The Writing Connection: Bridging the Gap between High School and College 

Passa ic County Communi ty Co l lege ’s “Connect ions” program to work w i th area h igh schoo l teachers across d isc ip l ines to c reate var ied oppor tun i t ies in wr i t ing- to- learn ra ther than the t rad i t iona l learn ing- to-wr i te approach tha t might app ly on ly to the Eng l ish c lassroom.

The Writing Connection: Bridging the Gap between High School and College

Two Year Col lege Engl ish Associat ionWashington, DC - November 2010

• Who – about us• Why – the rat ionale• What – the act iv i t ies• How – lessons learned

– Continuing the connections

Who

About Us

• Ken Ronkowitz – Director of the Writ ing Ini t iat ive (Tit le V Grant)

• Alexandra Del la Fera – Professor of Engl ish

• Elizabeth Nesius – Coordinator of the Writ ing Center

About PCCC

• Main Campus - Paterson, NJ – with 3 satellite campuses

• Total enro l lment 10,000+– Past Year - 9% increase; 36% online growth

• Enrol lment – 64.4% Basic Skills– 20.0% ESL– 15.6% College Level

About PCCC

• Top 5 Degree Programs– A.A. Humanities 16.5%– A.A.S. Nurse Education 13.9%– A.S. Business / Accounting 7.6%– A.A. Criminal Justice 6.8%– A.S. Human Services 6.5%

• Graduat ion Requirements inc lude– One or two writing intensive courses– College Writing Exam

Why

About the Writing Initiative• 5 Year, Dept of Ed. Ti t le V Grant to

improve wr i t ing– Build college-level writing center– Design 20 writing intensive GenEd courses across

disciplines (40 course sections)– Incorporate writing, critical thinking & information

literacy– ePortfolios

• Year 3: Connecting with county high schools and Year 4: area four-year colleges

Sending county high schools

4-year colleges where PCCC students often matriculate

Connecting to other writing programs and writing centers, especially at community colleges

The Connections

Dual enrollment program

What

Activities: Big Ideas

• Teachers as Writers• Process• Writ ing to Learn• Learning to Write• Reflect ion

N C T E B e l i e f s a b o u t t h e Te a c h i n g o f Wr i t i n g w w w. n c t e . o r g

Teachers as Writers

• Bluebook wr i t ing exerc ise on feedback exper iences in our own l ives

• Quotat ions• Blogs and Wik is

Process

• Pre-Seminar Quest ions

• Visual Prompts• Best lessons• Lessons in

Progress• Grammar

Interact ive Si tes

Writing to Learn

• Blogs• Instant Messaging• Facebook• Website Creation

Learning to Write

• Email exercise– audience, purpose,

point of view

• Rubrics• Holist ic Grading

Session

Reflections

• Portfol io work• Reflect ing on the teacher as wri ter• Reflect ing on how we teach writ ing

HowLessons Learned

Limitations in the High Schools

• Limi ted technology– In many places,

technology unavailable due to budget or unavailable to students at home

– Restrictions on websites that can be accessed within schools

• But…– Faculty were still

interested in incorporating more technology into their classes

– They were creative in coming up with solutions or end-runs around technology problems

Limitations in the High Schools

• Unable to access thei r campuses dur ing summer– Invitations sent to

school emails may not have been received.

– For the second institute: Faculty were unable to test links on campus to gauge access capabilities.

• But…– Many responded to

mailed invitations.– The links are still

provided to them (on the LibGuide) for use when they get back to school.

– Some faculty had tried similar things and were able to guess at access capabilities

Challenges / Solutions

1. Most respondents were Eng l ish and soc ia l s tud ies teachers

2. Ask ing teachers to do pre- ins t i tu te ac t iv i t ies was unsuccessfu l

3. Coming up wi th sess ion top ics – managing t ime

1. Second Ins t i tu te : ta rge ted non-human i t ies depar tments

2. Poss ib ly con tac t facu l t y ear l ie r in the schoo l year

3. Used survey resu l t s f rom the f i r s t Ins t i tu te to in fo rm p lans fo r second

Challenges / Solutions

4. Thei r shared mater ia ls were l imi ted– In some cases, only

hard copies were available

– Some brought no copies and instead described the materials

4. Have facul ty send mater ia ls wi th thei r appl icat ion

• Request d ig i ta l copies in advance so that copies could be made for a l l

Challenges / Solutions

5. Tended to form “c l iques” when mul t ip le people came f rom the same school

6. Some personal i t ies dominated

5. Tr ied to choose facul ty f rom a var iety of schools

• Arranged seat ing to encourage col laborat ion wi th new people

6. Used “c lassroom management” techniques

• Most popular topics1. Teachers as writers

2. Using prompts (visual, audio…)

3. Critical thinking activities

4. Portfolios and reflection in the classroom

5. Sharing college level writing and materials

• Topics suggested for future sessions– Technology for writing (blogs, portfolios, podcasts…)

– Sample materials and lesson plans, especially for writing assignments

Survey Results

Additional Benefits Noted

• Learning about the approaches to wri t ing at other schools

• Sharing ideas and lessons and gett ing feedback on them

• Hearing about the problems other schools face (and that they’re not so different)

Continuing the Connections…

• Possibi l i ty of going into high schools to offer professional development workshops

• Writ ing at 4-Year Colleges• Other community col lege wri t ing

ini t iat ives – you?

Presentation and Resourceshttp://pccc.libguides.com/connection

http://pcccwriting.blogspot.com

Contact: wri t ingcenter@pccc.edu