Who are we?
The JCCC English Department’s composition sequence guides students in setting a foundation for expressing arguments in writing, but we’re much more than that. The English Department represents a discipline that is heir to nearly 3000 years of literature and the art of rhetoric, and as such we offer students opportunities to find their own voice in their own writing and to discover the voices of others in the texts of those long dead.
We are committed to helping students on all levels of writing, from crafting effective sentences to creating groundbreaking research projects, from technical writing to creative writing, from digital narratives to writing for interactive media. We run the full gamut of college writing:
- our developmental classes—Writing Strategies and Introduction to Writing—hone the basic writing skills needed to perform college-level work
- Composition I and Composition II are by far our most popular courses, primarily because they are prerequisites for so many other courses and requirements for most college degrees (both at JCCC and elsewhere), but we don’t stop there—we also offer Technical Writing and Advanced Composition
- we foster creativity through our traditional Creative Writing courses (Creative Writing, Creative Writing Workshop) and cutting-edge writing courses that focus on Interactive Media and Digital Narratives
In our literature classes, we study everything from the Bible as literature to the literature of American pop music, from Homer and Shakespeare to science fiction and children’s lit. While our freshman-level Introduction to Literature gives students an overview of the study of literature, touching on poetry, fiction and drama, in our 200-level courses, students can focus on
- Genre (Introduction to Fiction; Introduction to Poetry; Drama as Literature; Masterpieces of Cinema)
- Geography (American Literature I and II; British Literature I and II; World Masterpieces)
- Pop Culture (Literature of Science Fiction; Literature of American Pop Music)
- Diversity (Writing by Women; U.S. Latino and Latina Literature; the Bible as Literature)
- and so much more!
The English Department has a strong commitment to diversity of all kinds and a mission to understand perspectives from all angles—race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, religious and atheist, parochial and cosmopolitan, ancient and current—a commitment evidenced not only in classes such as Literature by Women and U.S. Latino and Latina Literature, but also in the syllabi for more general classes such as Introduction to Literature and Drama as Literature.
The faculty of the JCCC English Department is marked by intellectual curiosity, creative endeavors, a commitment to students and to our discipline, and an unending drive to connect the local to the universal, the subjective to the objective, the me to the we, and the us to the them. Our faculty’s cumulative college-teaching experience literally stretches into centuries, and we’ve been fortunate enough to gather a community of experts not only in Composition & Rhetoric, but also in a wide array of literature, creative writing, and film. We take great pride in being an integral part of student success long after the student has taken his or her last Comp class, but we are also proud to offer one of the most dynamic curricula not only at JCCC, but in the Kansas City metropolitan area. We offer students a simple transaction: a semester that takes a few months for an education that lasts a whole life.
English Department Mission
The mission of the English Department is to teach effective communication, with an emphasis on improved writing, reading, verbal, and interpretive skills; to encourage critical thinking and information seeking from both primary and secondary sources (including online); to promote a broadened world view through the study of literature; and to foster collaborative learning and the use of computers as resource. In fostering these skills and attitudes, the program fulfills the four aims of general education: development of a point of view, acquisition of essential knowledge, adherence to important principles, and development of skills or competencies.
The English / Journalism Division is located in LIB 342
Campus Mailbox: 80
Faculty Mailboxes: LIB 342
On the JCCC map . . . .
Dean of English and Journalism: Brian Shawver
LIB 342E, 913-469-8500, ext. 3765
English Department Chair: Andrea Broomfield
GEB 165J. 913-469-8500, ext. 2203.
English Department Administrator: Sheila Rader
LIB 342, 913-469-8500, Box 80
English Department Full-time Faculty Listing, including Office Hours and Numbers.