Brittany Zayas
Professor Lynn Reid
ENGL B8104 Basic Writing Theory & Practice
21 December 2016
Beyond Basic and Academic Writing:
A Review and Analysis of Tinberg and Nadeau’s The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations
Howard Tinberg and Jean-Paul Nadeau’s The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations, a 2010 study of the expectations of first-semester writing students and their instructors, provides a critical overview of challenges faced and possible changes to be made for the benefit of the future. Both Tinberg and Nadeau bring their experiences as tutors, teachers, and educational directors, as well as their time as students and writers, to the table and attempt to be empathetic to the perspectives of students and faculty. The authors preface the book with their abbreviated biographies, noting that they both were raised in families that encouraged and valued education (Tinberg and Nadeau 4, 9). This not only demonstrates an openness about their own privilege and bias, but also a contrast to many of the students included in the study, who did not grow up with much educational support. As Tinberg relates, most of his students at community colleges have been interested in vocational learning that they can “market and apply in their careers” (7). They are not all there to learn for learning’s sake; rather they are there to gain demonstrably useful skills that they believe they can only get in a higher learning environment. This reality affects how the study itself is conducted, as students are at school to gain a degree, so do not have time for extracurriculars. It also affects Tinberg and Nadeau’s conclusion that something (it is never clear what), must be done by faculty and institutions to balance academic and career needs.
In order to find common ground in a variety of locations, Tinberg and Nadeau surveyed and interviewed students at four American community colleges in four separate states: Bristol Community College in Massachusetts; Santa Barbara City College in California; Illinois Central College on Illinois; Whatcom Community College in Washington. Tinberg and Nadeau sought to determine if students in these various institutions felt prepared for academic writing after basic or introductory writing freshman courses and if they were given writing assignments besides the typical academic essay, such as those from the sciences or the arts (3). Starting with this, Tinberg and Nadeau could establish a bridge between student expectations and goals to faculty’s, as they also inquired about students’ understanding of revisions and what role faculty feedback played in those. Consequently, faculty was also surveyed and interviewed, though only at Bristol Community College. These were both full-time and part-time faculty members, in diverse fields of learning, so as to understand the expectations that must be met for the non-English major in the majority of their classes.
From the start of the project, student input was brought into the process. New students in a required college writing course at Bristol were interviewed the semester prior to the study so as to better tailor the questions later on. A survey was then administered the following semester to students at all four community colleges above. At Bristol, only 337 (a third of the total first-semester students population) responded, so their answers can only be assumed to represent the student body as a whole based on their being average students (Tinberg and Nadeau 25). This survey asked students to rate their writing abilities, understanding of the writing process, and past writing education. The core of Tinberg and Nadeau’s study, however, was the student cohort, which was partly pre-selected and partly volunteer, but all new to the college experience, and which came down to sixteen fully engaged students. This cohort was interviewed at the beginning and end of the semester, and finally informally interviewed the next semester. Unfortunately, there were fewer students with each interview, with only a quarter of the cohort attending the third interview. Of course, while students’ metacognition and self-analysis was useful in providing framework and structure to the study, the collecting of student writing was essential evidence of students’ initial abilities and subsequent progress. Students were encouraged to submit everything from notes to essays, but not all turned in a significant amount of material. Overall, the lack of student engagement in the study played an even larger role than researchers anticipated, which does affect the comprehensiveness of the results and conclusion.
To demonstrate that these issues are not unique to their cohort, Tinberg and Nadeau reference other studies that show how most community college students deal with several complications as they get their education: working many hours during the week, being first-generation college students, having children or families to take care of, returning to school after a period away, or a combination of these issues. The statistic that 73% of community college students are non-traditional is gleaned from other studies (Tinberg and Nadeau 58), but it is suggested they apply to the students at the colleges surveyed here. This same conclusion was reflected on by Sara Webb-Sunderhaus in her essay “When Access Is Not Enough: Retaining Basic Writers at an Open-Admission University.” As her title states, it is not simply enough to let all students in, institutions must consider that not all student needs are the same, especially at a two-year college (Webb-Sunderhaus 107). Webb-Sunderhaus explores more specific solutions to this problem by comparing theories of both David Bartholomae and Vincent Tinto, but like Tinberg and Nadeau she ends up raising more questions than answers. Non-traditional students come to college to better their chances at a job in a world they have already known is tough. This can make them more determined students and more responsible learners, but it also makes them hard to retain and rely on for consistency.
How that problem manifests itself is in student work is an idea that homework or assignments are for the professor and that class grade only. In fact, students’ answers to the survey questions show that many feel that their academic writing courses are important (95%) but not beneficial for the future (48%) (Tinberg and Nadeau 59-60). This means half of those who know they need writing skills in college are only seeing writing skills as necessary for a grade and diploma, not as inherently useful. That attitude is seen more clearly in one of the cohort, Kim, who continually adapts her essay to the exact comments given by her professor, without giving attention to the overall structure or statement of the piece (Tinberg and Nadeau 77), or in Ben, whose teacher line-edits and pushes Ben into a formulaic essay and paragraph structure (Tinberg and Nadeau 87). Additionally, most of the 120 pieces of writing received were from English courses, which suggests that not much writing was being required of students in other courses (Tinberg and Nadeau 61). It was in the non-English courses that students were more likely to receive no comments and merely a check on submitted work, which decreased their motivation and made it difficult for struggling writers to improve. Overall, a recurring theme in the student snapshots was a desire for better feedback and scaffolding from professors.
A strength of Tinberg and Nadeau’s study is the comparison and contrast of student response to faculty response. Engagement was an issue with not only students, but faculty as well. Even after surveys that offered prizes, it took pushing a hard copy survey in staff meetings to get more faculty to participate. With a five-point rating system like the student surveys, faculty were asked to disagree or agree with statements regarding writing standards, faculty feedback, and expectations for students. Seventy faculty surveys were completed; most of those were full-time instructors. Tinberg and Nadeau note that the lack of significant adjunct participation was likely due to time and adjuncts not attending departmental meetings. Unfortunately, they do not delve deeply into the effects this predominance of full-time faculty and lack of part-time faculty had on the answers. A faculty cohort of eleven members (eight full-time and three part-time) was also selected by the authors, mostly based on the desire to have faculty from a variety of departments and disciplines. That cohort was interviewed at length, and those questions were mainly an expansion of the survey questions, though it certainly got more personal. Interview questions included queries like “What brought you to BCC?” and “If you could change one thing about students’ attitudes about writing in your course(s), what would it be?” (Tinberg and Nadeau 142). These interviews were also more organic than the question outline indicates, as researchers encouraged conversation or modified the order of questions based on faculty response and attitude.
The faculty cohort was selected by the researchers from all the divisions of the college, and all emphasized writing in their courses, though not the typical writing assignments of basic or introductory writing courses. An occupational therapy professor stated that “clear written and oral communication skills” were essential in her field, though it was a technical and scientific discipline, as errors or vagueness in communication to nurses could result in harm to patients (Tinberg and Nadeau 41). Thus, “cross-border literacy” is highly valued; students should “demonstrate competence with literacy, both visual and word-based, and must produce exposition, analysis, and speculation” (Tinberg and Nadeau 54). To make that possible, faculty must be giving feedback that not only corrects grammar and structure, but also offers support for idea development and builds on students’ thoughts. However, most faculty rated their feedback as important, but most gave feedback electronically rather than face-to-face, eliminating that human element that is most useful for students and faculty to understand each other (Tinberg and Nadeau 147-148). A percentage that should be alarming to any institution is that when asked to rate how prepared their students were for “challenging writing assignments” by the end of the semester, 47% of faculty rated their confidence in the students as neutral with only 31% being sure students were prepared (Tinberg and Nadeau 148). Good writing teachers will push struggling writers to explain their thoughts with more detail. But many teachers do not explain themselves, expecting vague feedback and numbers or checks to be enlightening to students–a major error if the goal is to get students to improve writing skills for the future.
Tinberg and Nadeau’s study itself is not unique–Marilyn Sternglass’ 1993 longitudinal study of writing development used student interviews and work samples to analyze student progress. Sternglass’ study was five years long (though she published findings 3.5 years in) so it gave a more comprehensive view of student growth over years, as opposed to Tinberg and Nadeau’s semester-long study. But with her case study of Linda, Sternglass came to many of the same conclusions as Tinberg and Nadeau. Linda picked up on academic expectations of formal writing after one semester, but she struggled with the varied types of writing across disciplines. She excelled in narratives in introductory composition, but she had trouble using evidence and her own analysis in her second semester psychology course (Sternglass 248). Like Andrew of Tinberg and Nadeau’s study, Linda struggled with being both analytical and creative in a film review (Tinberg and Nadeau 113; Sternglass 249). “Cross-border literacy” was something that Linda, like the students at Bristol, lacked, as it was not taught in basic composition courses, but only picked up over time. As Sternglass states, it is not enough for students to write, as “writing alone is not a sufficient teaching tool” and instructors must provide regular support for “students whose reading and writing processes require continual assistance and development” (258). Free-writing and narratives are great for getting students comfortable with writing, but do not build cross-border literacy and may not prepare a student who needs scaffolding for a technical science paper or historical analysis. Two decades after Sternglass’ study, this is clearly still an issue.
Tinberg and Nadeau’s main purpose, which they get to in a roundabout way near the end of the book, is to explore the goals and expectations of students and faculty during the first semester in order to provide insight into preparation for incoming students and support later on. Students are at community college to learn useful skills, and they expect to be told what to do to succeed. Vague instructor feedback creates confusion, as students do not know how to begin fixing what seems to be wrong. Conversely, as de Beaugrande and Olson state in their 1991 study of the writing of student athletes, very precise instructor feedback is often taken by inexperienced writers as gospel, as students “follow the first draft much too closely” and attempt to change “cosmetic” issues of grammar rather than development of ideas (18). Twenty years later, at Bristol, this is an issue for students Kim and Ben, who as discussed earlier, followed instructor revision notes without considering their own voice or original intent (Tinberg and Nadeau 77, 87). Mina Shaughnessy in her Errors and Expectations (1979) explains how a student who makes corrections as given does not necessarily understand the reasoning behind it (289). Shaughnessy recommends that a “full session be given to introducing each assignment, and the assignments themselves should be highly specific in such matters as length, structure, and possible difficulties. All assignments should be accompanied by at least two examples, one by a student” (288). This gives students a broader perspective and helps them to see their own writing as something they can own for themselves. Tinberg and Nadeau express similar ideas about students’ shying away from ownership of their writing. They suggest teachers not give “directive” feedback, but instead give “non-directive” feedback that explains how something comes across and inquires about what the student-writer intended (Tinberg and Nadeau 125). This gives students agency, something students from underprivileged backgrounds may not have experienced before in education.
Just as every community college student is different, so is every community college. Thus, any study that intends to make a statement about community colleges must be taken as a generalization, even when it is as detailed as this one. Yet the students here in this early 21st century study are not so different in their needs and struggles from the students of community colleges and open admission colleges of the 1970s, as much as the world itself may have changed. Edward Quinn’s 1973 article on the incoming open admission and CUNY SEEK students pointed out that even for low-cost schools, it is an issue that “college students are adults who are not bringing money into the house” (31). This is why Tinberg’s students were so focused on being marketable and career ready (7). To ignore the role that class and privilege play in low-cost institutions versus major universities is to be blind to reality. Tinberg and Nadeau do not focus on class and privilege, but it comes up in the snapshots of the student cohort, most of whom are first-generation college students who lacked academic support in high school. Delving deeper into the sociopolitical aspects of that would have given the study more depth and also more applicability to a larger number of community colleges, especially those in urban areas, which are not discussed in the study.
Tinberg and Nadeau’s study brings up a question that is not new, but still is not always answered or considered by these kinds of studies. What is the point of giving first-semester college students writing-intensive instruction? It is not merely so they can pass a single-semester course. It is to prepare them for other writing courses across disciplines, so should allow for a balance of creative and technical writing skills. It is also not just to keep them in the academic world, but to give them a voice in it, which they can then apply and expand to the workplace and beyond. A major takeaway from Tinberg and Nadeau’s study is that these students came to community college with intent to learn. Instructors do students a disservice by merely telling them what they need, just as instructors do students a disservice by passing along knowledge without contextualization and clarity. There is no easy solution for the struggles of community college students and faculty. The first step to any change is faculty listening—not just to students from case studies, but from every student that walks into their classroom, whether they perform well or not. We will never know what we should give if we presume what students need.
Works Cited
De Beaugrande, Robert, and Mar Jean Olson. “Using a ‘Write-Speak-Write’ Approach for Basic Writers.” Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 10, no. 2, Fall 1991, pp. 4-32.
Quinn, Edward. “We’re Holding Our Own.” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, vol. 5, no. 6, Summer 1973, pp. 30-34.
Shaughnessy, Mina P. Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing. Oxford University Press, 1979.
Sternglass, Marilyn S. “Writing Development as Seen Through Longitudinal Research: A Case Study Exemplar.” Written Communication, vol. 10, no. 2, April 1993, pp. 235-261.
Tinberg, Howard, and Jean-Paul Nadeau. The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations. Southern Illinois University Press, 2010.
Webb-Sunderhaus, Sara. “When Access Is Not Enough: Retaining Basic Writers at an Open-Admission University.” Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 29, no. 2, 2010, pp. 97-115.
On Teaching, Writing, and Teaching Writing 