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Five two-year-college writer-teachers from different states (California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Wisconsin) present ways that creative writers can make particular contributions to the important and meaningful work of teaching basic skills composition, particularly at institutions of access, and particularly at this time when that work is so crucial.
It's not unusual for the writer newly launched from an MFA or PhD program to land first in a two-year-college composition classroom. After all, even as creative writing degree holders matriculate from the more than two hundred MFA programs in this country alone ("MFA Programs"), enrollment in two-year colleges climbs, with half of American undergraduates enrolled in public degree-granting institutions now studying at two-year colleges (United States). Yet many of these graduates fresh from workshop who find themselves teaching at two-year campuses imagine themselves as imposters. If they pictured themselves teaching, perhaps it was creative writing and not composition, and if they undertook a course in composition pedagogy, or even taught English 101, it was likely at a selective institution, at least one with a graduate school, and not a college of open access, as most two-year colleges are. While other legitimate forces contribute to that poet's or fiction writer's feeling of falseness (certainly, working conditions for adjunct faculty do not help), the truth is that being a creative writer and being a basic skills composition teacher can go hand in hand; in fact, a creative writing background may be one excellent pathway toward this work, and it is at least worth asking the question: What are the habits of mind that creative writers bring to the developmental composition classroom? Examination of this question, and possible answers, may bring into the open the perceived mismatch writer-teachers may feel. Equally important, the discussion itself may encourage our training in composition teaching. It may also be that creative writers have particular contributions to make to the important and meaningful work of teaching basic skills composition, particularly at institutions of access, particularly at this time when that work is so crucial.
This essay presents the experience of five creative writers who teach full time at two-year colleges in five states (California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Wisconsin), with most of us regularly teaching basic skills composition courses in addition to...
