Our Students and Their Writing

This anthology is a collection of student writing from Lake Washington Institute of Technology, located in Kirkland, Washington. LWTech, as it is colloquially known, is part of the Washington State Community and Technical College system and is the only stand-alone community technical college of its kind in the state. The class that these students wrote these essays in is unique, as are the students themselves. This class, English 093-099-101, is a multilevel English composition course that blends pre-college (093 and 099) with college writing (101). The purpose of this multilevel course is to enable students to complete more than one level of English coursework in the same quarter, thus saving them time and money and helping them to achieve their academic goals more quickly and easily. The students in this class are special, and not just because they are enrolled in different levels of English in the same classroom. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds and educational experiences. Many are currently in high school or trying to complete a high school equivalency. Others are international students. The majority are immigrants. A great many are first-generation college students. Some are in workforce retraining and find themselves in a classroom for the first time in decades. What they have in common is that almost all of them are new to the conventions of American academic essay writing. Another important aspect of this class is that it is team-taught by an English professor and an ELL/Basic Education for Adults professor. The two teachers collaborate in all aspects of the class, from lesson planning to classroom activities and management to assessment. Both faculty work individually with each student, providing them different types and levels of support, based upon their individual needs. Lastly, this class meets LWTech’s college-wide Diversity and Social Justice graduation requirement. Students are asked to interrogate their own identities. Who are they? What are the parts of their identities that they cannot change that may affect their position in society, such as skin color, nationality, gender and sexual identity, educational background, or language ability? They also investigate different cultures. What makes various cultures similar? What makes them different? The final portion of the class is devoted to investigating power imbalances, past and present. Why do some groups in society have more power than others? What compels some people to band together to fight to gain more rights, power, or equality in society? What forces other groups to try and prevent those people from gaining these new rights or power? These are all questions that students answer in their writing. As you read through this anthology, you will likely forget all of this, because the writing is so powerful. These essays will pull you into their respective worlds, teaching you things about others, and, ideally, about your own conceptions of yourself and the world around you. Most students leave this class as different people than when they started. In a perfect world, reading this anthology will have a similar effect on you.