"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 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…

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…

Several years ago, when his college first financed a writing program administrator (WPA) position--reassigned time and a budget to pay adjunct faculty stipends for program development--the author met with all the most senior adjunct faculty. "Without you," he told them, "this effort to build a better writing program won't work. Participation and…

For five years, the author has been advocating a writing program administrator (WPA) position at his two-year college. While the vice president of instruction has been sympathetic, the issue has been funding. As a means to prepare and to justify the WPA's continuing existence, he has set to work mapping out the terrain, trying to anticipate the…

In 2005, supported by a Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Research Initiative Grant and Two-Year College English Association (TYCA) volunteers, the TYCA Research Initiative Committee distributed the first national survey of two-year college writing programs. This online survey explored two-year college programs and…

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…

In 2005, supported by a Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Research Initiative Grant and Two-Year College English Association (TYCA) volunteers, the TYCA Research Initiative Committee distributed the first national survey of two-year college writing programs. This online survey explored two-year college programs, praxis,…

Faculty at two-year colleges have found their professional identities shaped by conflicting perceptions. Because the community college culture has traditionally emphasized the role of faculty member as teacher and devalued the role of faculty member as scholar, it is not uncommon for faculty who spend their careers teaching in a two-year college…

The relevance of English as a Second Language (ESL) courses to the "real world" of college writing is an ongoing issue for those who teach ESL. Ideally, ESL composition classes should help students make connections between what they learn about writing and the ways they might need to write later on in their academic careers. Unfortunately, as with…

Veterans make up a fair number of potential students. It is important to understand them, even if teachers do not agree with the politics of the War on Terror, Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), or Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). In working with the veterans at Black Hawk College and other two-year and four-year institutions, the author has learned…

This position statement was inspired by the "Position Statement on Graduate Students in Writing Center Administration" (endorsed by the International Writing Center Association on November 17, 2001). A purpose of the document, to borrow language from the graduate student position statement, is to "[suggest] an ideal set of conditions," and it is…

The purpose of this article is to present a case for building racial literacy in students. The author offers support for her argument by foregrounding a three-month study she conducted in her community college first-year composition (FYC) classroom. She hopes that this article will contribute to the growing body of research that emphasizes the…

Currently, two-year colleges are teaching the lion's share of college composition classes, mainly consisting of developmental writing and first-year composition courses; however, those same two-year colleges have been slow in embracing the composition theory and practices that are studied and implemented at four-year colleges. One way to…

This article examines, in a variety of ways, the concept of identity and presents reports and views from regional representatives of the Two-Year College English Association on the issue of identity in the classroom. Reporting from TYCA-Northeast, Marsha Nourse echoes some dismay as she relates chance meetings with students. Elissa Caruth from…