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Stories of how two-year colleges transform lives must be told more widely.

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This study investigates the effects of case and traditional assignments on the writing products and processes of community college students. Specifically, each of 57 first-year business students in three sections of a business composition course wrote in response to either (a) two traditional assignments, (b) two short case scenario assignments, or (c) two lengthy, elaborated case assignments. Participants' letters were scored using a performance criteria rating scale for determining both overall quality and specific trait quality. Results indicate that the case assignments generally produced more effective writing products than did traditional paradigm assignments. Results also indicate that the elaborated case assignments generally produced better writing products than did the short case scenarios. However, results also suggest that the writing of participants who already possess business-related experience was not as affected by assignment type as the writing of inexperienced participants. Finally, qualitative measures suggest that the writing processes and attitudes of participants. completing the case assignments were highly sensitive to audience and context, whereas the processes and attitudes of participants completing the traditional assignments were highly sensitive to organization, format, and correctness.

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

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

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

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-

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

Each year a large number of students enter American higher education unprepared for the reading and writing tasks they encounter. Labeled “remedial,”“nontraditional,”“developmental,”“underprepared,”“nonmainstream,” these students take special courses and participate in special programs designed to qualify them to do academic work. Yet, we do not know very much about what it is that cognitively and socially defines such students as remedial. This article describes a research project on remediation at the community college, state college, and university levels designed to provide such information. We focus on a piece of writing produced by a student in an urban community college, examining it in the context of the student's past experiences with schooling, her ideas about reading and writing, the literacy instruction she was receiving, and her plans and goals for the future. Our analyses suggest that the student's writing, though flawed according to many standards, demonstrates a fundamental social and psychological reality about discourse—how human beings continually appropriate each other's language to establish group membership, to grow, and to define themselves in new ways.

Part-time technical writing teachers who responded to a 1986–87 survey of two-year college technical writing teachers were found to be committed to teaching, well-qualified, experienced, personally involved, and typically employed full time as technical writers or editors. This finding calls into question the unfavorable stereotypical view of part-timers held by individuals and professional organizations. Because of their unique position as full-time practitioners of the skills they teach, part-time technical writing teachers can serve as an important link between teaching technical writing and business/industry.

The primary hypothesis was that field independent subjects would produce discourse that would be judged more coherent than the discourse of field dependent subjects. A total of 44 subjects in their first term of college composition were selected from a group of 60 volunteers from two universities and a community college. Each subject was administered the Culture Fair Intelligence Test, the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, and the Group Embedded Figures Test. There were five research conditions: Three evoked oral responses, and one evoked a written response. A group of readers unaware of the nature of the research evaluated each response holistically, rating it in terms of a coherence scale. Coherence scores were then analyzed in relation to cognitive style classification. The primary hypothesis was supported by the data. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated significant cognitive style effect, F(6,25) = 4.82, p <.0001. The correlation between cognitive style and coherence was significant, r(32) = .54, p <.002. The results suggest that cognitive style is a significant variable in explaining differences between good writers and poor ones.

When I sat down to consider what I remember about the past of the National Council of Teachers of English, I came up with some admirable positions it advocated during the 1960s and 70s, and some admirable actions it took during that same period. I am, of course, using my own definition of admirable. Sometimes, it seemed to me, NCTE was influenced by and echoed the moods of the more general society, and sometimes it tried to influence those -noods. When newspapers, magazines, and television reported that literacy was at a low ebb, that the schools were doing a lousy job and something better be done about it quick, NCTE responded with resolutions opposing the worst of the so-called solutions and set up committees to demonstrate that the so-called crisis was greatly exaggerated. I remembered that NCTE has spoken out for the rights of racial minorities and made sure that they and their views were included in its own programs and committees. It has spoken out for the rights of women and-I can't say included them because we have always been a majority of NCTE's membership-but it has at least shown that it meant what it said by adopting a policy on sexism in language and by putting some muscle behind its support of ERA while that proposed amendment was still alive. It has spoken out for the rights of lesbians and gay men. It has spoken out against censoring books and against the abuses of testing. And I remembered that NCTE had acted admirably by forming three new sub-groups during those years. Through its related organization, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, NCTE formally recognized the importance of junior colleges in the educational system. Regional community college conferences were set up across the country and given financial assistance to help them along. As a result of that action large numbers of English teachers who had been existing in a kind of professional nobody's land became more professional. They met to talk about mutual problems, and more of them subscribed to and read professional journals. Eighteen years later two of those conferences are strong and vigorous, earning their own way. One, at least, is ailing and not

Conceptual and empirical research were combined to develop information concerning the kinds of papers appropriate for lower-division technical writing in various kinds of institutions: the community college, the technical institute, the four-year college or small university, and the multi-purpose university. Relationships were studied between types of papers rated highly appropriate by teachers of technical writing and types of institutions as well as instructional aims. Also studied were those teachers' suggestions for specialized kinds of papers. The author discusses the implications of this research for determining instructional aims of lower-division technical writing courses in four-year institutions.

THIS STUDY OF FORMER COMPOSITION AND LITERATURE students who have gone out into the \(world examines the relationship of English courses to the contemporary white-collar job scene. Whereas in The English Major and the World of Work (CE, November 1979) Lois Josephs Fowler tried to illustrate what English majors need . . . to relate their literary training to the world of \work, this study looks at persons already writing on the job. It points out that in today's competitive market most employers place communication skills at the very top of their list of desirable employee traits. Primary among those skills is the ability to produce clear, concise, and grammatically correct reports, directions, memos, and letters. ITo conduct the study I returned from rural North Carolina, where I now teach, to urban Atlanta, where I taught for a number of years (at the college and junior college levels) and which is the sort of busy, modern city that attracts graduates. I

Mail survey research exists which can provide guidelines in the development of two-year college technical communications curriculum. This paper describes what surveys exist; where they have been reported; and what they have found. Close examination reveals that there are areas of research saturation and areas of research deficiency. By developing new types of questions to cover these areas of research deficiency, future researchers will be able to analyze vital new areas of knowledge.

of writing: the use of abbreviations, the division of compound words, some rules for spelling properly, among other things.This comprehensive book is aimed at students of technical writing and of English in two-year colleges.It is devised as a typical textbook: The margins are wide enough for notes, the terms likely to be new to students are printed in expanded boldface type and their meaning in light italics.Also printed in light italics are points the author thinks worth emphasizng.The book is easy to read: physically because the print is on non-glare paper, conceptually because it is well written and well organized, and that, after all, is the acid test of the quality of a book on composition.Superficially, nothing about the book suggests that it is a book on technical writing.One sees no charts, no graphs, no exploded views, no instructions on how to write an abstract.And yet this book is ideally suited for learning about or teach ing technical writing because technical writing, to attain its objective, must reflect the precision and discipline of thought basic to science and technology.That is the topic of this book.The manners and conventions of presentation, namely, that in technical writing one would use a table to compare or contrast pieces of apparatus of different make or vintage, that one would use a step-action chart or a flowchart to describe a process-all this, though important for the efficient transfer of information, is nevertheless somewhat peripheral to the meaning of technical writing.Students who learn about composition from

This article discusses an attempt to match the student characteristics in sections of technical report writing in a community college setting so as to determine if different teaching methodologies affected performance and/or attitudes. As many similarities as possible in the general characteristics of age, background field of study, and initial attitude towards the course were sought in order to measure the effect of a variance in presentation of material. The first class was taught by the traditional lecture technique; the second, by individual consultation.

The transition from teacher of literature to teacher of technical writing was both a matter of choice and a matter of necessity. By choice I teach in a community college. But the subjects I teach and the manner in which I teach them are largely influenced by the nature of the institution and the students. The institution, committed to the concept of extending educational opportunity to all, attracts a uniquely heterogeneous student body who prefer occupationally oriented programs.

Now if there is anyone in this piece of writing who desires something dearly, it is surely the student writer, who is reaching for poetry and, for all his clumsiness, nearly succeeding. In the years since I first read this paper, the term has become for me and my friends synonymous with a certain kind of student error: the strained metaphor, odd juxtaposition, or honest misconception which inadvertently reveals a fresh perspective on the matter at hand. I will try to demonstrate that the true tasty fruit possesses its own inner logic, that it is a sure sign of a capacity for creative and structured thought, and that this potential is worth cultivating. Mina Shaughnessy begins her ground-breaking book, Errors and Expectations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977) by observing that the freshmen in her basic writing class made mistakes in grammar and syntax because no one [had seen] the intelligence of their mistakes or thought to harness that intelligence in the service of learning (p. 5). What I propose is that Shaughnessy's perception applies equally to the errors in tone and diction made by students when writing about literature. In general, tasty fruits are borne in greatest profusion by the papers of students who are bright but not adept at standard English or the standard methods of literary criticism. It was an open-enrollment student who produced the following observation on religion in America:

American scientists and engineers are lucky. If their reports are unreadable, they can study technical writing at the nearest university, community college, hotel seminar, or in-house course. Their British counterparts are less fortunate. According to a British friend of mine who just earned his Ph.D. degree in engineering, the British are not taught to write past primary school. Those who study engineering at a polytechnic, an advanced college of technology, or at a university must write the best they can. Too often their best writing does not read well.

This article describes a faculty development exercise implemented at Kalamazoo Valley Community College in 1975. If one makes the supposition that one output of faculty development is increased intracollege communication among various groups of employees, then the exercise was a remarkable success. We believe that the “show and tell” attitude could be used profitably in business and industry as well. The authors and implementors of this particular communications exercise would like to hear from others who emulate this model or a similar one. We did not gather sufficient feedback to make any generalizations about the long-term impact of such an exercise. We would be pleased to respond to questions about the exercise.

THE WRITING WORKSHOP of the CUNY community college where I worked is housed in a windowless, reconverted science lab walled with concrete blocks. It has been half dark since the Administration removed lights during the budget crunch. Every day we saw confused students, though there have been fewer since the death of Open Admissions. In the back of the room, horizontally filed, were the worksheets. Since originally appearing in this form, they have been collected into a hot-selling grammar, especially designed for community college students. book represents the principles and practices upon which the workshop was originally founded. Paradoxically, it also lays out the strangulating theory of knowledge upon which remedial writing instruction is often based, a theory which denies students the things they really need to know. hip grammars are seemingly unlike the traditional ones. old grammar books abound with subliminal ideological content presented as mere exercise. Sixth Edition of the Prentice-Hall standard, Handbook for Writers, asks students to locate the clause to be diagrammed above the base line in the sentences: This is a mixed economy toward which both communism and capitalism are moving, and The continent of Africa is now divided into nations, but tribal divisions are more faithfully observed. hip grammars have little of this upfront politicking. Instead, they pretend to survey the nitty gritty details of daily urban life. sentences students get to play with deal a lot with partying, interpersonal relationships, and the neighborhood. Wider topics and wider transferences from the particulars of daily life to the general characteristics of the system we live in are discouraged. And the discouragement masquerades as aid and help to the struggling remedial students. Chapter One of Grass Roots by Sandberg and Fawcett promises help in Getting Started. authors then write that step one in getting started is limiting:

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.

WOMEN'S STUDIES IS no longer a fad. It is a reality of the academic world affecting all schools, all curricula, all students. Those schools which have women's studies programs are asking, Where do we go from here? Those schools which have no programs or courses are asking, Why not? At some level, articulated or not, faculty, students, and administrators at every school are involved in a reevaluation of curriculum as it represents and affects all of them. With the publication of Female Studies I-VII (Know, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA and Feminist Press at Old Westbury, NY) we can trace the history and expansion of Women's Studies. We can see that, at more and more schools, the interest has steadily increased. At Tompkins Cortland Community College we have recognized and begun to act on the very vital role such programming can play in meeting the special needs of students at the community college. The community college student population is diverse. Some enter directly from high school, and some have been out of school for over twenty years. We have more and more students who are attending school parttime. Many have other obligations-jobs, families, community commitments. We have excellent students and students with serious remedial problems. And, of course, we have students who know exactly what they want to study as well as those who need much vocational and personal counseling. The community college, I believe, is one of the few institutions flexible enough to meet these varied needs. And women's programming is a significant aid to this flexibility and responsiveness to the needs of the community population. When I talk about Women's Studies courses, I mean courses which are primarily concerned with awakening students to the situation of women in society and which aim at stimulating reevaluation of traditional educational and social practices. Once students become aware of the secondary status of women, it is my hope that they are no longer content to accept it but get involved in attempts to initiate change. Basic to Women's Studies is a recognition that method is as important as content. This recognition implies changing the attitudes inherent in a hierarchical teacher/student relationship. It is important to encourage a collective searching for and sharing of information rather than vying for grades or personal ap-

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A REPORT in the New York Times of Thursday, November 7, 1974 (p. 43) that college textbooks are being simplified to meet the needs of poor readers; and the answers to some of the questions on the ADE Survey of Freshman English (ADE Bulletin, No. 43, November 1974, pp. 13-19) highlight the need for a careful investigation into the mysteries of college text selection. For those who teach in composition programs the quality of a textbook is an especially burning issue: one would think that whoever stresses the value of lucidity, of clear voice, of awareness of language and audience, would also exercise care in the choice of composition texts. But the news in that quarter is bleak, at least to my mind. The ADE Survey (sponsored in part by the Carnegie Commission) presents some shocking news about what is happening with freshman English texts, especially (but not exclusively) in community colleges. I should like here to look first at some specific composition textbooks with wide college audiences. I shall then try to move toward a general definition of effective classroom materials merely by suggesting questions we are forgetting to ask ourselves, but must ask if the textbook is not to vanish like the buffalo (it may already be too late-both the Survey and a letter to the Times of Monday, November 18, 1974 [p. 32] by teachers in CCNY's English department report that many college English instructors are abandoning textbooks altogether). The ADE Survey collected replies to a three-page questionnaire from 436 institutions in 49 states. Responding to a question on text choices for freshman composition, instructors most often indicated the Hodges and Whitten Harbrace College Handbook or the McCrimmon Writing with a Purpose as the basic book in the course. More than 100 institutions use the former; about 65, the latter. Among two-year units picking Harbrace were 21.6% of community colleges, 23.1% of public junior colleges, and 25% of private junior colleges. Selecting the McCrimmon text were 15.9% of community colleges and 30.8% of public junior colleges (percentages for four-year institutions are high for the two texts as well). Although I do not have many doubts as tothe effectiveness of these books for competent writers (I've used Harbrace with advanced students), both texts are ill-suited for open a..missions men and women. Aside from the high level of

THERE'S NO WAY Forest Park Community College in St. Louis can see itself as typical. Junior colleges are not homogeneous; they vary as widely as the fouryear colleges on which many of the early ones were modeled. Some junior colleges offer only the first two years of a traditional liberal arts program; some give only vocational courses; some are finishing schools for young ladies, only slightly modernized. Some provide dormitories; some are so doggedly nonresidential that they refuse to provide lists of available accommodations in the area. Some operate in the daytime from eight to four; some are open only from four to midnight; some begin at seven and go straight through till ten or later; there's a rumor that one or two operate straight around the clock. A few of them are privately supported, either by churches or private endowments; a few get all their money from local taxes; a few get it all from the state; most depend on revenue from a combination of sources. Some charge more than a thousand dollars a term in tuition, and some are absolutely free, at least to local residents. A very few date from the nineteenth century; quite a few are so new the students arrive well before the bricklayers. A fashionable comment, several years ago, was that a new junior college opened its doors every week, and though that comment sounds quaint today, it's probably safe to say that the majority are less than twenty years old. Some enforce careful entrance requirements, some provide placements tests and tracking systems, some are completely open admission: anybody over eighteen, or anybody with a high school diploma or its equivalent, can take any course for which registration is open. Some are almost all white, some are almost all black, and some are almost integrated. It isn't even safe to say that all of them are two-year schools; an associate degree, awarded

WHEN I FIRST HEARD Bette Midler sing, the most prestigious place she had ever appeared was the Continental Baths on W. 74th Street. Friends only barely tolerated my rave reviews and insistent suggestions that she would become a major star. So when, during the same week last December, the Divine Miss M appeared both in sold-out performances at the Palace and on the cover of Newsweek, I merely smiled. Those community college leaders who for many years have crusaded for reform in graduate education based on the realities of life in two-year colleges must feel a similar sense of satisfaction when they read the recently published report of the Panel on Alternate Approaches to Graduate Education, Scholarship for Society.' Although the criticisms of graduate education have often been uneven, oversimplified, perhaps more hostile than constructive, teachers in community colleges have had opportunity to know sooner than most the inadequacies of their graduate training and can argue from an indisputable position of authority-their collective personal experience. It must be gratifying now to hear their arguments echoed in the words of a major document written by a blue-ribbon commission of scholars, graduate deans, and other university administrators under the auspices of the Council of Graduate Schools and the Graduate Record Examinations Board.2

Because innovation without evaluation is often fruitless, the creator of a communication-oriented community college freshman English course converted a segment of this course into an individualized program and solicited detailed student appraisals. The sequence begins with dictionary study, reviews the principles of subordination, continues with studies in semantics and communication, and ends with practice in improving skills in writing letters and reports. The specific unit, converted into an individualized learning package, uses film and tape and enables the student to evaluate his own communication skills and teaches him how to write a concrete communication objective. Students' evaluations conclude the article and explicit student endorsements and criticisms are quoted.

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