New Book from NCTE

[lbianchi@ncte.org]

     Howard Tinberg, the author of a book just published by the National
     Council of Teachers of English, asked me to tell the Writing Center
     listerv about the release of his new book.
     
     Ordering information appears at the end of the release.
     
     
     For Immediate Release
     
                                                       
     Announcing: Border Talk: Writing and Knowing in the Two-Year College
     Written by Howard B. Tinberg
     Publication Date:  March 21, 1997
     
     
     Community College Teachers as Border Crossers
     
     Bristol Community College professor Howard Tinberg works, as he 
     believes most two-year college instructors do, on the border--between 
     the two-year and four-year college, and between the community college 
     and the working world. His work is affected by the complex purposes 
     two-year colleges serve: to provide vocational training to those who 
     plan to enter the workforce upon completing their community college 
     experience; to provide learning opportunities to those already 
     employed who hope to improve their work-related skills; and to provide 
     academic preparation to students who plan to transfer to four-year 
     colleges and universities. 
     
     Because of the complexity of the task and the diversity of students 
     they serve, two-year college instructors often come to be viewed as 
     teaching machines--overworked, unable to stay up-to-date on research, 
     unable to do research themselves, unable even to reflect on their 
     practice and engage in dialogue with colleagues about their teaching. 
     Tinberg seeks to dispel these views in Border Talk: Writing and 
     Knowing in the Two-Year College, published by the National Council of 
     Teachers of English.
     
     Bristol Community College's writing lab, which Tinberg directs, is 
     staffed by an interdisciplinary team of faculty tutors. In addition to 
     working as a tutor himself, Tinberg coordinates a summer workshop for 
     the team, during which they discuss their work in the writing lab and 
     teaching within their disciplines. Border Talk is drawn from one of 
     those workshops. It gives a thoughtful and detailed account of the 
     struggles the interdisciplinary team went through, Tinberg writes, "to 
     find a common language with which to talk about writing and knowing. . 
     . We were also attempting to see whether we could translate to one 
     another the differences that defined us as teachers of psychology, 
     nursing, dental hygiene, literature, history, business, mathematics, 
     and ESL. In my mind, that was the greater challenge."
     
     Tinberg expertly combines excerpts from conversations held during the 
     three weeks of the workshop with his own analysis and insights, 
     informed by the writings of such theorists as Mikhail Bakhtin, Lucy 
     Calkins, and Henry Giroux. Through this ethnography, the reader 
     listens in on the instructors' discussions about methods of inquiry, 
     the construction of knowledge, what makes good writing, and how to 
     respond to student writing--issues that transcend disciplinary and 
     institutional borders. The instructors also engage in impassioned 
     dialogues about aspects of their work that are unique to, or at least 
     more characteristic of, the two-year college teaching experience. As 
     Tinberg summed them up, "reconciling our specialized knowledge with 
     the two-year college's commitment to general and comprehensive 
     education; initiating students who have had little success in school 
     into the academic enterprise; and reconceiving our work to include 
     both scholarship and teaching."
     
     Though it is a formidable task, Tinberg hopes other two-year college 
     faculty will write about the work they do, "to construct themselves 
     rather than merely to let others do the constructing." Uncovering the 
     similarities between their concerns and those of their colleagues at 
     four-year colleges, he believes, will bring two-year colleges "within 
     the academic fold." In Border Talk, Tinberg has shown that borders 
     between disciplines as well as those which exist between higher 
     education institutions are well worth crossing.
     
     (Border Talk:  Writing and Knowing in the Two-Year College. Howard B. 
     Tinberg, author. 95 pages, softcover.  Price:  $19.95; NCTE members, 
     $14.95.  ISBN:  0-8141-0378-2.   LC:  97-3901.  Audience: writing 
     teachers at all levels and two-year college teachers in all 
     disciplines.  Available from NCTE, 1111 W. Kenyon Rd., Urbana, IL 
     61801-1096; 800-369-6283.  Stock no. 03782-0015.)