Presenters: Laura Hope, Success Center Coordinator, Chaffey College; Robert Rundquist, Writing Center Instructional Assistant, Chaffey College
Moderator: Sterling Warner, Evergreen Valley College

“Re-Imaging in the Writing Center: It’s Not Just a place to Get a Paper Checked” exceeded expectations set forth by the session in the ECCTYC 2007 program. Apart from a marvelous PowerPoint presentation, Laura Hope and Robert Rundquist fully explained the reason student access doesn’t assure their academic success, discussed the limitations of learning measured as “time served” in a writing center, and identified reasons why reversing the Carnegie paradigm has offered underprepared students genuine learning opportunities “using unique methodologies to create an extension of the classroom.”

In the course of their presentation, Hope and Rundquist demonstrated how the Chaffey Success Centers have integrated three components of Chaffey’s curricular culture—Foundation Courses, Occupational Courses, and Transfer Courses; each overlaps the writing center. Like many two-year colleges in California, students at Chaffey tend to be deficient in reading, writing, mathematics, and 70% of the time all three. To address student needs, the Success Centers provide academic support for the classroom instructors and the students. All total, Chaffey College supports eight Success Centers: an Interdisciplinary Writing Center, a Language Success Center, a Reading/Multidisciplinary Success Center, a Math Success Center, as well as full service centers at campus locations in Chino, Ontario, Fontana and the California Institution for Women in Chino.

As Laura Hope put it, “Students fail because they can literally and figuratively disappear.” By eliminating a perceive risk in asking questions and voicing their concerns, students combat invisibility by engaging in learning as a social—rather than solo—act. In addition to minimizing a feeling of isolation in a writing center, the presenters explained that their success centers “emphasize the process of learning rather than product.” By providing students with a safe environment to practice “contextual learning,” Chaffey’s Success Centers avoid the pitfalls of pseudo-mastery of in traditional classrooms or writing center settings. Prior to a lively question and answer period accentuating their stellar session, Hope and Rundquist pulled together “Re-Imaging in the Writing Center” by explaining how Chaffey’s innovative writing/success centers demystify learning, and a student’s quest for a correct answer—emphasizing that “authentic learning is often learning to tolerate degrees of rightness.”

Moderator: Jacqui Shehorn, West Hills College Lemoore

Margaret Juncker and Carol Wilson, both of Misson College, presented a session entitled, “The Iron Chef,” which offered an opportunity for all attendees to mull over the question, “What’s for dinner?”

The assignment puts students in the shoes of restaurant reviewers. In groups they divide and conquer: atmosphere, service, and, of course, food. Each student prepares an evaluative essay addressing one of these components. As a group they present their impressions of the restaurant.

Audience is of particular importance as students are directed to consider whether customers, corporate, managers, or employees would be best served by their evaluation.

This session provided all attendees an opportunity to discuss different aspects of this assignment and how they might be applied in a variety of classes. Juncker and Wilson discussed the assignment process in detail, which allowed the group to see how different writing goals are met through this assignment.

An outstanding conversation rounded out the session. All attendees contributed ideas about ways to use “The Iron Chef” assignment in a variety of classrooms. This lively and engaging discussion wrapped up as everyone turned to the sample presentation boards students had created to accompany their presentations.

Moderator: Shant Shahoian

Los Angeles Cinematic Transgressions – East/West Settings in Popular Film (Ron Waddy, Hartnell College)

Ron Waddy’s energetic presentation demonstrated "how geographically changing borders and the presence of fictional subjects are altered by shifting boundaries." With humor and wit, Waddy effectively related the history of Los Angeles – both private and public – to scenes from two movies: L.A. Confidential and Crash. While his discussion of basic Los Angeles history was clear and focused, he managed to demonstrate how to help students navigate the complex nature and mercurial functions of permeable borders in both texts.

The Use of Film in the College Classroom (Stephen Blades, Evergreen Valley College)

This may have been one of the most information-packed sessions of the conference. Blades demonstrated how the use of film and film clips could be used for composition courses of all levels, from ESL to advanced composition, to teach various concepts: imagery/tone, transition sentences, archetypes, motivation, grammar review, outlines, and more. The strategies he shared at this session would be ideal for students from diverse backgrounds.

Moderator: Kara Lybarger-Monson, Moorpark College

David Reynolds from West Hills College in Coalinga, California, presented “Hidden Powers of Difficult Text.” He demonstrated a number of active reading activities that he completes with students, or on their own, so that students understand what they are reading. He provided this information in a Power point format with multiple examples. He also provided the attendees with handouts and ideas to take back to the classroom.

Elisa Hedrick, Andrew Rempt, and Susan Yonker from Southwestern College presented "Scenes from a Writing Center: Student-Centered Tutoring in Practice." Peer tutoring is an art and this group provided an active demonstration of how to break down the principles of effective tutoring for students. Ineffective practices were demonstrated alongside more effective ones with the instructors and one additional attendee (an instructor’s daughter) as the “tutors” and “tutee” in a series of skits. This was very effective and, along with handouts, it allowed those in attendance to grasp the concepts this group was putting forth in a helpful and humorous way.

TOM HURLEY, SESSION LEADER

This session gave attendees an opportunity to discuss the place of reading instruction in their colleges. Participants reported variety in how reading is taught and who teaches it at their colleges. Some schools have separate basic skills or reading departments; others include developmental reading courses as part of an English department’s offerings. Some colleges separate reading and writing courses; others combine reading and writing at all levels. A number of schools allow instructors considerable freedom to design their own courses; others develop set curricula, and ask faculty to buy into the assumptions and methods of courses before teaching them. Some colleges have faculty trained, willing, and eager to teach reading; others assign reading courses to newer or adjunct faculty. Only a few colleges, it seems, address reading across the curriculum. Everyone agreed that community college English instructors need to give reading more attention—both in their training and in their departments’ missions.

TOM HURLEY, SESSION LEADER

This session began by reviewing the history of ECCTYC and its current structure. This review led to a lively discussion of what works and what needs to change in our organization’s method of operation. Attendees reported that they enjoyed the biannual conferences and the ECCTYC publication, inside english. There was, however, strong concern that ECCTYC is not communicating effectively what it does for colleges and individual faculty. We need to find better ways to reach colleges and instructors. Some attendees suggested shifting institutional (college) memberships to individual memberships; others suggested that ECCTYC should have reps from each college rather than from regions; a third suggestion was to contact individual faculty members rather than chairs.

Presenters: Ryan Griffith and Micah Jendian of Grossmont College
Session Moderator: Michael M. Dinielli

This session focused on Grossmont College’s efforts to improve the alignment of ENGL 1A courses at Grossmmont/Cuyamaca Community Colleges and San Diego State University (SDSU). This Project, part of the Cal-PASS Initiative, facilitates smoother and more successful transfers from the CC District to SDSU. The faculty used common assignments, texts, and instructional plans at SDSU and Grossmont/Cuyamaca Colleges. Despite different emphases, the two faculty groups discovered shared values, the need to establish a clearly stated mission statement and to recognize protocols, the importance of honoring the alignment process, and the common roles in support of successful student transfer. Grossmont/Cuyamaca faculty also recognized that their composition CORs and SLOs had to be updated to align with SDSU’s composition requirements.

While this alignment project is ongoing, the hope is that the data will reflect not only an increased number of transfer students to SDSU, but also better prepared, more successful students who have seamlessly transferred from Grossmont/Cuyamaca Colleges to San Diego State University.

Presenters: Laura Hope and Bonnie Spears, Chaffey College
Session Moderator: Sravani Banerjee

This session focused on practical strategies for developing a hybrid composition course. The presentation was divided into four sections discussing setting up, making it work, dealing with pitfalls and finally the enjoying the advantages of a hybrid composition class.

The session was interactive, encouraging participants to discuss their own experiences. The presenters discussed the practical aspects of a hybrid class such as student expectations, deadlines, timelines, discussion boards, web resources, publishers’ tools, time commitment and technical support. This was an excellent session providing valuable information for faculty who may be considering developing a hybrid course.