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.