Abstract Drawing from new and foundational scholarship in the field and from our experiences as teachers at a range of institutions, the authors consider how multimodal learning can support antiracist classrooms. This article emphasizes the value of cross-institutional collaboration, as the authors make a collective case for remixing the essay in first-year composition. This term denotes a method for building on the traditional college essay through activities and assignments that allow students to reevaluate and repurpose this well-established genre. The authors offer four case studies for remixing the essay—“Multimodal Translation: Playing with Post-Its” (Borough of Manhattan Community College /City University of New York), “Remixing Activism: The Essay as Personal and Political Playlist” (St. Francis College), “NYC Graffiti Autoethnography” (Fordham University), and “‘Vernacularity and Translation Activity” (Yale University). All four narratives present practices that support critical agency and linguistic justice by addressing the conventions of college writing assignments. Together, the authors offer a useful practice for composition instructors seeking to implement antiracist and multimodal instruction as well as a generative concept for administrators developing new writing curricula.

Abstract This article discusses and situates various grading practices — such as labor-based grading and specification grading — and their applications within a community college setting. Through two community college instructor voices with two disparate and continuing grading journeys, this article reflects on how these grading practices affect community college students in unforeseen and unjust ways, and ultimately argues that instructors should offer grading choices in order to serve the complex lives and needs of community college students.

Abstract This article offers a theory of action model for grading in first-year writing classes, as enacted at two public, suburban, Midwestern two-year colleges. First, it analyzes labor-based contract grading and specifications grading through this model, examining how these popular grading methods have manifested in unintended negative consequences for historically and multiply marginalized students. Then, it proposes a sociocognitive grading model designed to maximize course-level success rates for New Majority college students. The sociocognitive model was iteratively built on feminist standpoint theory, intersectional learning sciences, multilingual writing pedagogy, and disability studies. Thus far, student course-level success has improved, along with their learning in four domains of a robust writing construct: intrapersonal, interpersonal, cognitive, and health. While it does not prescribe specific patterns of response, this model nevertheless establishes an overall referential frame that holds the potential to incorporate empirically based best response practices.

AbstractThis article proposes that the methods and philosophies informing corequisite teaching could be generalized throughout English studies to support students at all levels who are undergoing and recovering from pandemic-related traumas. Corequisite courses, which promote equity among first-year students, are designed with attention to trauma-informed approaches and a focus on process-driven writing. Instructors address noncognitive skills with students, such as time management and note-taking, and consider the cultural relevance of their reading and writing assignments. By describing specific activities and methods used at Hostos Community College, the article considers how strategies that are central to corequisite pedagogy might be widely adopted or adapted in this moment of reorientation for English studies. Additionally, the article suggests that mission-driven practices of community colleges serve as a model for higher education more broadly.

The Truman Commission created the modern community college in 1947 to democratize our system of higher education in America. Before this moment, higher education was thoroughly segregated by race, class, and gender. The modern open-admissions two-year college cannot, therefore, be understood simply as a convenient, low-cost alternative to four-year colleges. It is—by mission and mandate—a social justice institution.

During the past decade, much reform has taken place within reading and writing developmental education at community colleges. One area of reform has focused on reducing the number of developmental education credits taken while accelerating the students’ literacy growth. This article describes a pilot project where, instead of taking a developmental education reading and writing course, the students co-enrolled in a zero-credit social sciences skills lab and at least one college-level gateway course. The lab focuses on reading and writing in the disciplines. Using classroom examples, the article also outlines the pedagogical approaches used in the lab. This 2018–19 pilot was characterized as promising, using prescribed institutional success metrics; as a result, version 2.0 will be implemented for 2021–22.