They’re not the students strolling across the bucolic liberal arts campuses where their grandfathers played football. They are first-generation college students—children of immigrants and blue-collar workers—who know that their hopes for success hinge on a degree.

But college is expensive, unfamiliar, and intimidating. Inexperienced students expect tough classes and demanding, remote faculty. They may not know what an assignment means, what a score indicates, or that a single grade is not a definitive measure of ability. And they certainly don’t feel entitled to be there. They do not presume success, and if they have a problem, they don’t expect to receive help or even a second chance.

Rebecca D. Cox draws on five years of interviews and observations at community colleges. She shows how students and their instructors misunderstand and ultimately fail one another, despite good intentions. Most memorably, she describes how easily students can feel defeated—by their real-world responsibilities and by the demands of college—and come to conclude that they just don’t belong there after all.

Eye-opening even for experienced faculty and administrators, The College Fear Factor reveals how the traditional college culture can actually pose obstacles to students’ success, and suggests strategies for effectively explaining academic expectations.

Sixteen Teachers Teaching is a warmly personal, full-access tour into the classrooms and teaching practices of sixteen distinguished two-year college English professors. Approximately half of all basic writing and first-year composition classes are now taught at two-year colleges, so the perspectives of English faculty who teach at these institutions are particularly valuable for our profession. This book shows us how a group of acclaimed teachers put together their classes, design reading and writing assignments, and theorize their work as writing instructors.
 
All of these teachers have spent their careers teaching multiple sections of writing classes each semester or term, so this book presents readers with an impressive—and perhaps unprecedented—abundance of pedagogical expertise, teaching knowledge, and classroom experience. Sixteen Teachers Teaching is a book filled with joyfulness, wisdom, and pragmatic advice. It has been designed to be a source of inspiration for high school and college English teachers as they go about their daily work in the classroom.

Contributors: Peter Adams, Jeff Andelora, Helane Adams Androne, Taiyon J. Coleman, Renee DeLong, Kathleen Sheerin DeVore, Jamey Gallagher, Shannon Gibney, Joanne Baird Giordano, Brett Griffiths, Holly Hassel, Darin Jensen, Jeff Klausman, Michael C. Kuhne, Hope Parisi, and Howard Tinberg