Relocating Authority
Japanese Americans Writing to Redress Mass Incarceration
“Thoughtful and intentional. This book addresses matters related to identity, power, and positionality, from the work within individual classrooms to the work of community college writing faculty in various departments and organizations across the national landscape.”
—Christine Nowik, Harrisburg Area Community College
“This volume provides the very guidance that will help two-year college instructors find the potential for all its citizens; it offers the wisdom to help us all find (or maintain) the humanity in our classes.”
—Cheryl Hogue Smith, Kingsborough Community College, CUNY
Two-Year College Writing Studies is a comprehensive overview of the two-year college writing teaching experience within our current political and historical contexts, with examples for teachers to better enact just teaching practices in their colleges. Editors Darin Jensen and Brett Griffiths present grounded, well-theorized, and practical strategies for teachers to implement in classrooms, institutions, and geopolitical contexts to advocate more effectively for their students.
Contributors draw on theories of identity, rhetorical third space, and linguistics to articulate a praxis of just teaching. They describe existing institutional challenges and opportunities that foster equity and offer cautionary tales of educational systems dismantled for short-term economic and political gains. Two-year college writing studies—when properly resourced—holds the potential to foster (or undermine) democratic ideals of civic literacy and uplift. Chapters in this volume offer case study examples of changes in departmental practices for reflection, interaction, and assessment that empower faculty to break free and engage directly with institutional, regional, state, and national constraints.
By making these resilient practices visible, Two-Year College Writing Studies amplifies the voices and validates the experiences of instructors engaging in this work. It will serve generalists, specialists, and academics interested in the subdiscipline of student success pedagogies and the political histories of two-year colleges and be useful for instructors new to the field, as professional development for veteran instructors, and as an introduction for graduate students entering two-year college writing studies programs.
Contributors: Jake Frye, Joanne Baird Giordano, Rhonda Grego, Holly Hassel, Kirsten Higgins, Jamila Kareem, Bernice Olivas, Mark Reynolds, Emily Suh, Patrick Sullivan, Anthony Warnke
