Reconsidering Teacher Presence and Community Building in an Online ESOL College Composition Course During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The pandemic of 2019 exposed considerable weaknesses in how teachers were present and communities were built in asynchronous, international, online ESOL composition classrooms. Although teachers put more time into their courses, students still felt disconnected from their educational experience. This study, through student surveys and teacher reflections, followed two teachers who devised innovative solutions to actively do “being present” as teachers and to thereby more compellingly draw students into the community-building process despite the limitations of the online space amidst an international crisis. Included are recommendations about specific ways to challenge traditional online instructional methods, to allow and promote student agency through unstructured and semi-structured activities, to create connections via strategic vulnerability, and more. Also discussed are key concepts for future research and general conclusions about the need for such teacher adaptability and the lessons from it, both for during the pandemic and beyond it.

A World in Crisis

The author, a college composition teacher, recognizes we are living in a time of global crisis, fighting battles on two fronts. On the one hand, we are living in a period that sees us exposed to COVID-19, a pandemic that is threatening lives across the globe with no apparent end in sight. Then we have the social injustice that is racism rearing its vile and ugly head, resulting in the highlighting of the Black Lives Matter movement. Believing that freshman composition teachers are ideally positioned to encourage students to share their views on the crises that we are currently living through, this author uses a student-centered-book-writing pedagogy and asks her students to write a book on what they are burning to tell the world about COVID-19 or the Black Lives Matter movement. In this article, the author shares excerpts of her freshman composition students' writings and briefly discusses her student-centered-book-writing pedagogy.

Narrowing the Language Gap: The Learner-Content, Learner-Instructor, and Learner-Learner Experiences of Hispanic Generation 1.5 English Learners in First-Year College Composition Courses

Hispanic Generation 1.5 students are foreign-born, U.S. high school graduates socialized in the English dominant K-12 school system while maintaining their native language and home culture (Allison, 2006; Blumenthal, 2002; Harklau et al., 1999; Rumbault & Ima, 1988). When transitioning from high school to college, these students sometimes assess into ESL, basic, or mainstream courses based on their English language abilities, and because of this placement, Hispanic Generation 1.5 students might have different learner-content, learner-instructor, and learner-learner experiences than their mainstream peers. The purpose of this study was to describe the learner-content, learner-instructor and learner-learner experiences of Hispanic Generation 1.5 students. This study employed a qualitative design that included an analysis of the participants' interaction experiences. The main source of data was in-depth, face-to-face interviews with forty-one Hispanic Generation 1.5 students at one California State University and one California Community College. Purposive sampling was used to select the interview participants, ensuring that all participants identified as both Hispanic and Generation 1.5 learners and were taking or had taken at least one first year college composition course at their respective institutions. The study findings show that Hispanic Generation 1.5 students at both colleges believed that meaningful interactions with their English instructors, peers, and content played a critical role in their success. Participants indicated that they preferred content that was relatable and engaging; they preferred instructors who were caring, professional, engaging and supportive; and, they preferred peers who were prepared, engaging and supportive. Closing gaps between and among learners and their peers, instructors and content is a critical factor in student success.

Recognizing the Métis of Learners with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities in College Composition

This paper was originally presented as part of a panel on métis approaches to college composition at the 2019 Conference on College Composition and Communication in Pittsburgh, PA. It explores the affordances of métis for understanding the adaptive literacy practices of college students with diagnoses of I/DD. Based on findings from a grounded investigation, the author identifies ways composition instructors can utilize métis as a lens for perceiving how students with I/DD reveal "double and divergent" (Dolmage) approaches to classroom literacy.

Teaching Black Lives in College When Black Lives Didn’t Matter that Much K through 12

This article explores complexities in teaching Black-authored material (especially Hip Hop lyricism) in premominantly non-Black college composition courses. It uses Barbara Smith's (1978) "Toward a Black Feminist Criticism" as a lens through which to define and examine those complexities. It offers antiracist pedogogal practices and posits withdrawal for reflection and self-care as a viable choice.