MISSION

LaGuardia Community College embodies New York City's guarantee that all its citizens have the opportunity to get a college education. LaGuardia, begun with only a handful of students and faculty in 1971, was named for a mayor who cared about all New Yorkers, whatever their station in life. The college is another in a long tradition of original educational experiments in the United States, a world leader in public education.

The establishment of Open Admissions meant that the City University would soon welcome students who were inadequately prepared for college courses. These students came from many city high schools that had never before sent any significant proportion of their student population on to college. Thus, SEEK programs were born at the four-year colleges, and community colleges began to dot the boroughs. Suddenly college was a real possibility for the majority of young New Yorkers.

To help fulfill the promise of Open Admissions, LaGuardia accepted the challenge of teaching language skills, not only to the large numbers of underprepared high school graduates, but to a large foreign language population. Developmental departments were created, including the Communication Skills Department, whose central goal has always been to prepare the student for the challenges of academic reading.

It should be obvious that reading is fundamental to education; it should also be clear that college students do an enormous amount of reading, and that reading is, for lack of a better word, a "skill" that requires constant reinforcement and refinement. Levels of reading proficiency exist and their existence is implied in the way we have organized our higher education system. A more advanced degree requires greater proficiency in reading, a broader-based reading background. A 50-page paper in graduate school requires the reading of hundreds of pages of text; a dissertation, thousands of pages. Experienced readers recognize degrees of difficulty and levels of comprehension; they recognize that reading is referential, that reading is always grounded in content. And, despite the wonders of technology, reading is still fundamental, literacy still required.

The Communication Skills Department is at the heart of LaGuardia's mission - to give New York City's citizens access to higher education. The department's mission within the college is to insure that once students have been admitted, they succeed.

The mission of the Communication Skills Department is to prepare students with the necessary cognitive tools to read with understanding and retention the wide variety of college-level materials necessary to succeed in LaGuardia's degree programs, and/or to move on to four-year schools. The department is committed to providing the student with the intellectual framework, the background knowledge and critical reading and thinking skills necessary to become an educated person in society.

The focus of a CSE course is exposition. Our courses are preparation for the introductory courses students must take for their majors. Thus we try to give students background and skills that they can use to read their textbooks, to listen to class lectures, and write class assignments. Our classes consist of lively discussions, arguments, careful listening and thinking. Our work-load is heavy - for instructors as well as students. Students tell us they put in more hours in our classes than in most of their other college classes, and they use what they are studying in reading class - in their other classes, in their future careers and in their lives as readers.

Our courses are theme-centered. They focus on one or two themes per term; the readings, writing assignments, projects, and research are all related to the topic; students are held responsible for the content of their reading. Class and home assignments are geared to all levels of cognitive activity - starting with simple comprehension and moving up the ladder to sophisticated thinking tasks such as analyzing arguments, synthesizing multiple ideas, and evaluating claims. Theme-centered instruction gives the students a solid background, allowing them to gain in-depth knowledge and a firm grasp of complex topics and arguments. Moreover, we are aware that writing is the other side of reading, and crucial to success in college. Therefore, our students are asked to respond to what they read by writing response papers, summaries, and essays; they use the library; they write research papers.

Unfortunately, most college reading programs around the nation are cast in a negative light. Remediation seems to be the single and ultimate reason that college reading courses exist - to repair whatever is deficient. However, we see our role differently. We believe that there is life after remediation. Our students' reading competence needs to be reinforced after exiting from compulsory basic skills courses. To prepare truly college-ready readers, we offer students a range of electives that are designed to refine their skills. Our aim is to produce critical, flexible and fluent readers who appreciate the value of reading, and see the connection between reading and learning.

On the highest level of the hierarchy of skills, not only are students expected to be good readers. They will also learn to understand the social, historical and linguistic nature of reading. They will evaluate the importance of written language to society, and learn about new modes of print communication.

The department participates in community projects, high school-college collaborations, learning communities, conferences, scholarly research, grants, and events throughout the college, the university and the community. The faculty, many of whom are nationally recognized experts in their field, is innovative. If CUNY is the gateway to a wider world for our students, the Communication Skills Department is the threshold.

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TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

The faculty members of the Communication Skills Department have long been pioneers in the field of adult reading. When the college was established more than 25 years ago, the discipline of teaching reading to adults scarcely existed. College reading teachers took their lead from the theories and practices used in the high schools and elementary schools. And while we did, indeed, help our students become better readers, we were not satisfied. It was clear much more needed to be done. So, we became researchers. We investigated the field of psychology, studied linguistics, reviewed practices in teaching English as a second language, kept abreast of developments in teaching writing, and explored the new field of critical thinking skills.

At the same time, more and more research began to reveal how adults read and how their reading could be improved. Though study of the field became increasingly more sophisticated, little of the research findings were translated into curriculum or classroom practice. We at LaGuardia were among the first, if not the first, to take this research and adapt it to the classroom.

When the department was young, the only commercially-available materials were so-called "skills" texts, books that focused on the process of reading rather than on content and strategies. Many of the texts were simply revised versions of elementary and high school texts, often redesigned to look "adult," and including some readings presumably of more interest to the adult reader. Few, if any, were suitable for our student population. So, we developed our own materials. Drawing on real-life sources, we assembled articles, essays, and stories from newspapers, magazines and books. We took chapters from content-area textbooks. We created strategies and wrote exercises to help students cope with the readings. We struggled over how to assess students' progress. We consulted with other departments in the college: What did they expect students to know? What kind of demands did they make on students in terms of reading and writing? We talked, we argued, we wrote and rewrote. And, our courses changed; our teaching methods changed. We became the first community college to adopt a research-based approach to teaching adult reading.

In short, we were the embodiment of LaGuardia's long "Tradition of Innovation."

Over 25 years have passed since we began and we have revised our methods and curriculum continually. How are our courses structured? What are our teaching methods? First, our students read extensively. We know that they will learn to be fluent readers in the same way we did - by reading. They read all types of materials: many stories, many essays, articles and textbook excerpts. They read at least one complete book each semester. (Many of our students read their first "whole book" in our classes.) Second, our courses are theme-centered. They focus on one or two themes per term; the readings, writing assignments, projects, and research are all related to the topic; students are held responsible for the content of their reading. Class and home assignments are geared to all levels of cognitive activity- starting with simple comprehension and moving up the ladder to sophisticated thinking tasks such as analyzing arguments, synthesizing multiple ideas, and evaluating claims. Theme-centered instruction gives the students a solid background, allowing them to gain in-depth knowledge and a firm grasp of complex topics and arguments. Moreover, we are aware that writing is the other side of reading, and crucial to success in college. Therefore, our students are asked to respond to what they read by writing response papers, summaries, and essays; they use the library; they write research papers.

Because the materials are "real," i.e., not out of context, nor "created for a reading class," they serve as introduction to ideas students will confront in their subsequent college courses. Business, literature, history, science, health, language, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and current affairs are all topics considered in our courses. Students are naturally provided with the knowledge and coping strategies they will need in their future studies.

The information included in the themes is interconnected in a natural way. Throughout, we try to use questions and activities to connect information from one assignment to another, helping students to synthesize ideas across the curriculum.

The focus of a CSE course is exposition. Unlike ESL, which is generally viewed as preparation for English courses, our courses are viewed as preparation for the introductory courses students must take for their majors. Thus we try to give students background and skills that they can use to read their textbooks, to listen to class lectures, and write class assignments. Our classes consist of lively discussions, arguments, careful listening and thinking. Our work-load is heavy - for instructors as well as students. Students tell us they put in more hours in our classes than in most of their other college classes, and they use what they are studying in reading class - in their other classes, in their future careers and in their lives as readers.

What does the future hold? Our department has been invigorated in the past few years by the addition of new faculty members who have brought with them energy, fresh perspectives, and experience in the areas of computer technology, computer-assisted instruction, assessment, and literature. Working in collaboration, the department has once again embraced innovation. We have redesigned and strengthened our "core" courses (CSE095, 099, 103, 105), created new upper level courses (CSE110, 120, 150) and made plans for more curriculum development. We have joined learning communities all across the college. Teaching college reading has been an evolving endeavor, a work continually in progress. As our student population changes, the demands of the workplace shift, and literacy requirements become more complex, we intend to transform ourselves to meet these challenges.

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CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY

Over the years, we have refined our philosophy and pedagogy, moving away from skills-based methods to content-rich, theme-based approaches.

Given the diverse nature of the non-traditional population that we serve here at LaGuardia, there is no denying that we need to devote a considerable portion of our energy to polishing up the skills of incoming students who are academically underprepared. This segment of our duties has taken on various labels, e.g. basic skills instruction, developmental education, remedial teaching.

Unfortunately, most college reading programs around the nation are cast in a negative light. Remediation seems to be the single and ultimate reason that college reading courses exist - to repair whatever is deficient. However, we see our role differently. We believe that there is life after remediation. Our students' reading competence needs to be reinforced after exiting from compulsory basic skills courses. To prepare truly college-ready readers, we offer students a range of electives that are designed to refine their skills. Our aim is to produce critical, flexible and fluent readers who appreciate the value of reading, and see the connection between reading and learning.

TOP OF PAGE