The CEA Forum

Summer/Fall 2005: 34.2

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Book Review:

The Profession of English in the Two-Year College. Edited by Mark Reynolds and Sylvia Holladay-Hicks. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton-Cook/Heinemann, 2005.

by Jill Gold Wright, Mt. San Antonio College

Introduction

Books about teaching in the two-year college are often cold records of hard data, outlining statistics like how many students of X gender, Y age, and Z background pass and fail Freshman Composition each semester. Or, the books center on pedagogical theory, introducing yet another approach to teaching the research paper. Not often enough does a reference about community-college teaching explore the people, both the professors and students, behind that experience. The Profession of English in the Two-Year College, edited by Mark Reynolds and Sylvia Holladay-Hicks, is a collection of essays about the human element of community-college teaching. The essays the editors have selected focus on a few major themes. First, the authors endeavor to legitimize the profession of community-college teaching and to ensure its place in the larger definition of higher education. Second, they ruminate on the importance of two-year institutions as social and community centers as well as educational ones. But their largest purpose is to explore the early days of community-college teaching to create both a record of the past and a guide for the future.

Overview and Themes

The thirteen essays are divided into three sections. Part One is comprised of four essays written by early community-college instructors, who reminisce about how they entered the field, what campus life was like in the 1960s and 1970s and how they created their lessons, courses and departments. In the book's first essay, Mark Reynolds details the distinction between two- and four-year professors and also describes the gulf between the scholarly work of the university professor and the everyday classroom experience of the two-year professor. He works to disprove the fallacy that community-college teaching is a less intellectual endeavor than teaching in a four-year institution. He concludes by charging the university professors to be more openly willing to learn from the community-college instructor, arguing that acknowledging and rectifying the divide between them is one important way to legitimize community-college teachers.

Other essays in this section by Mary Slayter, Marilyn Smith Layton, and Richard Williamson provide anecdotes which highlight the importance of community and student needs, providing inspirational accounts which act to remind us of the joys of teaching in the two-year school. More specifically, Slayter's essay promotes the willingness to be experimental for the benefit of the students and reminds younger instructors to tap into their creativity and sense of humor. Smith Layton's piece tells the stories of various difficult and sometimes volatile students and raises the question of teacher safety when faced with potentially dangerous situations. Williamson focuses on how to break from “rote” assignments and teaching styles in order to appeal to contemporary students' interests. All of these authors incorporate anecdotes of the pioneering spirit needed when they found themselves at the inceptions of their faculties and colleges.

Part Two focuses on different methods employed in the classroom. Less anecdotal than those in the first section, Barbara Stout's piece provides concrete examples of how and why her writing program has been successful. William V. Costanzo insightfully discusses the difference between “cultural literacy” and “media literacy,” illuminating how media and technology can be used effectively to teach composition and literature. Dee Brock's piece provides early examples of how television could be used as a classroom tool. Also in this section is Alan Meyers' essay detailing his personal experiences of teaching English as a Second Language to an ethnically and linguistically diverse student body.

Part Three shifts the spotlight from student needs to instructors' needs. In her tribute piece, Mary Sue Koeppel describes model colleague Roger Garrison, who uniquely taught the writing process and held individual conferences with students. Koeppel asserts that these techniques, revolutionary at the time, have become widely utilized tools in community colleges nationwide. Elizabeth A. Nist's essay outlines the difference between “traditional” education and “expressivist” writing. She goes on to connect writing skills to other processes, like food management and filmmaking. From there, she discusses how to apply a deconstructionist view to teaching composition. All of this evidences her argument that we should continually formulate a life-long teaching philosophy. In their essay, Ann Laster and Beverly Fatherree provide testimonials about the joys of attending regional conferences, describing how doing so greatly enriched their careers. In a less optimistic piece, Ellen Andrews Knodt explores the very real concerns that many M.A. and Ph.D. students feel upon the completion of their degrees. Because they have had no training, they find themselves utterly unprepared to face a classroom of community-college students. Her essay investigates different solutions - some successful, some not - to this widespread dilemma.

All of these pieces are meant to inspire community-college professors (especially newer ones) to look beyond the confines of their classroom walls to develop and enliven other facets of professional life. Finally, Howard Tinberg's essay serves as a conclusion of the entire volume, circling back to questions of how to legitimize and celebrate the two-year institution.

Conclusion

One of the strong points of this collection is that there is something for everyone. Seemingly, Reynolds and Holladay-Hicks aim to create a balance in tone and subject matter for every reader. Many of the essays are almost purely anecdotal, concentrating more on why community-college teaching is significant. Other more formally researched and evidenced essays provide nuts-and-bolts accounts of community-college instruction, focusing more on how teaching can work effectively. Readers will also find Howard Tinberg's bibliography to be useful in directing their further study. The essays of Mark Reynolds, William V. Costanzo, and Elizabeth A. Nist are outstanding; rigorous, stimulating and highly readable, they go beyond personal anecdote and utilize outside evidence to create a wider and more established set of truths. Some younger instructors may find that this volume has no relevance to their own teaching and professional lives. They may feel that their campuses are too different, too large or too bureaucratic to apply the suggestions and spirit described in these essays. However, there will be other readers who have been feeling isolated in their jobs, fighting alone to cope with their challenges and concerns. For them, this book will provide a context, placing them within a larger history and community, and they will certainly find value in that.