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Drawing upon a two-year study of student-veterans in college writing classrooms, this article analyzes three types of courses developed in an effort to respond to increased military-affiliated student enrollments: veterans-only, veteran-focused, and veteran-friendly. The article concludes with recommendations for an asset-based approach to professional development for writing faculty.
The purpose of this article is to report on institutional approaches to veteran enrollments in writing classes and to recommend a reorientation of those approaches toward asset-based professional orientation and course development. These recommendations derive from the findings of a 2010 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Research Initiative Grant that funded a two-year study of student veterans in the writing classroom.
Since at least 2003, the CCCC has made public comment on US military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.1 Subsequently, veteran populations- particularly those from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) who are taking advantage of the generous benefits of the Post-9/11 GI Bill-have surged on college campuses, with over one million veterans and eligible family members using these benefits since 2009 ("One Million"). A spike of veteran enrollments in core courses such as first-year writing (FYW) has followed.2 Because FYW courses are typically small enough for students to interact one-on-one with their instructors and to collaborate with their classmates,3 and because expressive and reflective writing theories shape many first-year students' writing experiences,4 writing classes often function as a transitional space between veterans' military experiences and their college experiences.
Current Landscape
Sue Doe and William Doe have termed this transitional time for service members residence time, which they describe as the amount of time it takes for a person to become fully acclimated to a new environment, and they call on the concept of induction as the process by which veterans transition into residence time ("Residence"). For Doe and Doe, veterans, in moving from military life to civilian life, may experience a more extended period of induction than during their original transition into the military, and so the goal of educators should be, at least in part, to reduce the length of residence time through close attention to the varied literacies of military service members.
Residence time provides a useful framework for engaging with veterans on college campuses in that it...