Argues that students are more motivated and develop more effective skills if challenged with assignments that ask for the depth of thinking required of academic disciplines and careers. Encourages composition teachers to experiment with assignments that challenge assumptions about first-year students’ capabilities.

A Group of Their Own: College Writing Courses and American Women Writers, 1880–1940, by Katherine H. Adams; Everyone Can Write: Toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching Writing, by Peter Elbow; Teaching Composition as a Social Process, by Bruce McComiskey.

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The editor expresses concerns that not enough instructors at the 2-year college level see themselves as researchers and scholars. He challenges readers to show colleagues how to integrate teaching with scholarship and research.

Considers how rhetoric, cognitive awareness, and competing cultures of community college composition students challenge instructors. Discusses issues such as: updating the definition of “student”; historically dynamic biculturalism; collaboration versus negotiated meaning; destabilizing knowledge; inventing the student; and mastering the art of persuasion. Concludes that instructors must be aware that theories, ideologies, and pedagogy influence students and therefore must be current.

Considers how using music in teaching language arts and literature helps to create kinship between students from various backgrounds and various parts of the world. Outlines the philosophical and historical basis for such an approach and discusses more benefits of a music-related approach. Suggests several class-tested curriculum strategies and specific assignments for introductory literature courses.

Offers a critical distinction between scholarship and research. Notes how George Vaughan urges community colleges to support and reward scholarship. Comments that excellence in teaching and therefore excellence in learning happen only when faculty and staff are engaged in their fields and supported in their daily work.

Considers how Frank O'Connor's “My Oedipus Complex” provides a good introduction to the subtleties of narrative voice and control. Concludes by considering the notion of control and its relation to the narrative point of view in O'Connor's story and how it bears directly upon the value of reading literature and the reader's role.

Discusses leveling a charge of anti-intellectualism against compositionists who demand that theory result in classroom practice. Suggests the charge ignores the material conditions and intellectual reasons for that demand. Concludes there is a crucial place for theory in composition, even theory for theory’s sake, but teaching in the composition classroom should be the center of the discipline, its epistemological heart.

Describes an internship program at a two-year college in which graduate students from 13 participating area graduate programs teach in the two-year college and receive training addressing pedagogical issues unique to community colleges, thus being immersed in a world of higher within which the rest of their training occurs.

Offers reflections and descriptions of three teaching associates on their experiences in the pilot year of the Guilford Technical Community College Faculty-in-Training Program. Discusses beginning the program, the varied student populations, faculty involvement, and program components (including the observation process, writing center, distance learning, conferences, weekly seminars, and camaraderie).

Describes the ongoing problem of graduate level preparation for community college teaching, and the need for such faculty. Describes a program in which two-year college and university faculty collaborate to train graduate students as community college faculty. Discusses getting the program started, implementing it, and taking stock.

Offers an interview with Robert Wylie, a distinguished two-year college English teacher for almost 50 years. Discusses how important it is for an English teacher to write, important issues in the profession, his views on the best ways to help students improve as writers, his observations about writing assignments, liking students, teaching standards, and his observations as a writer.

Describes two different experiments at De Anza College which illustrate coordinated teaching, a concept in which a group of faculty volunteer to work together for better instruction within the context of an existing program maintaining their usual approaches to teaching a course, but allowing for collegial effort, some common work, and experiments in ways students might be more effective.

Describes the National Center for Community College Education (NCCCE) at George Mason University, which links courses about the history, philosophy, and doctoral student's teaching discipline to prepare community mission of the American Community College with courses within the college professionals. Discusses the university environment, the faculty of NCCCE, the English department and NCCCE, and scholarship and NCCCE graduates.

Reflects on the author's long, demanding, and rewarding career as a teacher and administrator in community colleges. Describes how she found herself an advocate of change in the profession in the 1970s, the differences she sensed and thrived upon in the community college experience, and how flexibility was the key to successfully teaching the wide array of community college students.

Considers how faculty research can arise from student inquiry and be enhanced by faculty-student collaboration. Suggests ways that faculty who wish to do research or must do it to satisfy institutional expectations may be able to integrate it into their classroom teaching roles. Concludes that “learning from our students” is a win-win situation.

Notes that teaching composition in a technical college presents a number of challenges. Considers how employers are calling for the hands-on training to be combined with more communication and critical thinking skills so that employees have a broader education that allows them to switch speeds or tasks. Describes activities and course components for technical college writing instruction.

Considers how teaching John Updike’s short story “A&P” to treat issues of class and gender provides practice in reading for multiple meanings. Discusses students’ responses to the character “Sammy” and considers issues from personal response to reading the text. Notes multiple perspectives and ways of teaching “A&P.”

Discusses how certain strategies can enable successful chat rooms in academic courses. Examines some of the author’s own pedagogical trials, errors, and successes with chat rooms. Offers some strategies for conducting effective participation among students in such settings. Discusses several models of teacher-student interaction for developing the instructor’s role in academic chat rooms.

Describes an AIDS-centered curriculum for a composition class in a New York City community college. Describes selecting a text, assignments, attending a conference, guest speakers, and the research paper. Notes that the subject of AIDS not only provokes reflective writing and much class discussion but also compels writers to express and sometimes change profound ideas about living and dying.

Outlines three criteria that justify using passive voice. Claims teaching sentence focus--keeping the topic of the sentence in the subject position--will accomplish the end of teaching the appropriate uses of active and passive voice.

Suggests teachers helping older students in computer-aided classrooms should (1) expect these students to perform more slowly and to make more errors; (2) avoid comparisons that cause confusion due to students’ prior knowledge; (3) be aware of the danger of overload from information clutter; and (4) sequence assignments based on scaffolding concepts and on building skills through repetition.

Shows how letter writing can motivate basic writers. Describes how the author began teaching his first remedial writing class with a class-wide engagement in letter writing. Discusses how the class developed an active, collaborative, engaged, and inclusive spirit as students learned to put expression first and polishing later.

Discusses how psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s framework of “potential space” can help teachers deal with students’ emotional response to literature. Describes creating the right classroom environment and outlines teaching strategies to counteract either a too literal or a too emotional reading of a text, reducing anxiety and helping students consider multiple meanings and viewpoints.

Describes the author’s 35-year career teaching in the California Community College System. Discusses social, political, intellectual, and emotional changes over that time span and into retirement.

Discusses 5 principles from the “Tao Te Ching” (an ancient Chinese classic intended for rulers) and how they can be applied by composition teachers. Suggests many of the insights in the “Tao” have become accepted wisdom in the teaching of composition.

Presents interviews of faculty from around the country to review and evaluate the teaching of English in two-year colleges during their careers. Considers personal changes and experiences over the last 25 years and looks at the next 25 years. Discusses change and the need for flexibility in the profession.

Reviews five books: Grading in the Post-Process Classroom: From Theory to Practice, ed. by Libby Allison, Lizbeth Bryant, and Maureen Hourigan; Alternatives to Grading Student Writing, ed. by Stephen Tchudi; The Theory and Practice of Grading Writing: Problems and Possibilities, ed. by Frances Zak and Christopher C. Weaver; Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process, and Practice, by Dana Ferris and John S. Hedgcock; “M” Word, by Jane Isenberg.

Considers how the Internet provides new opportunities for teaching about plagiarism and how to avoid it. Defines and gives examples of three different kinds of plagiarism: direct plagiarism, paraphrase plagiarism, and patchwork plagiarism. Discusses a way of teaching students about plagiarism. Concludes that plagiarism is usually unintentional.

Considers how the revising skills of basic writing students improve when they receive both inductive and deductive teacher feedback. Finds that students who received inductive feedback changed their largest percent of errors when given oral conferences and students who received deductive feedback changed their smallest number of errors when given oral feedback.

Illustrates some of the changes and trends at “Teaching English in the Two-Year College” (TETYC) during the author’s years on the masthead. Considers specific articles of his first and last issues (Fall 1978 - December 1987). Represents TETYC staff as individuals who do not give up on students, continually challenging them with new thinking, new perspectives, and new techniques.

Reviews five books: Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing, by Mina Shaughnessy; Telling Writing, by Ken Macrorie; Writing without Teachers, by Peter Elbow; Structured Reading, by Lynn Quitman Troyka and Joseph W. Thweatt; Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, by Stephen D. Krashen.

Reflects on making “Teaching English in the Two-Year College” a viable journal. Discusses formation of the Two-Year College Organization, and its formal recognition by the Conference on College Composition and Communication in 1997.

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Presents a long-time two-year college teacher’s reflections on retirement and the profession. Discusses ways in which to continue writing and working after retirement. Considers the politics of regional, local, and national English organizations in terms of what’s best for the teachers and students. Sums up in seven assertions what he has learned in 47 years of teaching.

Discusses the development of “Teaching English in the Two-Year College,” a journal designed to serve the special needs of community college English faculty. Discusses success and subsequent growth of the journal and considers the different subject matters addressed throughout the first five developmental years of the journal.

Gives tribute to Bertie Carlyle Edwards Fearing (1943-1995), one of the three senior editors of “Teaching English in the Two-Year College.” Characterizes Bertie as a person with “style,” always focused on the task at hand, and recruiting staff members with Mensa-level intellects and showing them by her example how to work together harmoniously through the editing process.

Argues that a carefully designed and skillfully moderated asynchronous Internet classroom environment can help minimize problems related to gender in traditional classrooms. Discusses class “climate” and class discussion in the traditional classroom and in the online classroom. Notes research related to gender and the online classroom. Outlines course design and teaching strategies. Offers a policy for online class conduct.

Describes how three faculty members created a learning community at a nonresidential campus by creating and teaching a linked block of three core-curriculum courses (Composition 1, Speech Communication, and Cultural Anthropology) for incoming freshman students. Relates first-day class activities, describes the linking of assignments and communal learning, and discusses assessment. Notes excellent student retention, and student and teacher enthusiasm.

Describes the Writing Center at Johnson County Community College as an institution that implements democratic ideals in its staffing and teaching; and where all voices are heard, encouraged, and validated. Describes three things necessary to achieve a writing center with a democratic nature: a peer-tutor program including formal tutor training; financial support from the college; and college-wide support.

Examines students’ responses and comments on facilitative (helping the student rethink a paper analytically) versus directive commentary (teacher suggestions made in an authoritative manner). Argues that directive commentary has several legitimate uses and that its judicious use can coax students into writing stronger text.

Reviews three books: Turns of Thought: Teaching Composition as Reflexive Inquiry, by Donna Qualley; Gypsy Academics and Mother?Teachers: Gender, Contingent Labor, and Writing Instruction, by Eileen E. Schell; Reflection in the Writing Classroom, by Kathleen Blake Yancey.

Describes how three pen strokes made by an English teacher 30 years ago (on a high school composition paper penned by the author’s husband) prompted the author, an English instructor, to examine her own teaching and grading.

Describes how the author uses the off-campus interview of a working professional as a foundation unit upon which to launch a first-year college writing course. Discusses teaching strategies to prepare for this real interview, and notes that the working professionals interviewed can become the writing instructor’s best ally in motivating first-year college students.

Describes how a teacher of a college introductory-literature course used role-playing, a talk-show format, and reader-audience participation to help students make collaborative meaning for, and to promote students’ active engagement with a Flannery O’Connor short story.

Discusses the experience of the author (a college teacher) as a student in another teacher’s Native-American literature course. Looks at the classroom from both sides of the desk, assessing the course, evaluating her own learning experience, and gaining new perspectives on today’s two-year college students.

Describes a vocabulary activity the author uses in first-year composition classes which is effective, interesting, and fun for students who write an ongoing serialized short story with required vocabulary words chosen weekly from assigned student readings.

Describes the authors ongoing collaborative teaching and encourages instructors to try it. Points out various ways that collaborative teaching can take place. Examines values and assumptions underlying collaborative teaching. Presents results of a case study looking at major benefits to classes and students, major benefits to instructors, and problems encountered.

Describes how the author came to develop an elective community–college course called “AIDS: A Literary Response.” Discusses the course curriculum and course materials, literature and films, class assignments, formal paper assignments, notebooks of materials, and the impact of the life stories shared with the class by visitors.