Teaching English in the Two-Year College - Volume 24, Issue 4, 1997

Argues that the labels "basic" or "developmental" as applied to students often obscure the complexities of knowing who is underprepared for what, kinds of barriers that countermand mastery, and instructors’ roles in helping construct these barriers. Views closely the behaviors by which four students in a developmental writing class presented themselves.

Explores issues, problems, and procedures involved in large English departments which use portfolio assessment and where part-timers and full-timers need to collaborate in this process. Offers recommendations involving the relationship of part-time and full-time teachers in such programs.

Describes how a reader-response approach can help students construct a portfolio of readings that reflects their development as poetry readers. Describes using a reader-response journal, communal learning activities, and a portfolio to create a recursive process through which students develop a better understanding of how poetry works. Discusses evaluation of the portfolio.

Describes a team-taught course called Mythic America which integrated literature and history and which deepened students’ understanding of each. Describes developing the course, its schedule, and its evaluation. Discusses the six major myths which were examined through readings in literature and history, and how they prompted students to think seriously about their own values and myth-making processes.

Describes how the author used sequenced assignments (and a range of other strategies) to engage students in genuine inquiry; to remove as much of the fear as possible from the research process; and to put the emphasis on process, not on product.

The Research Paper and the World Wide Web, by Dawn Rodrigues; Assessment of Writing: Politics, Policies, Practices, ed. by Edward M. White, William D. Lutz, and Sandra Kamusikiri; Teaching the Argument in Writing, by Richard Fulkerson; Poets’ Fall, by Jon Conlon.