Research on Honors Composition, 2004–2015

The spring/summer 2004 issue of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (JNCHC) was devoted exclusively to research in honors education. The issue was divided into three sections: the introductory Forum on Research in Honors, which revisited three essays published in Forum for Honors in 1984 and included two 2004 responses; Research in Honors; and Research about Honors. After I had revised my dissertation for the 2003 NCHC monograph Honors Composition: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Practices, I incorporated some of my unused dissertation material for two pieces in the issue, one being a response essay in the Forum, “Research in Honors and Composition,” and the other an article in the Research in Honors section, “Faculty Compensation and Course Assessment in Honors Composition,” using material that my dissertation director thought was too political to survive the dissertation defense

Honors Is a Good Fit for Gifted Students— Or Maybe Not

In the field of composition studies, a core pedagogical objective is to familiarize students with types of argumentation strategies, such as causation, evaluation, narration, rebuttal, and definition. Introducing definition arguments in their textbook Good Reasons: Researching and Writing Effective Arguments, Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer state that “[d]efinition arguments set out criteria and then argue whatever is being defined meets or does not meet those criteria. Rarely do you get far into an argument without having to define something” (97). They identify three categories of definition—formal, operational, and by example—and then apply these to sample documents. For my honors composition course, I begin class discussion of definitional argument by writing this thesis statement on the board: “Honors programs are not a good fit for gifted students.” Initially, students are resistant: “Aren’t gifted and honors the same thing?” “Don’t all gifted students go into honors anyway?” I explain that we must examine definitions for gifted and honors to identify the similarities and differences, not only in intellectual ability but in other areas such as motivation and emotionality. I also admit to them that the idea that gifted students might not naturally fit into honors had not occurred to me until I attended Anne N. Rinn’s 2004 NCHC conference session, “Should Gifted Students Join an Honors Program?” Rinn acknowledged a lack of empirical research supporting the premise that gifted students fit well into honors programs and used her dissertation as an occasion to contribute needed empirical support in favor of their joining

Using Issues in Honors Education to Teach Argumentation

Topics and resources from honors education are used to teach argumentation in writing composition. The author discusses efficacies for increasing student awareness of, and reflection on, issues in honors education while engaging first-year students in honors issues that directly affect their lives. In my first-year honors composition course, I frequently use materials and topics from honors education, ranging from National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) publications to local campus honors issues, to demonstrate rhetorical analysis and argumentative genres. Rather than using a composition reader, I pair textbook chapters with relevant websites and selected essays from Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (JNCHC) and Honors in Practice (HIP), thus forming the basis for class discussion and in-class writing exercises for units on causal argument, rebuttal argument, definition argument, and so forth. For example, a textbook chapter on narrative argument pairs well with Bonnie D. Irwin’s 2011 NCHC presidential address, “We Are the Stories We Tell,” published in the 2012 volume of HIP

AP, Dual Enrollment, and the Survival of Honors Education

At the NCHC annual conferences, in publications, and on the discussion list, honors educators frequently compare admissions criteria for individual programs and colleges, including minimum ACT and SAT scores, high school coursework and GPAs, and AP and IB credits and scores. In light of the seismic issues NCHC has faced over the past two decades—significant restructuring of governance, establishment of a central office, the accreditation debate—matters of admissions criteria and freshmen with incoming credits seem mundane, but a new admissions crisis has begun to emerge in the honors community. In an increasing number of states, legislatures are mandating uniform minimum AP and dual enrollment credits that public colleges and universities must accept, and consequently the honors students we have admitted based in part on their willingness to take on challenging coursework such as AP classes are now struggling to find enough liberal-arts-based honors electives to complete an honors program

Faculty as Honors Problem Solvers

Postsecondary honors educators are adept at identifying problems and proposing solutions in honors education, but they may not disseminate their solutions effectively. This essay argues that honors administrators should familiarize themselves with the professional and scholarly resources that NCHC institutional membership affords, and then they should share what they have learned with honors teaching faculty. Rather than simply serving as advisors on administrative and programmatic issues, honors faculty also need the tools and opportunities to be effective honors problem solvers for day-to-day pedagogical issues

Research in Honors and Composition

Throughout higher education, hundreds of writing programs at two-year, four-year, and graduate degree-granting institutions offer special honors sections of composition courses, many in conjunction with their institutions’ own honors programs. The wide and varied body of scholarship, however, that comprises composition theory and pedagogy contains very little discussion of honors composition at the college level. At the elementary and secondary levels, journals dedicated to gifted education, such as Roeper Review and Gifted Child Quarterly, regularly feature articles focused on research and pedagogical practices in teaching writing to gifted children. The two-year college level has produced a few pieces that focus on honors courses, such as Jean B. Bridges’ “Honors Composition: A Possible Alternative in the Two-Year College.” Aside from sporadic articles, though, such as Kenneth Bruffee’s “Making the Senior Thesis Work,” published in 1993 in Forum for Honors, those who teach honors composition at four-year and graduate degree-granting schools have few resources from which to draw

Faculty Compensation and Course Assessment in Honors Composition

When my National Collegiate Honors Council monograph Honors Composition: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Practices was in its dissertation stage, an early draft contained information about potential administrative problems in offering honors composition courses. The initial questionnaire did not include specific questions regarding administrative concerns, but I was prompted to include such questions in the follow-up interviews after receiving a somewhat troubling email message from a questionnaire respondent, an excerpt of which is included here: Our program is so different from those typically offered that I am not sure if any of our answers would be relevant to your concerns. Because our mandate was to create a program which would not result in special courses provided only to honors students, the powers (power, really) insist that anything smacking of “elitism” is verboten. In addition there is no separate budget or staff; the program simply offers an honors “option” to regularly scheduled classes. This means that each semester a number and variety of General Education courses will be offered with an honors option. Since these classes are part of the regular curriculum, the option for honors is technically open to anyone (thus the claim is made that this program is inclusive)

Can Faculty Afford Honors?

In “Costs and Benefits in the Economy of Honors,” Richard Badenhausen identifies several pressing issues regarding the economic status of honors in the current financial climate of higher education, including the role of faculty in addressing those issues. The crux of his argument regarding faculty seems to be that faculty are generally unaware of the budgetary issues involved in administering an honors program. For instance, he states that his work with the admissions office on the costs of recruitment strategies has given him a “much deeper appreciation of the economy of honors education even though this is not knowledge that many of my fellow faculty members seem to share.” As a non-administrative faculty member myself, I would argue that honors program directors should take the initiative in ensuring that honors faculty are informed about and invited to participate in discussions concerning the program’s financial status. By opening these lines of communication, honors directors can also become more intimately aware of the increasingly difficult professional decisions that faculty have to make as a result of the “new normal” economy. If funding is, as Badenhausen argues, “always sloshing around in the institutional coffers,” then honors directors should consider allocating some of these funds to enhance faculty knowledge about the economics of honors in the following ways

Why Honors Students Still Need First-Year Composition

Let me be among the first to welcome you to the honors program at Regional Public University. During your orientation today, you will be registering for your fall semester courses, and as you browse through the class listings, let me strongly recommend that you include first-year Honors Composition in your schedule even if you have taken AP English Literature and Composition or English Language and Composition courses and exams. According to the College Board, the company that administers the Advanced Placement program, enrollment in AP has increased dramatically over the past decade. As you can see in Table 1 below, the number of high schools offering AP exams to one or more students has increased by 34%, and the number of colleges accepting AP credit has increased by 27%. At the same time, the number of students participating in the AP program has increased 140%, and the number of AP examinations has increased 155%