeling of insecurity comes from lived experience. When my Anglo mother married my Mexican American father, her father disowned her. Even though my father had earned his bachelor’s degree and his master’s degree and taught English at a community college in central California, his accomplishments did little to diminish my grandfather’s racial prejudice. Before my father died in 2006 at the age of fifty-six, he often told me that I was supposed to surpass his success in the same way as he did with his accomplishment as the first in his family to graduate from college. He did this by changing the family trade of mowing lawns to instead teaching English at the college level.
February 2011
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Review Essay: Beyond Typical Ideas of Writing: Developing a Diverse Understanding of Writers, Writing, and Writing Instruction ↗
Abstract
Reviewed are: The Idea of a Writing Laboratory, Neal Lerner Generation 1.5 in College Composition: Teaching Academic Writing to U.S.-Educated Learners of ESL, Mark Roberge, Meryl Siegal, and Linda Harklau, editors The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations, Howard Tinberg and Jean-Paul Nadeau College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction, Anne Beaufort
December 2002
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Abstract
Using a variety of common forms from first-year composition, this paper examines the purposes of CCCC, transformative experiences at professional conferences, and the elements of my literacy autobiography. I then argue for recognition of the knowledge-building role of writing programs in two-year colleges and for a “write to work” principle, calling for full pay for all who teach required writing courses. Originally, this manuscript was a speech integrated with a PowerPoint® presentation using more than 100 slides (text, photographs, and music), which cannot be fully represented here.
February 1998
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Abstract
I salute the 1300 two-year colleges-colleges that bring hope, opportunity, fulfillment of dreams to a large segment of our population for whom otherwise higher education would be very difficult, if not impossible. Community colleges are open door, they are accessible, they are affordable, they are cost efficient, they offer a broad array of programs and services, and they open the way for transferring to four-year institutions or entering/reentering the workforce. Familiar words from the Declaration of Independence remind us of the basis of our democracy: "We hold these truths to be self-evident…"-you know the rest of the sentence. The abstractions "created equal," "certain unalienable rights," "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" become realities for many because of their community college experiences. Community colleges are indeed democracy in action. (Pickett 98).
December 1997
December 1995
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Abstract
Preview this article: Review: The Two-Year Community College: Into the 21st Century, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/46/4/collegecompositioncommunication8723-1.gif
February 1991
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Responses to Elisabeth McPherson, "Remembering, Regretting, and Rejoicing: The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Two-Year College Regionals" ↗
Abstract
David W. Chapman, Joyce Magnotto, Barbara Stout, Responses to Elisabeth McPherson, "Remembering, Regretting, and Rejoicing: The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Two-Year College Regionals", College Composition and Communication, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Feb., 1991), pp. 85-86
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Abstract
As a community-college English instructor immersed in teaching four sections a semester, at least two of which are writing courses, I have very little time to study theories of composition and pedagogy. And yet, out of a desire to improve as a teacher, I read theory in what little time I have. I look outside my classroom to learn what theoreticians have to say about what happens in my classroom. I have, over the years, internalized a view that if I am to find theory I am to do so outside my classroom-in the major journals and at conferences. I have also come to expect that the theoreticians, those writing the journal articles and presenting papers, are most likely to be from universities, and a relatively small number of them. Needless to say, I do not expect the theoreticians to come from the community colleges or from other institutions whose faculty devote most of their time to teaching. In recent years, however, the line between theory and classroom practice has begun to be breached, the dichotomy between the two questioned. When Robert Coles, whose words begin this essay, encourages me to consider theory as rooted in observation, in things observed and people observing, I wonder whether, maybe, even a beleaguered community-college writing teacher can theorize, and I begin to think it is possible. I am further encouraged by events happening in the profession. In this regard, an extraordinary thing happened at the 1990 CCCC Convention, which took place in Chicago. Jane Peterson, while giving the Chair's Address on Valuing Teaching: Assumptions, Problems, and Possibilities, identified herself unequivocally as a teacher who had in the past taught five sections in one semester and would continue to do so. At one point, she turned to the
May 1990
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Abstract
The American Community College, Arthur M. Cohen and Florence B. Brawer Nell Ann Pickett Rescuing the Subject.: A Critical Introduction to Rhetoric and the Writer, Susan Miller The Written World: Reading and Writing in Social Contexts, Susan Miller Joseph Harris Writing as Social Action, Marilyn M. Cooper and Michael Holzman Deborah Brandt The Double Perspective: Language, Literacy, and Social Relations, David Bleich Joyce Irene Middleton Writing and Response: Theory, Practice, and Research, Chris M. Anson Anne Ruggles Gere Technical and Business Communication: Bibliographic Essays for Teachers and Corporate Trainers, Charles H. Sides Alice Philbin Writing and Technique, David Dobrin Deborah H. Holdstein Worlds of Writing. Teaching and Learning in Discourse Communitieast Work, Carolyn B. Matelene Stephen A. Bernhardt Creative Writing in America. Theory and Pedagogy, Joseph M. Moxley D. W. Fenza
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Abstract
In her opening address, Composing Ourselves: Politics, Commitment, and the Teaching of Writing, Andrea Lunsford challenged the participants at the 1989 CCCC to tell the story of the teaching of writing in multiple voices which encourage differences and diversity. Cautioning against definition by others, particularly by those who would describe writing instruction in reductive terms or define writing instructors in limiting ways, Lunsford warned those present that we could be composed in the discourses . . . of others (75). For those of us teaching in two-year colleges, Lunsford's descriptions of historical precedents of marginalized voices writing themselves into being were particularly evocative. Her imperative for composition studies to remain inclusive, interdisciplinary, collaborative, nonhierarchical, and dialogic was a further articulation of the CCCC 1989 theme of empowerment and of interdependence. Furthermore, the 1990 CCCC theme, community through diversity, includes a strand on English in the two-year college. This focus recognizes the significance of teaching writing in two-year colleges and should provide the opportunity for participants to explore and articulate the strength in diversity among two-year institutions of higher education. Indeed, two-year schools are the largest single sector of higher education in the United States, with approximately one half of all students taking composition in two-year colleges (Facts 3). These 1,224 accredited schools serve more than five-million credit students, and many of those students transfer to four-year schools (AACJC Commission vii). The numbers of students taking composition in community colleges alone indicate the significance of community-college English departments (Raines 29). Yet no major study has been published since the 1965 NCTE and CCCC report, English in the TwoYear College. A follow-up to this report could be a critical contribution to an evolving text on the teaching of writing. In fact, the Association of Depart-
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Remembering, Regretting, and Rejoicing: The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Two-Year College Regionals ↗
Abstract
Elisabeth McPherson, Remembering, Regretting, and Rejoicing: The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Two-Year College Regionals, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 41, No. 2 (May, 1990), pp. 137-150
February 1979
December 1977
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Abstract
LOGICAL THINKING in freshman composition continues to be an essential need, but the increasing emphasis in many composition programs on reading skills and expository writing has led to the sacrifice of essentials in logic. Admittedly, composition teachers, untrained or little acquainted with formal logic or even the informal fallacies, feel ill-equipped to present these effectively; many feel better equipped to teach exposition than the argumentative essay. But few if any will argue about the need for logical thinking. The question is not whether to teach logical thinking and the argumentative essay but rather how these can be taught successfully to students of varying backgrounds and reading ability. My concern in this essay is with some essentials in logic. My experience at an open-enrollment urban university has been that some but not all matters of logic can be taught, and certainly not as fully as the student will be taught them in the Philosophy Department. The complex forms of deductive reasoning are best reserved for the course in formal logic. However, the elements of deductive and inductive logic can be presented simply and effectively to all students, in the context of rhetorical ideas-specifically audience, purpose, modes of persuasion. More than this, certain matters of rhetoric can be introduced effectively through logical thinking, which offers a better way to distinguish main from subordinate ideas than the usual breakdown from main to subordinate topics and headings associated with the familiar sentence outline.
February 1977
October 1974
November 1973
October 1973
December 1971
November 1971
October 1971
February 1971
November 1970
October 1970
February 1970
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Abstract
Preview this article: The Training of Junior College English Teachers, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/21/1/collegecompositionandcommunication19225-1.gif
November 1969
October 1969
May 1969
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Preview this article: A Program to Improve the Education of Junior College English Teachers, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/20/2/collegecompositionandcommunication20207-1.gif
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Preview this article: Prestige or Practicality: The Choice Between University and Junior College English Teaching, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/20/2/collegecompositionandcommunication20206-1.gif
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Preview this article: The Two-Year College English Department in a Changing World, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/20/2/collegecompositionandcommunication20205-1.gif
December 1968
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Abstract
Preview this article: Hats Off--or On--to the Junior College, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/19/5/collegecompositionandcommunication20931-1.gif
November 1968
October 1968
October 1967
May 1967
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Abstract
Preview this article: Remedial English in Junior Colleges: An Unresolved Problem, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/18/2/collegecompositioncommunication20944-1.gif