This article explores the connections between creating an equitable classroom and antiracist assessment. The article attempts to explain the impact of the equitable classroom on student apathy. Additionally, rigid concepts of "failing" under this equitable classroom model are interrogated. Finally, the article provides some insights into…

The word "idea" assumed special meaning in composition studies when Stephen M. North, in "The Idea of a Writing Center," showed how an idea can evoke and ignite intense expectations and aversions surrounding literacy instruction. In particular, North lamented the "false sense of knowing" that made getting a message through (in this case, about…

In the best of times, students training to be writing center consultants are empowered to work creatively with writers and professors as part of an integrated enterprise that contributes to teaching and learning on their campuses. In the worst of times, students training to be writing center consultants are disempowered, caught between faculty and…

In 1990 Helon Howell Raines published "Is There a Writing Program in This College? Two Hundred and Thirty-Six Two-Year Schools Respond," in which she reported on her study, via survey and eight follow-up telephone interviews, of two-year college writing programs across the country. Raines asked questions about departmental and institutional…

"Teaching English in the Two-Year College's" series "What Works for Me" is a unique artifact in the development of composition as a field. In this article, the author claims "What Works for Me" as a valuable genre, a hybrid of new and old disciplinary forms. In the spirit of Derek N. Mueller's "Views from a Distance: A Nephological Model of the…

In the midst of disciplinary and public debates about education at open-access institutions, it's more important than ever that institutions set a clear path for inquiry and scholarship that will meet the needs of the professional community. This essay provides an assessment of the research achievements in two-year college English, particularly…

In 2006, New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen's blog post "The People Formerly Known as the Audience" went viral in the journalism community. In the post Rosen argues that a fundamental power shift has occurred between "Big Media" and "the people formerly known as the audience" (PFKATA), who were not only writing back, but also…

In her recent "Teaching English in the Two-Year College" ("TETYC") article, Denise Marchionda argues for a grading system in her first-year writing course that turns over responsibility to students for earning grades. The approach, which she calls "the point-by-point grading system," is a variation on a contract grading approach in which each…

The authors are faculty in history and English, respectively, at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York. What their students want and need, and what the institution's role in the community should be, remain open questions, with policy implications at the departmental, college, city, and even national level. Indeed, President Obama…

When Sean Murphy designed the Graduate Student Internship Program at the College of Lake County (CLC), his 2001 TETYC article about the then two-year-old program detailed his programmatic response to the job market. Ten years later, the CLC-DePaul University partnership remains the strongest of the original dozen cross-sector relationships CLC…

In this article, the author reflects on teaching in a time of war, and she realizes that all of her education, all of her teaching, indeed, all of her life has been "in a time of war" and that she has been constantly influenced by war, rumors of war, fears of war. As she conceived, planned, collected information for, wrote, and revised…

In this article, the author shares that he was proud of his work as the chairman of the National Two-Year College English Association (TYCA). He has a better sense now of the problems facing them, TYCA's capabilities and resources, and what they ought to do. This essay is the author's attempt to pass on that wisdom for the next waves of TYCA…

In this article, the author shares how efficient and effective Google Documents is for faculty seeking to engage students in inquiry-based, emergent, and primary research in first-year composition courses. The specific appeal of Google Documents is that it occupies a space between "open source"--defined by the Open Source Initiative as "free,…

In this article, the author discusses the importance of incorporating more methods that promote reflection-in-action--or reflecting on the immediate thoughts and reactions that a person has while performing an act, the time "during which one can still make a difference to the situation at hand"--into response situations. Reflection is something…

Learning communities are common on two- and four-year college campuses. Estimates suggest that they exist on four to five hundred campuses and can be found in most states. Such numbers signal that interest in learning communities is going strong, and there are indications that on two-year college campuses, interest continues to grow. As…