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…

The silence regarding Appalachia is mirrored in the relative scarcity of focused studies regarding Appalachian dialect, composition, and classroom issues. Little work has been done exploring the ways the composition classroom, concerned as it is with language and the production of discourse, can affect Appalachian students' linguistic and social…

How can writing instructors prepare students for informed and engaged civic discourse when opportunities for such discourse are seemingly limited and ineffective? This essay examines this question by reporting on a case study that explored civic discourse and civic participation at the local level of government. The aims of the case study were to…

In this article, the author talks about the college writing center, which is a place of political confrontation, where cultural issues involving dialect and values are probed, contested, and negotiated. He suggests a post-process approach to composition--one that ushers writers into a world of exploration and social engagement--one that transcends…

To attract and retain more students, colleges are increasingly attempting to maximize their academic offerings by including intensive classes. These abbreviated or condensed courses, which are typically available during the summer and sometimes during winter intersession, provide students with an opportunity to move quickly through required…

In this article, the author discusses how instructors' feedback on their students' texts can exact a toll on the students. Based from her own experiences, the author relates that teachers often do not have enough time to grade their students' writing. Even so, she argues that teachers like her should adopt strategies that promote self-reflective…

It is difficult to argue with the proposition that access to higher education in the United States is essentially based on class. Despite the fact that there has been a commitment on the part of the states and the federal government to provide access to a higher education for all eligible students, the truth is that "public higher education…

This article relates case histories of basic writing programs at regional campuses in Florida, and the perceived need to incorporate concerns of social class into basic writing curriculum. Attention to class helps scholars identify institutional patterns that distance basic writing from the university's mainstream business. This author describes a…