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Call for Proposals: TETYC Special Issue on Teaching Reading in Open-Access Contexts

Teaching English in the Two-Year College invites proposals for a special issue in March 2023 on teaching college reading in open-access contexts. The issue will be helmed by guest editors Joanne Baird Giordano of Salt Lake Community College and Cheryl Hogue Smith of Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York. Authors should submit proposals to the TETYC Editorial Manager submission system by December 15, 2021.

The March 2021 CCCC Position Statement on the Role of Reading in College Writing Classrooms argues for “the need to develop accessible and effective reading pedagogies in college writing classrooms so that students can engage more deeply in all of their courses and develop the reading abilities that will be essential to their success in college, in their careers, and for their participation in a democratic society.” This statement applies to English instructors at all types of postsecondary institutions. However, instructors at two-year community colleges and other types of open-access institutions often face complex challenges in developing accessible, equitable, and effective strategies for supporting students’ development as postsecondary readers. English studies professionals at these institutions serve a broad range of readers, including students with diverse learning needs who would be excluded from higher education at institutions with admissions requirements. Faculty and program administrators in open-access teaching contexts need flexible, evidence-based practices for helping students from diverse social, cultural, linguistic, and academic backgrounds develop the reading skills and strategies required for success across the range of courses that they teach, including writing, stand-alone reading, integrated reading and writing, corequisite support, English for speakers of other languages, literature, first-year seminar, and humanities courses.

Teaching English in the Two-Year College invites proposals for a special issue on teaching college reading in open-access contexts. Issues that manuscripts might address include but aren’t limited to the following:
• Exploring reading and issues of equity in postsecondary education
• Teaching and supporting reading comprehension strategies
• Teaching critical reading strategies
• Designing reading activities for online or hybrid courses
• Teaching or coordinating Integrated Reading and Writing (IRW) courses and programs
• Teaching digital reading
• Supporting student readers in online courses
• Teaching reading in writing courses
• Designing and teaching stand-alone reading courses
• Assessing students’ development as postsecondary readers
• Understanding how faculty workload affects support for student readers
• Redesigning writing programs to support students’ transitions to college reading
• Accounting for reading in placement processes
• Teaching reading in corequisite support courses
• Supporting student readers in writing center work or learning assistant programs
• Designing courses that support second-language readers
• Teaching revision as reading
• Reading across the curriculum / reading in the disciplines
• Designing professional development to support postsecondary reading instruction
• Developing credentials and graduate training programs required for teaching reading in open-access contexts
• Evaluating reading instruction

Proposal Requirements
• Proposals should (a) be grounded in relevant theory and recent scholarship and (b) have a practical application for teaching or program development work at open-admissions institutions.
• Proposals should include an MLA works-cited list with at least five sources that illustrate the types of scholarship that the finished piece will draw from. We will prioritize proposals that cite scholars who work at (or who have conducted research at) two-year colleges, open-admissions four-year institutions, or institutions that enroll historically minoritized or underserved college students.
• The audience for proposals and finished articles should be instructors and program administrators who teach English in the first two college years at institutions that serve a broad range of learners from diverse social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds.
• Proposals should be no more than 500 words long, not including the works-cited list.

Requirements for Completed Manuscripts
• The length of completed articles will be no more than 5,000 words, including MLA citations.
• Recommendations for teaching and program development practices should be supported with research or other evidence.
• Writers should make clear connections between relevant theory and/or scholarship and recommended practices.

Special Issue Timeline
1. Authors should submit proposals to the TETYC Editorial Manager submission system by December 15, 2021. TETYC’s general submission guidelines are available here.
2. Proposals will be selected in January 2022.
3. Authors with accepted proposals must submit complete manuscripts to the TETYC Editorial Manager submission system by May 2022.
4. Authors will tentatively receive reviewer feedback by June 30, 2022.
5. Final manuscripts will be due to the TETYC Editorial Manager submission system by September 2022.
6. Articles will be published in the March 2023 issue of TETYC.

For questions, please contact tetyc.editor@gmail.com.

Examples of Relevant Scholarship

Armstrong, Sonya L., et al. “Questioning the Ethics of Legislated Literacy Curricula: What about the Pedagogical Rights of Postsecondary Readers?” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 48., no. 3, 2021, pp. 314–31.

Del Principe, Annie, and Rachel Ihara. “A Long Look at Reading in the Community College: A Longitudinal Analysis of Student Reading Experiences.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 45, no. 2, 2017, pp. 183–206.

—. “‘I Bought the Book and I Didn’t Need It’: What Reading Looks Like at an Urban Community College.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 43, no. 3, 2016, pp. 229–44.

Doran, Erin E. “‘What’s Expected of Us as We Integrate the Two Disciplines?’: Two-Year College Faculty Engage with Basic Writing Reform.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 47, no. 2, 2019, pp. 149–67.

Escobar, Jennifer, and Aja Henriquez. “Understanding the Process and Criteria by Which Instructors Select Readings.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 43, no. 2, 2015, pp. 195–201.

Finn, Heather B. “Linking the Past to the Present: Using Literacy Narratives to Raise ESL Students’ Awareness about Reading and Writing Relationships.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 44, no. 3, 2017, pp. 276–88.

Flippo, Rona F., and Thomas W. Bean, editors. Handbook of College Reading and Study Strategy Research. Routledge, 2018.

Giordano, Joanne Baird, and Holly Hassel. “Developing Critical Readers in the Age of Literacy Acceleration.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, vol. 21, no. 2, 2021, pp. 241–59.

Greenbaum, JoAnne, and Kathryn Bartle Angus. “Rights of Postsecondary Readers and Learners.” Journal of College Reading and Learning, vol. 48 no. 2, 2018, pp. 138–41.

Hassel, Holly, et al. “TYCA White Paper on Developmental Education Reforms.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 42, no. 3, 2015, pp. 227–43.

Holschuh, Jodi Patrick, and Eric J. Paulson. “The Terrain of College Developmental Reading.” College Reading and Learning Association, 2013. https://www.crla.net/images/whitepaper/TheTerrainofCollege91913.pdf.

Ihara, Rachel, and Annie Del Principe. “What We Mean When We Talk about Reading: Rethinking the Purposes and Contexts of College Reading.” Across the Disciplines, vol. 15, no. 2, 2018, pp. 1–14.

Kareem, Jamila. “A Critical Race Analysis of Transition-Level Writing Curriculum to Support the Racially Diverse Two-Year College.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 46, no. 4, 2019, pp. 271–96.

Kiefson, Ruth. “The Social Dimension of the Community College Classroom.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 46, no. 1, 2018, pp. 56–69.

Marsh, Bill. “Reading-Writing Integration in Developmental and First-Year Composition.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 43., no. 1, 2015, pp.58–70.

Moe, Peter Wayne. “Being a First-Time Reader.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 48, no. 4, 2021, pp. 447–48.

Smith, Cheryl Hogue. “Interrogating Texts: From Deferent to Efferent and Aesthetic Reading Practices.” Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 31, no. 1, 2012, pp. 59–79.

—. “The Teaching Zone: Square Pegs in Round Holes.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 48, no. 4, 2021, pp.413–435.

Sullivan, Patrick. “‘Deep Reading’ as a Threshold Concept in Composition Studies.” Deep Reading: Teaching Reading in the Writing Classroom, edited by Patrick Sullivan et al., National Council of Teachers of English, 2017, pp. 143–71.

Tinberg, Howard. “When Writers Encounter Reading in a Community College First-Year Composition Course.” Deep Reading: Teaching Reading in the Writing Classroom, edited by Patrick Sullivan et al., National Council of Teachers of English, 2017, pp. 244–64.

Darin Jensen
Editor, Teaching English in the Two-Year College