Month: June 2018

Submitted by Jessie Borgman, Western Michigan University, Lake Michigan College

This example addresses OWI Principle 4: “Appropriate onsite composition theories, pedagogies, and strategies should be migrated and adapted to the online instructional environment.”  More specifically, the practices suggested below relate to items 4.1 and 4.6 from the position statement: “When migrating from onsite modalities to the online environment, teachers should break their assignments, exercises, and activities into smaller units to increase opportunities for interaction between teacher and student” (4.1) and “Teachers should incorporate redundancy (e.g., reminders and repeated information) in the course’s organization. Such repetition acts like oral reminders in class” (4.6). I try to highlight here the ways in which my online practice is not just effective in and of itself, but how it derives in many ways from my onsite teaching practice.

Explanation of effective practice

The effective practice that I use in my online writing classrooms involves course clarity, in particular, easy course navigation. Clarity and ease of navigation are an extension of my face-to-face instruction, thus the connection to OWI Principle 4 regarding the migration of onsite pedagogies to the online environment.

I use elements from my face-to-face courses that were successful and re-think them to work in the online setting. In my face-to-face courses, I was a very organized instructor. On the first day of class, I handed out all of the course documents (syllabus, calendar, assignments, points breakdown) and students would have a clear picture of what they needed to do and when to do it, maximizing their chances for success in the course.

I spent the entire first class explaining all of the assignments and going over the due dates for the writing assignments. I would also discuss the course policies outlined in the syllabus. Many of these practices migrated from my face-to-face courses into my online courses. 

How to implement this practice

I have always felt that my ability to present my face-to-face writing courses early on to students from what I’d call the global perspective–i.e. how the course works as a whole–has been one of my strengths as an onsite teacher.  Laying out the guiding organizational principles for the course, in addition to delineating clear expectations early on, has helped my face-to-face students to see how smaller assignments scaffold major assignments and ultimately to stay on track in the course.  I have thus been very conscious of how to migrate these aspects of my teaching to the online environment.  I strive to create clarity and easy course navigation in my online writing courses in the following ways:

Visual Layout: I make sure that the visual layout  of each page is intuitive and does not include too many options; I keep it simple. Students can be easily overwhelmed in an online course, so I do everything that I can to simplify navigation. I do not include too many areas of the class, so students are not diverted from the major course modules. I also clearly label each area in the course menu.  In my community college courses, I use the labels “Home,” “Announcements,” “Modules,” and “Grades.”  In my four-year college courses, I use a course introduction and 3 modules. In my experience, four to five course menu items work well. The limited number of menu items keep relevant information accessible without overwhelming students with too many menu options (screenshots 1a and 1b).

Screenshot 1a – Clearly Labelled Areas of the Course

Screenshot 1b – Course Menu Items

Making Information Available from Beginning of the Term: I prefer to make all of the information for the course available at the start of the term, including due dates for assignments and points values, just as I did in my face-to-face teaching.  This practice helps to establish clear expectations early on, which is as important in the online environment as it is face-to-face, perhaps even more so.  Further, making expectations and due dates explicit early helps students feel prepared, and thus, I believe, more confident.  Finally, setting due dates for the entire semester allows students to  manage time effectively.  In the online setting, we do not have regular physical meetings to keep students  on track so I am not able to use face-to-face classroom time to ensure students  have completed coursework to that date.  Giving students materials early enables them to better schedule  their time while taking a course online (screenshot 2).

Screenshot 2 – Due Dates, Assignments, Point Values Visible at the Start of Term

Content Clarity:  I aim for clarity in online course materials (syllabus, calendar, assignments) by using basic formatting techniques, like chunking text.  I used these techniques to produce handouts that I would use for my face-to-face classes, but online, I was not just providing documents to students.  Instead, they were getting content in the LMS itself; therefore, I made the conscious choice to use features of the LMS editor to present information as clearly as possible (screenshot 3).

Screenshot 3 – Chunked Text in a Course Syllabus

Welcome Video: To replicate what I do in a face-to-face class on the first day to welcome students and orient them to the course, I use a welcome video in my online courses.  The video walks students through the course (where things are, what to click on) in order to  give them  a  tour  of  the layout. Here is a link to one of the welcome videos from one of my community college courses.

Color Coding: I color code the course calendar based on the activity the students are being asked to complete. I use orange for tasks like working on rough or final drafts of the writing assignments or researching for a paper.  I use green for reading assignments.  Pink indicates a discussion assignment.  Color coding is another way in which I can use the LMS to help students “see” aspects of the online class to replace the onsite practice of discussing individual assignments face-to-face and walking students through what happens when.  I want online students to feel as comfortable as face-to-face students do in terms of knowing exactly what is being asked of them (screenshots 4 and 5).

Screenshot 4 – Color-coded Course Calendar

Screenshot 5 – Color-coded Course Calendar

Organize Around Major Assignment Modules: In designing face-to-face classes, I organized a term around major essay assignments.  Students could identify how what we were doing in any individual class was related to a major assignment. Each activity would align vertically so that students would understand the connection between minor assignments and the larger course projects (helping to reduce the feeling that smaller projects were “mere busy-work”). Instead, my course design helps them to see how a discrete activity (like learning to use a database, for example) connects to the major assessment/assignment we are working towards.  I try to design and present my online classes using the same basic principle: organizing course modules around major assignments (screenshot 6).

Screenshot 6 – Use of Modules to Delineate Materials for Each Writing Assignment

Submitted by Danica Hubbard, Professor of English, College of DuPage

This example addresses OWI Principle 3: “Appropriate composition teaching/learning strategies should be developed for the unique features of the online instructional environment.” The blog is a platform for ongoing conversation and reflection related to individual student research projects throughout a course. This in-practice example has been used in a community college setting in an online, primarily asynchronous, first-year composition course being delivered through Blackboard 9.1.

Explanation of effective practice

My practice involves having students in our first-year research writing course each start a blog in our course management system (Blackboard) early in the term to introduce themselves. Students are then required to revisit and update their blog as a way of collecting research material and reflecting on that material as the course unfolds. In addition to keeping their own research blog, students are required to view and comment on other student blogs. My use of the blog tool in this way helps students to keep research material organized, allows them to reflect on the research process as it unfolds, and helps to foster a sense of community in the online environment.   

In my experience, the blog tool is a good way for online students to collect, organize and reflect on research material. The blog commenting feature also makes it possible for students to read and respond to each other so that they can share research successes and frustrations. As such, blogs seem ideally suited to the online environment. They provide a kind of portfolio tool for students who could never otherwise deliver a physical portfolio to me as an instructor. Nor could they feasibly share a physical portfolio with others in the class. The blog tool allows them to do just this.

Since we use the blog on an ongoing basis throughout the course, I make it easily accessible from the main course menu in the course management system. This screenshot shows my online writing course menu in Blackboard. The link to student blogs is highly visible, rather than buried deeper in the course architecture (in a folder or individual unit in our course, for example).

Figure 1 – Link to Blogs in Course Menu

Early in the course, students are required to do an introductory post.  The assignment asks a series of five questions about their interests. The relatively informal questions tend to invite candid responses and students often discover shared interests with others in the class. The first blog post assignment also asks students to post a picture of themselves or an avatar image (a picture representing who they are in this class). The blog tool allows students to insert video or audio clips about their interests and include links to favorite websites. We are not necessarily focused on research just yet, but that will follow in subsequent blog assignments.

Below is a series of screenshots showing the “Introduce Yourself” blog entry assignment. Below the assignment instructions you can see a student’s introductory post and then an instructor comment.

Figure 2 – First Blog Post Assignment

Figure 3 – Student “Introduce Yourself” Blog Entry

Figure 4 – Instructor Comment

After the initial introductory post, assignments that require students to return to their blogs become much more focused on each student’s developing research project.

These blog assignments recur throughout our course, affording students the opportunity to update their research progress and to check in with one another to discuss research-related discoveries and frustrations. I will ask questions like these: Did your initial search yield too many general sources? Were you able to secure an interview with a professional in your field of research interest? Was the academic journal language difficult to understand?

Here is a screenshot of a typical assignment that asks students to return to their blog.

Figure 5 – Assignment Directing Students to Use Their Blog

This assignment occurs relatively early in the course, a couple of units after the “Introduce Yourself” assignment. It moves us beyond that introductory post and begins to focus students on questions about research and sources. These questions help me to uncover what students’ past experience with research is and what some of their biases might be.

This assignment, like others in the course, includes the invitation to students to read what classmates have written and respond: “What do you think? Why?” Again, the blog tool is well-suited to this kind of discussion-oriented approach to keeping a research portfolio. A more private research journal, for example, would only be viewable by an individual student and the instructor. It might organize entries effectively, but would not allow me to have students engage in dialog with each other about their research.

The following tips can help instructors to encourage active student blogging:

1. Establish a rubric or sample blog for students to view.
2. Assign points or credit for each blog response or a series of blog responses.
3. Award “best blog comments” at the end of the semester.
4. Utilize multiple venues to promote the research blogs such as the Announcement, Discussion Board and all class e-mail.  
5. Emphasize brevity and simplicity — blogs should be informal and authentic. 
6. Share graphics and links about the importance of student blogging.
7. Emphasize digital citizenship — sharing and helping one another locate obscure source material, reviewing citations or changing research topic directions strengthens the class community.

The blog tool as I use it helps students to see how their writing and research progress and helps them to reflect on hurdles they face, like finding a topic. The fact that the blogs are open for viewing and commenting to each student means that research challenges can be shared. Sometimes students will share what they think is a useful research source, for example. In other cases, the commenting feature of the blog simply allows students to support one another and express shared experience.

Below is a screenshot that shows some back and forth dialog between students who have used the  “Comment” feature of the blog. The comments are not particularly long, nor are they written in a formal academic tone. On the contrary, they are friendly and supportive.

In an initial blog post, a student has mentioned the challenge of a research project seeming overwhelming, especially in the early stages. What follows is the commenting pictured below. One student comments that she also finds that research can sometimes feel “overwhelming” and suggests that taking frequent breaks can help make getting through material a bit easier. A student then responds with a quick “Thanks” and offers a suggestion for using a search engine effectively. This is followed by a comment in response, a final “Thanks” and the student indicates she may try the search advice provided by the earlier commenter.

Figure 6 – Blog Comments

The research advice is not necessarily profound. And there is no mechanism in the course to require the final commenter to actually try out the search advice provided by the earlier commenter. But this is not really the point. The idea is more to get students talking to each other, exchanging ideas, and building that sense of community that comes from sharing successes and challenges. Using the blog tool  enhances our sense of community in the online environment.

Here is a final series of screenshots that show a student post and then comments from classmates. At this point in the course, students are still refining their topics, paying particular attention to narrowing their research from broad topics down to manageable theses. They are also actively evaluating sources, differentiating fact from opinion, and considering what sources might be applicable to their topics. (One requirement for the research assignment is that students must use video/film of some kind, which is what this post begins with.)

Figure 7 – Blog Post About Ongoing Research

Figure 8 – Blog Post Comment

Figure 9 – Blog Post Comment

Here the commenter notes that finding specifically focused research material can be challenging–a challenge seemingly shared by others in the course. The student suggests using “specific keywords” when searching. Perhaps more valuable than this specific piece of research advice, however, is that via the blog tool and its commenting feature, students see that their individual research challenges are shared by others.

Challenge this practice addresses

The blog tool as I use it allows students to organize research material and reflect on it throughout our composition course. The blog acts in the way a physical research portfolio might but offers us the digital equivalent, ideal for use in the entirely online setting.

More than just acting as a digital portfolio, though, the blog tool as I use it facilitates discussion among online students: discussion that becomes more focused on each student’s developing research project as our course unfolds. I find the Introduction blog a great starting point to open the lines of communication and get the class “buzzing.” Communicating online can be difficult because students may feel vulnerable, experience writer’s block or believe they do not have common experiences to share. However, the blog reinforces my commitment to encouraging group interaction. Students contribute constructively to the group and share some of their personal experience – this forms an important bond of trust. Once the discussion begins, students often reveal their research-related hurdles and successes as they progress from assignment to assignment in the course. In other words, in addition to the blog allowing a student to develop a nicely organized research portfolio, it also affords the opportunity for students to become part of a community–not necessarily an easy thing to do in the entirely online environment.

The practice of establishing and maintaining an Introduction Blog is within the theoretical framework of the Community of Inquiry (CoI). The CoI Model presents a process of creating a deep and meaningful (collaborative-constructivist) learning experience through the development of three interdependent elements:  social, cognitive and teaching presence. Social presence is “the ability of participants to identify with the community, communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop inter-personal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities” (Swan, 2009). Teaching presence is “the design, facilitation and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful outcomes. Cognitive presence is the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm reflection and discourse” (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison & Archer, 2001).

Anderson, T. Rourke, L., Garrison, D.  R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing context. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2), 1-17.  Retrieved September 6, 2011 from  http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.95.9117&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Anderson, T. (2007).  Social and cognitive presence in virtual learning environments. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved September 6, 2011 from http://www.slideshare.net/terrya/social-and-cognitive-presence-in-virtual-learning-environments

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.

Garrison, R. Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2003). A theory of critical inquiry in online distance education. In M.G. Moore & W.G. Anderson (Eds.), Handbook of Distance Education, 113-127. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
http://communitiesofinquiry.com/model

Garrison, D. R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. London: Routledge/Falmer.

Swan, K., Garrison, D. R. & Richardson, J. C. (2009). A constructivist approach to online learning: the Community of Inquiry framework. In Payne, C. R. (Ed.) Information Technology and Constructivism in Higher Education: Progressive Learning Frameworks. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 43-57.

How to implement this practice

How to Create a Blog

Creating and Editing a Blog Entry

When creating a blog, start by asking interesting open-ended questions that allow for feedback and reflection.

To begin a new blog:

1. Click on the tab “Create Blog Entry.”  Each blog entry will be time stamped and dated for ease in archiving. 
2. Use the “Blog Instructions” tab to insert instructions for students including a possible due date, expectations and examples.  You can start the thread to establish the conversation or encourage students to begin the thread. 
3. Manage the posts by using the “delete” and “availability” tabs in Blackboard.  You can change the Blog settings at any time. 
4. Provide comments to your students and encourage feedback amongst your students.  Students can view each post by default or you can change the privacy or group settings.  You can also categorize the blog posts in order for students to easily find the posts they are most interested in. 
5. Insert links within blog posts for reference to related websites or references.  You may also provide a picture library to store photos or images of interest.

Blackboard 9.1 includes a blog tool as do most learning management systems. No additional tools, accounts, or applications are required.  There are, however, many stand-alone blogging tools available, most of them free but requiring account creation and sign-up. Some of these blog tools include Google’s Blogger or open source software WordPress.

• Latest CCCC News

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• The James R. Squire Office of Policy Research in the English Language Arts

• Career Opportunities

 

What do our students believe it means to be a college- and career-ready writer?
National and state policies are being implemented based on a particular vision of what it means to be college and career ready. It appears that these policies haven’t been informed by important statements from our professional community (see the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing) or by the actual experiences and expectations of college students themselves. We need to change that….

CCCC, CWPA, and TYCA invite you to participate in a national “Listening Tour” with incoming college writers at the start of the fall term. Below you’ll find details describing how you can host a listening tour session on your campus and share the results so they make an impact nationally. Thanks for doing your part to get the voices of writing students and those who advocate on their behalf into the national discussion!

NOTE: THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013.

Listening Tour Introduction

The professional organizations for teachers of college writing are attempting to build a portrait of the experiences and expectations of incoming college composition students. By including the voices of college writers who are just starting on the higher education journey, we’d like to add another dimension to the national discussion about what it means to be college- and career-ready. We appreciate your participation in building this composite by hosting discussions on your campus. Please use this list as a discussion guide. You could choose to do this as part of a regular class session or more informally, outside of class. After the discussion, please note what you learned by recording your summary of the responses on this survey form. We will incorporate your responses into a public presentation about this project that we will share with the media no later than the National Day on Writing (October 20); please host your session and forward your impressions no later than September 30, 2013. NOTE: THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013.

If you would prefer to forward a video or audio capture of your students’ discussion or write a summary of their discussion rather than using the survey form, please forward these items to CCCC Liaison Kristen Suchor (ksuchor@ncte.org). If submitting a video or audio capture, please complete a subject release form(s) and/or a video/audio release form and return to Kristen (subject release forms are needed for all video captures and any audio captures that identify individuals by name). Please contact Kristen with any questions about these forms and their use.

We realize that students bring different experiences to the classroom and may have little background with the subject of some of the questions below; feel free to eliminate or modify those that seem inappropriate for your class. We are interested in the issues associated with preparation for successful writing in college and the workplace, but don’t want to signal “right” answers to these questions or imply that there are problems if students don’t have background knowledge or experiences in some of these areas. Feel free to return to these questions later in the term or at any point in the future if you find them helpful. Thanks very much for participating in this initiative!

Overview of the Issues

The labor resolutions at the Houston conference built on the Indianapolis Resolution, itself stemming from the landmark Wyoming Resolution passed in 1986. Each of these resolutions addresses concerns about the working conditions and path for career progression for college writing teachers.

Compensation: Though challenges with staffing and creating equitable teaching positions within college writing programs vary, a primary concern has been around compensation of instructors. In particular, contingent and/or part-time instructors in many institutions are paid significantly less than tenure-line instructors. The Committee on the Academic workforce’s portrait of contingency reports: “The median pay per course, standardized to a three-credit course, was $2,700 in fall 2010 and ranged in the aggregate from a low of $2,235 at two-year colleges to a high of $3,400 at four-year doctoral or research universities. While compensation levels varied most consistently by type of institution, part-time faculty respondents report low compensation rates per course across all institutional categories” (Coalition)¹.

Position Stability: Contingent and part-time faculty positions are often held as a ‘buffer’ for enrollment fluctuations, and courses that don’t fill may be cancelled abruptly; new sections can be added; or courses assigned to cover tenure-line or full-time instructor sections that are cancelled because of low enrollment. Last-minute hiring may result in a lack of time to prepare courses, or an unacceptable number of class preparations that make quality instruction difficult.

Resource Access: As a report from the Associated Departments of English demonstrates, less than a third of non-tenure track instructors represented in the survey data could count on travel funding; less than a quarter are guaranteed funds for ongoing professional development, and just 10% could expect to find support for their own research projects.² Other concerns are instructor access to private or shared office space, regular pay increases, and library borrowing privileges.

Autonomy: The professional authority to make independent decisions based on disciplinary expertise may be limited for non-tenure track faculty. Many NTT faculty, including graduate students, are required to teach from a standard template or syllabus, leaving very little room for independent course design and/or implementation. These requirements can lead to intellectual and pedagogical stagnation.

Representation: Access to shared governance or union representation is mixed for non-tenure track and contingent faculty, with some experiencing participation in what the Associate of Governing Boards defines as shared governance, an organizational practice that “align the faculty, board, and administration in common directions for decision-making regarding institutional direction, supported by a system of checks and balances for non-directional decisions.”³  Depending on the structure of the institution, NTT faculty may or may not have representation within a bargaining unit or institutional senate.

¹ Coalition on the Academic Workforce, “A Portrait of Part-Time Faculty Members.” June 2012.  http://www.academicworkforce.org/CAW_portrait_2012.pdf
² Associated Departments of English. “Rethinking the Master’s Degree in English for a New Century.” Modern Language Association. June 2011. https://www.mla.org/content/download/25406/1164106/2011adhocrpt.pdf. Accessed 31 July 2017.
³ Bahls, Steve. “What Is Shared Governance.” Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. https://www.agb.org/blog/2015/12/22/what-is-shared-governance

The following position description was drafted and finalized in Summer 2017:

Position Description: The CCCC labor liaison is a contact point and resource for questions associated with the labor of composition instruction. The liaison communicates with CCCC members who have questions about labor practices associated with writing instruction, providing guidance on strategies, resources, and activities. The liaison is also charged with developing and maintaining resources that can be useful for members, using the NCTE/CCCC domain as a source for these resources. The liaison should aggregate existing NCTE/CCCC resources, draw together resources from other organizations or sources that might be useful, and to create resources that can help members use these resources to their best advantages.

In addition to providing resources and disseminating information, the liaison will, as able, collect and communicate trends in feedback from CCCC members on labor and writing instruction to CCCC leadership (the officers and Executive Committee), seek to collaborate with other CCCC Standing Groups and caucuses (particularly but not exclusively the Labor Caucus) and constituent task forces and committees of the CCCC.

The labor liaison will also participate in the Action Hub or other public spaces at CCCC, staffing a table or booth for members to communicate with them.  

The liaison(s) will provide a report on their activities to the CCCC Executive Committee twice each year: once for the November meeting and once for the spring meeting. The liaison(
s) will be appointed for a three-year term. New liaisons will be selected by the CCCC officers and ratified by the Executive Committee. The officers and EC will look to the existing liaisons for recommendations and to develop a process for this selection.

In the event of the formation of an interorganizational labor board, the CCCC labor liaison will serve as CCCC representative to the board.

White Papers, Professional Statements, and Reports

Contingent and Adjunct Positions

• Center for Community College Student Engagement (2014). Contingent Commitments: Bringing Part-Time Faculty Into Focus (A special report from the Center for Community College Student Engagement). Austin, TX: The University of Texas at Austin, Program in Higher Education Leadership.
• “A National Survey of Part-time/Adjunct Faculty,” American Academic, American Federation of Teachers, March 2010.
• Tipple, Robert, “Effective Leadership of Online Adjunct Faculty.” Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, vol. 14, no. 3, Fall  2011.

Workforce Data

• American Association of University Professors. The Employment Status of Instructional Staff Members in Higher Education, Fall 2011.
• Academic Workforce Data Center: The Academic Workforce Data Center presents Department of Education (DOE) data about the composition of the academic workforce at 4,246 colleges and universities in the United States. Users can look up statistics on part-time, full-time, tenure-track, and non-tenure-track instructors at each institution and compare data from 2009 and 1995.
• Background Facts on Contingent Faculty, American Association of University Professors
• Chapman, Diane. “Contingent and Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty: MOtivations and Incentives to Teach Distance Education Courses.” Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, vol. 14, no.3, Fall 2011.
• Desrochers, Donna, and Rita Kirshstein. “Labor Intensive or Labor Expensive? Changing Staffing and Compensation Patterns in Higher Education.” Delta Cost Project at American Institutes for Research, Feb. 2014.
• Education in the Balance: A Report on the Academic Workforce in English, MLA, 2008.
• Faculty Compensation Survey, American Association of University Professors
• Feal, Rosemary. “Contingent Faculty Members: More Alike than Different?” MLA Newsletter, vol. 42, no. 2, 2010, pp. 5-6.
• Gere, Anne Ruggles. “Initial Report on Survey of CCCC Members.” James R. Squire Office of Policy Research in the English Language Arts. 2009.
• A Portrait of Part-time Faculty Members: A Summary of Findings on Part-Time Faculty Respondents to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce Survey of Contingent Faculty Members and Instructors. The Coalition on the Academic Workforce, June 2012.
• McClelland, Ben W. “Part-Time Faculty in English Composition: A WPA Survey.” WPA: Writing Program Administration, vol. 5, no. 1, 1981 pp. 13–20.
• Summary of Data from Surveys by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce, MLA, American Historical Association, and CAW, 1999.
• US Government Accountability Office. Report to Congressional Requesters. “Contingent Workforce: Size, Characteristics, Compensation, and Work Experiences of Adjunct and Other Non-Tenure-Track Faculty.” October 2017.

Preparation Recommendations

• Rethinking the Master’s Degree in English for a New Century, ADE Ad Hoc Committee on the Master’s Degree, June 2011.

Working Conditions Recommendations

• Council on Writing Program Administration. “‘The Portland Resolution:’ Guidelines for Writing Program Administrator Positions.” WPA: Writing Program Administration  16.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1992): 88-94.
• MLA Issue Brief: The Academic Workforce (2009): The MLA Executive Council created this issue brief to inform members of the profession and the general public of the circumstances faced by the academic workforce in the humanities. It provides background information and explains the council’s working assumptions. The brief then lays out an agenda and recommends a course of action to improve working conditions for the academic workforce.
• Professional Employment Practices for Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Members: Recommendations and Evaluative Questions Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession, June 2011.
• Statement on Non Tenure Track Faculty Members, Modern Language Association, 2003.
• Statement on Working Conditions for Non-Tenure-Track Writing Faculty, Conference on College Composition and Communication, April 2016.
• One Faculty Principles, American Association of University Professors
• Tenure and Teaching-Intensive Appointments, American Association of University Professors, 2009.
  • Recommendations from Report
• Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession, American Association of University Professors 2003, updated 2014.
• The Employment Status of Instructional Staff Members in Higher Education, Fall 2011.
• Connected Academics, Preparing Doctoral Students of Language and Literature for a Variety of Careers, Modern Language Association, website.

News Stories and Columns

• Adjunct activism in CUNY system, Inside Higher Ed, July 2017
• “A Tenure Track for Teachers?,” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 2017.
• “Fixing Our Job Market Problem,” column by Kevin Gannon, Chronicle of Higher Education.
• “Faculty Member Critics Lose Jobs at Sierra Nevada,” Inside Higher Ed, July 2017
• “Bad Idea About Writing: Anybody Can Teach It,” column advocating for non-tenure track faculty support, Inside Higher Ed, August 2017
• “Negotiations Required,” NLRB ruling on compensating adjuncts based on credit hours, Inside Higher Ed, 2016
• “A Kinder Campus for Adjuncts?,” Questions for colleges to consider regarding teaching conditions for adjunct faculty, Inside Higher Ed, July 2016
• “The No-Jobs Myth,” advocating for faculty involvement in governance, Inside Higher Ed, June 2016.
• “Contracts Up Close,” focusing on contract provisions for adjuncts that go beyond better pay, Inside Higher Ed, April 2015
• “New Model of Tenure,” argument for new model of tenure by Michael Berube, Inside Higher Ed, March 2015
• “Full time, Off Tenure Track,” reporting on a survey of job satisfaction among adjunct faculty, Inside Higher Ed, September 2015.
• “Supporting Online Adjuncts,” results of a study on online adjunct instructors and program coordination, Inside Higher Ed, November 2015.
• Flaherty, Colleen. “Withering Humanities Jobs: Full-time jobs in English and languages continue to decline, reaching a new low, says preliminary annual jobs report from the Modern Language Association.” Inside Higher Ed 21 November 2017.
• Kelsky, Karen. “How the Tenured Are to the Job Market as White People Are to Racism.” The Professor Is In, 1 Jan. 2014.
• Barlow, Aaron. “To My Tenured Colleagues.” Academe Blog, 14 Oct. 2013.
• Ruth, Jennifer. “When Tenure-Track Faculty Take on the Problem of Adjunctification.” Social Science Spaces, 16 July 2013.
• Patton, Stacey. “New MLA President Pledges to Improve Conditions on the Nontenure Track.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 January 2012.
• Schmidt, Peter. “Faculty Leaders at American U. Seek Old-School Rights for a New Work Force.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 June 2011.
• “When Adjuncts Push for Better Status, Better Pay Follows, Study Suggests.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 Nov. 2009.
• Street, Steve. “Why Don’t We Insist on Equity?,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 Dec. 2010. 
• “Surge in Adjunct Activism is Spurred by Bad Economy and Hungry Unions.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 14 Dec. 2009.
• June, Audrey Williams. “An Activist Adjunct Shoulders the Weight of a New Advocacy Group.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 10 Sep. 2009: A1.
• Jaeger, A., and M. K. Eagan. “Effects of Exposure to Part-Time Faculty on Community College Transfer.” Research in Higher Education, vol. 50, no. 2, 2009,  168–88. .
• Jaschik, Scott. “The Adjunctification of English.” Inside Higher Ed, 11 Dec. 2008.
• “Part-Time Faculty Members Try to Organize Nationally.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 Jan. 2001: A12–A13
• Wilson, Robin. “‘Chronicle’ Survey Yields a Rare Look into Adjuncts’ Work Lives.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 18 Oct. 2009.

Disciplinary Scholarship (Historical, Contemporary) on Labor

• Adler-Kassner, Linda. The Activist WPA: Changing Stories About Writing and Writers. Logan: Utah UP, 2008. .
• Bartholomae, David. “Teaching On and Off the Tenure Track: Highlights from the ADE Survey of Staffing Patterns in English.” Pedagogy, vol. 11, no. 1, 2011, pp. 7-32.
• Connors, Robert. “Overwork/Underpay: Labor and Status of Composition Teachers since 1880,” In Composition in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis and Change, edited by Lynn Z. Bloom, Donald A Daiker, and Edward M White, Southern Illinois UP, 1996, pp. 47-63.
• Corbett, Edward P.J. “Teaching Composition: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going,”
• College Composition and Communication, vol. 38, no. 4, 1987, pp 444-52. 
• Holbrook, Sue Ellen. “Women’s Work: The Feminizing of Composition Studies.” Rhetoric Review, vol. 9, 1991, pp. 201-229.
• Klausman, Jeffrey. “Not Just a Matter of Fairness: Adjunct Faculty and Writing Programs in Two-Year Colleges.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 37, no. 4, 2010, pp. 363-71.
• Robertson, Linda R., et al. “The Wyoming Conference Resolution Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing.” College English, vol. 49, no. 3, 1987, pp. 274-80.
• Sledd, James. “Disciplinarity and Exploitation: Compositionists as Good Professionals.” Workplace: A Journal of Academic Labor, 4.1 (2001).
• —. “Return to Service.” Composition Studies, 28.2 (Fall 2000): 11-32. Web.
• —. “Why the Wyoming Resolution Had to Be Emasculated: A History and a Quixotism.” Journal of Advanced Composition,11.2 (Fall 1991): 269-281. 
• Soliday, Mary. “Symposium: English 1999, Class Dismissed.” College English. 61.1 (July 1999): 731-741.
• Trimbur, John and Barbara Cambridge. “The Wyoming Conference Resolution: A Beginning.” Writing Program Administration, v. 12, no. 1-2, Fall/Winter 1988, 13-

Labor Focused Scholarship and Critique in Writing Studies

• Bérubé, Michael. “The Blessed of the Earth.” Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis, edited by Cary Nelson, U of Minnesota P, 1997, pp. 153-78.
• Bousquet, Marc Tony Scott, and Leo Parascondola, eds. Tenured Bosses, Disposable Teachers: Writing Instruction in the Managed University. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2004.
• Bousquet, Marc. “The Rhetoric of ‘Job Market’ and the Reality of the Academic Labor System.” College English, vol. 44, no..2, 2003: 207–28.
• College Composition and Communication, Special Issue on Political Economies of
  Composition. Vol 68, No. 1, September 2016.
• Cox, Anicca, et al. “The Indianapolis Resolution: Responding to Twenty-First-Century Exigencies/Political Economies of Composition Labor,”  vol. 68, no. 1, Sept. 2016, 2016, pp. 38-67.
• Fulwiler, Megan, and Jennifer Marlow. Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Labor. Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State UP, 2014.
• Hansen, Kristine. “Face to Face with Part-Timers: Ethics and the Professionalization of Writing Faculties.” Resituating Writing: Constructing and Administering Writing Programs, edited by Joseph Janangelo and Kristine Hansen, Boynton/Cook, 1995, pp. 23-45.
• Harris, Joseph. “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss: Class Consciousness in Composition. College Composition and Communication, 52 (2000): 43-68.
• Hassel, Holly, and Joanne Baird Giordano. “Occupy Writing Studies: A Redefinition of College Composition by the Teaching Majority.” College Composition and  Communication on “The Profession.” 65.1 (September 2013): 117-139. Print.
• Kahn, Seth, William Lalicker, and Amy Lynch-Biniek. Contingency, Exploitation, and Solidarity: Labor and Action in English Composition. WAC Clearinghouse, 2017.
• Kezar, Adrianna. “Spanning the Great Divide Between Tenure-Track and Nontenure-
  Track Faculty.” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, November–December
  2012.
• Lamos, Steve “Credentialing College Writing Teachers: WPAs and Labor Reform.” WPA: Writing Program Administration, 35.1 (Fall/Winter 2011): 45-72. Print.  
• Lamos, Steve. “Toward Job Security for Teaching-Track Composition Faculty: Recognizing and Rewarding Affective-Labor-in-Space.” College English, 78.4 (March 2016): 362-386.
• McClure, Randall, Dayna V. Goldstein, and Michael A. Pemberton. Labored: The State(ment) and Future of  Work in Composition. Parlor Press, 2017.
• McMahon, Deirdre, and Ann Green. “Gender, Contingent Labor and Writing Studies.” Academe, vol. 94, no. 6, 2008, pp. 16-19.
• Mendenhall, Annie S. “The Composition Specialist as Flexible Expert: Identity and Labor in the History of Composition.” College English, vol. 77, no. 1, 2014, pp. 11-31.
• Miller, Thomas. “Why Don’t our Graduate Programs Do a Better Job of Preparing Students for the Work that We do?” WPA: Writing Program Administration. 24.3 (Spring 2011): 41-58. Print.
• Murphy, Michael. “New Faculty for a New University: Toward a Full-Time Teaching-Intensive Faculty Track in Composition.” College Composition and Communication, 52.1 (Sept. 2000): 14-42.
• Nelson, Cary. “Between Crisis and Opportunity: The Future of the Academic Workforce.” Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis, edited by Cary Nelson, U of Minnesota P, 1997, pp. 3-31.
• Penrose, Ann. “Professional Identity in a Contingent-Labor Profession: Expertise, Autonomy, and Community in Composition Teaching.” Writing Program Administration, v. 35, no. 2, Spring 2012, pp. 108-126.
• Ritter, Kelly. “‘Ladies Who Don’t Know Us Correct Our Papers’: Postwar Lay Reader
  Programs and Twenty-First Century Contingent Labor in First-Year Writing.” College
  Composition and Communication, 63.3(2012): 387-419.
• Schell, Eileen. Gypsy Academics and Mother-Teachers: Gender, Contingent Labor, and Writing Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1998.
• Schell, Eileen and Patricia Lambert Stock. Moving a Mountain: Transforming the Role of Contingent Faculty in Composition Studies and Higher Education. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2001. Print.
• Schell, Eileen. “The Cost of Caring: ‘Feminism” and Contingent Women Workers in Composition Studies.” Feminism and Composition: In Other Words, edited by Susan Jarratt and Lynn Worsham. MLA, 1998, pp. 74-93.
• Tirelli, Vincent. “Adjuncts and More Adjuncts: Labor Segmentation and the Transformation of Higher Education.” Social Text, vol. 51, 1997, pp. 75–91.

Sources on Higher Education, Labor, and Advocacy

• Baldwin, Roger G., and Matthew R. Wawrzynski. “Contingent Faculty as Teachers: What We Know; What We Need to Know.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 55, no. 11, 2011, pp. 1485-509.
• Benjamin, Ernst, and Michael Mauer, eds. Academic Collective Bargaining. New York: MLA, 2006.
• Benjamin, Ernst. “How Over-Reliance On Contingent Appointments Diminishes Faculty Involvement in Student Learning.” Peer Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 2002, p. 4.
• Berry, Joe. Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education, Monthly Review P, 2005.
• Cross, John G., and Edie N. Goldenberg. “Why Hire Non-Tenure-Track Faculty?” Peer Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 2002.
• Eagan, M. Kevin, et al. “Supporting the Academic Majority: Policies and Practices Related to Part-Time Faculty’s Job Satisfaction.” The Journal of Higher Education, vol. 86, no. 3, 2015, pp. 448-80.
• Ehrenberg, Ronald and Liang Zhang. “Do Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Matter?” Cornell Higher Education Research Institute Working Paper #53, 2004.
• Gavaskar, Vandana. “Can the Subaltern Speak? Contingent Faculty and Institutional
  Narratives.” Forum, College Composition and Communication, vol. 64, no. 1, 2012, pp. A1-A3.
• Gilbert, Daniel A. “The Generation of Public Intellectuals: Corporate Universities, Graduate Employees and the Academic Labor Movement.” Labor Studies Journal, vol. 38, no. 32, 2013, pp. 32-46.
• Grigs, Claudine. “Off the Tenure Track: The Tenuous Act of Adjuncting.” Forum: Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty, vol. 12, no. 1, 2008, pp. A3-A5.
• Hammer, Brad. “The ‘Service’ of Contingency: Outsiderness and the Commodification of Teaching.” Forum, College Composition and Communication, vol. 64, no. 1, 2012, pp. A3-A7.
• Hammer, Brad. “From the Editor: The Need for Research in ‘Contingency Studies.’ Forum: Newsletter for Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty, vol 14., no. 1, 2010, pp. A1-A3.
• Jacoby, Daniel. “Effect of Part Time Faculty Employment on Community College Graduation Rates.” The Journal of Higher Education, vol. 77, no. 6, 2006, pp. 1081- 103.
• Maisto, Maria. “Adjuncts, Class, and Fear.” Working-Class Perspectives, 23 Sept. 2013.
• Mattson, Kevin. “How I Became a Worker.” Steal This University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement, edited by Benjamin Johnson et al. Routledge, 2003, pp. 87-96.
• Maynard, Douglas C., and Todd Allen Joseph. “Are All Part-Time Faculty Underemployed? The Influence of Faculty Status Preference on Satisfaction and Commitment.” Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education Research, vol. 55, no. 2, 2008, pp. 139-54.
• Nardo, Anna K. “Our Tangled Web: Research Mandates and Staffing Practices.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, vol. 11, no. 1, 2010, pp. 43-50.
• Schell, Eileen.  “Toward a New Labor Movement in Higher Education: Contingent Faculty and Organizing for Change.” Workplace. N.p., 2001 (4.1). Web. 8 Nov. 2009.
• Street, Steve. “Don’t Pit Tenure Against Contingent Faculty Rights.” Academe, vol. 94, no. 3, 2008, pp. 35-37.
• Thedwall, Kate. “Nontenure-Track Faculty: Rising Numbers, Lost Opportunities.” New Directions for Higher Education, vol. 143, 2008, pp. 11–19.
• Torgovnick, Marianna. “How to Handle an Adjunct.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 33, no. 4, 1982, pp. 454-56.
• Wyche-Smith, Susan and Shirley K. Rose. “One Hundred Ways to Make the Wyoming Resolution a Reality: A Guide to Personal and Political Action.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 41, no. 3, October 1990, pp. 318-324.

Guidance and Resources by Topic

Effecting Change and Organizing

• Negotiating Contingency: Devising a Practical Work plan. A webinar presented by Mike Mauer, a labor attorney who serves as senior labor advisor to the AAUP.
• Resisting Increased Contingency
• “Collective Bargaining Toolkit: Taking on the Academic Staffing Crisis,” Associated Federation of Teachers
• Negotiating Policies, American Association of University Professors
• Workforce Advocacy Kit, Modern Language Association
• Everyday Advocacy, National Council of Teachers of English in partnership with Principles in Practice series editor Cathy Fleischer
  • Storytelling as Advocacy
  • Identifying and Framing
  • Taking Action
• Everyday Advocacy: Action Principles and Toolkit
  • Action Principles Toolkit
  • Creating an Action Plan
• One Faculty Campaign. Through the campaign, AAUP staff, leaders, and members are working together to develop tools that faculty can use on their campuses to gain concrete improvements in job security and working conditions for faculty on contingent appointments.
• “Strategy and Campaigns,” Organizing for Power, Organizing for Change.
  • Tools for Planning an Advocacy Campaign
• Donhardt, Tracy and Sarah Layden, “Adjuncts Foster Change: Improving Adjunct Working Conditions by Forming an Associate Faculty Coalition.” Contingency, Exploitation, and Solidarity, edited by Seth Kath, William Lalicker, and Amy Lynch-Biniek.

Unemployment Insurance and Benefits

• Unemployment Insurance Information. 2016 guidance makes it easier for faculty in contingent appointments to qualify for unemployment compensation over the summer.
• Retirement

Other Working Conditions

• Health and Safety, American Association of University Professors
• Academic Freedom, Provisions, including negotiability and enforcement,  American Association of University Professors
• Working Conditions, American Association of University Professors

Increasing and Supporting Diversity

• Creating a Positive Work Environment for LGBT Faculty: What Higher Education Unions Can Do, Associated Federation of Teachers
• Promoting Gender Diversity in the Faculty: What Higher Education Unions Can Do, Associated Federation of Teachers

Appointments and Reappointments, Including Position Conversation

• Appointments and Reappointments, American Association of University Professors
• Conversion of Appointment Type, American Association of University Professors
• Data and strategies on approaches to conversion of contingent to tenure-line positions with examples from specific institutions, American Association of University Professors
• McBeth, Mark and Tim McCormack, “An Apologia and a Way Forward: In Defense of the Lecturer Line in Writing Programs,” In Contingency, Exploitation, and Solidarity: Labor and Action in English Composition, edited by Seth Kahn, William Lalicker, and Amy Lynch-Biniek, WAC Clearinghouse, 2017.

Representation

• Governance Participation, American Association of University Professors

Organizing and Activism in the Context of Budget Crises

Responding to a financial crisis, information from the American Association of University  Professors, FAQ
 
AAUP Policies and Best Practices in the Context of Budget Crisis

• Legal Considerations
• Understanding Institutional Finances
• Organizing the Faculty Response (questions broken down into subsections below)
  • Engaging the Faculty
  • Government Relations and Lobbying
  • Communicating Through your Chapter and with the Media
  • Using Collective Bargaining

Organizing and Activism Principles and Resources

• Strategy & Campaigns: an overview of elements of strategic organizing, methodologies for reaching goals, and campaign planning tools.
• 20 Principles for Successful Community Organizing: an overview of getting things done and navigating power structures.

Information for Individuals

• FAQ: AAUP on Workplace Issues: beginning a faculty appointment, evaluations and reviews, leaving an institution, academic freedom.
• Family and Medical Leave AAUP Guidebook (member content)
• Faculty Handbooks as Enforceable Contracts: A State Guide, American Association of University Professors
• Non-Academic Careers for Doctoral Students in Language and Literature: Connected Academics, Preparing Doctoral Students of Language and Literature for a Variety of Careers, Modern Language Association, website including:
  • Humanities Careers
  • Advice   
  • Proseminar
  • Resources

Academic journals and book series play a vital role in the creation and circulation of knowledge in our field. To support the next generation of editors and authors, CCCC and TYCA have established the CCCC/TYCA Editorial Fellowship for graduate students (post qualifying exams) and early professionals. The selected individuals will work with either the editor of College Composition and Communication, the editor of Forum (an online, peer-reviewed CCCC journal dedicated to issues related to NTT faculty and published biannually in print), or the editor of Teaching English in the Two-Year College. During their appointment, recipients will gain experience in proposal/manuscript development, working with authors, building editorial boards, and implementing a strategic vision plan.

CCCC and TYCA members who identify as members of underrepresented groups, especially Black, Latinx, Asian, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders, as well as scholars/teachers from HBCUs, HSIs, and community colleges are encouraged to apply. One fellow will be chosen for each publication/series. CCC, Forum, and TETYC fellowships will each last one year. Fellowships can be extended for up to an additional year if such an arrangement is mutually agreeable to the fellow and respective editor. NOTE: No previous experience is required or assumed.

To apply, each applicant should submit the following:

• A one-page cover letter specifying which fellowship they are applying for (CCC, Forum, or TETYC) and highlighting any experiences relevant to that specific fellowship.
• A one-page statement of editorial philosophy, specifically addressing what the applicant understands to be the most pressing issues facing scholarly publishing at this current moment.
• A one-page curriculum vitae detailing relevant experience.

If appointed, each fellow should expect to gain experience in the following:

• Oversight of one manuscript from initial submission to publication, inclusive of assigning reviewers, providing feedback, and working with authors toward publication.
• Coordinating a set of publications to fulfill editorial mission.
• Developing editorial board policy and decision-making processes.

Application materials should be sent by Monday, September 26, 2022, to Kristen Ritchie, CCCC Liaison.

Fellowships will be announced by November 2022.

Selection Committee: Malea Powell (CCC editor), Trace Daniels-Lerberg (Forum editor), Darin Jensen (TETYC editor), and Jim Sitar (NCTE Journals Managing Editor).

The Conference on College Composition and Communication seeks from its membership applications and nominations for Editor of FORUM: Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty. FORUM is published twice a year (alternately in College Composition and Communication and Teaching English in the Two-Year College). The peer-reviewed publication’s purpose is to publish articles, news, reviews, and other items related to non-tenure-track faculty in college English or composition courses. The editor of FORUM is a member of the CCCC Editors team, which meets face-to-face at the CCCC Annual Convention and, on occasion, virtually throughout the year. This three-year position will begin immediately after selection.

Send a letter of application and CV by July 15, 2024, to NCTE Publications Director Colin Murcray at cmurcray@ncte.org