Student Resources

2 Bridges Review

The celebrated East River Bridges (Two Bridges) - the Brooklyn and the Manhattan, connect downtown Brooklyn with downtown Manhattan. Between these bridges a community of writers and artists has found a home in the former warehouses and factories of New York's most literary outer borough. Like the artists who make it, the art that lives in these narrow streets goes on its nerve, and we, nerved with newness - and just a bit nervy - want to fill our pages with a distinctive, eclectic assortment of work by both unknown & established writers and artists. View the Site

NANO: New American Notes Online

NANO is an interdisciplinary academic journal whose goal is to invigorate humanities discourse by publishing brief, peer-reviewed reports with a fast turnaround enabled by digital technologies. NANO is an Open Access journal, which means that the editors and contributors of this journal believe that the research, content, and scholarly conversation contained in this journal should be freely available to the public. Open Access is an online philosophy that fosters useful critique and creates a culture of sharing. View the Site

Looking For Whitman

At the conclusion of the 1855 edition of the poem that he later titled "Song of Myself," Walt Whitman advised his readers to "look for me under your bootsoles," suggesting that the dilated, celebratory poetic presence they encountered on the printed page would continue to flower in the landscape around them. This experiment in multi-campus digital pedagogy, "Looking for Whitman: The Poetry of Place in the Life and Work of Walt Whitman," helps students and faculty members from four educational institutions trace the lingering imprints of Whitman's footsteps in the local soil. Utilizing open-source tools to connect classrooms in multiple institutions, the project has created a collaborative online space in which students will be able to research Whitman's connections to their individual locations and share that research with one another in a dynamic, social, web-based learning environment. The project has two foci: engaging participating faculty and students in an active learning experience that connects Whitman's writing to local resources, and creating an open repository of primary source materials from particular locations that Whitman inhabited. View the Site

Every City Tech (and CUNY) student takes English 1101 Composition I, which includes reading and writing assignments that will help prepare you to read and write in a variety of environments: college classes, the workplace, the community. Students work on communicating effectively, building an argument, adapting writing for different needs and situations, interpreting and responding to a text, incorporating and citing secondary source material.

The “Co” in English 1101Co stands for corequisite, and means that alongside English 1101, students dedicate time to building vocabulary and critical reading skills, scaffolding writing assignments, understanding clear sentence structure, and developing habits for collegiate success. Enrollment Requirements: PI of 50-64; or 46-55 on the CUNY Assessment Test in Writing, and/or 46-54 on the ACCUPLACER Reading Test; or grade of 'S' in 090W without writing proficiency and/or grade of 'S' in 090R without reading proficiency.

For more information, contact chellman@citytech.cuny.edu.

Professor Lubie Grujicic-Alatriste, Program Coordinator
Namm Hall, room N 503
718.260.5208
email: esol@citytech.cuny.edu or lalatriste@citytech.cuny.edu

The program in English for speakers of other languages offers specialized courses in the areas of reading, writing (composition/grammar) and speaking skills for non-native speakers. Students are identified as appropriate for courses in ESOL on the basis of the CUNY Assessment Test in Writing (CATW) and in Reading (ACT) and personal interviews at initial advisement. Those who meet the placement criteria on the CUNY Assessment Test in Writing and Reading or are exempt but feel they need additional preparation for college work in English are welcome to inquire about taking these courses as well. The speaking skills course, ESOL 1300, is a credit-bearing course. Courses in writing (composition/ grammar) and reading skills do not carry credit, but do help prepare students for the CUNY Assessment Tests in Writing and Reading as well as for general academic work.

A minimum score of 32 on the CUNY Assessment Test in Writing is required for admission to the ESOL program. Students taking ESOL courses are enrolled in regular full- or part-time College programs. ESOL students with a score less than 32 on the CUNY Assessment Test in Writing will automatically be referred to the CUNY Language Immersion Program (CLIP), where students work full-time on English language skills without being enrolled in College courses.

ESOL courses in writing (composition/grammar) and reading are offered at three levels. Entering students are placed in one of the first two levels of each discipline on the basis of their CUNY Assessment Test scores in Writing and Reading, and then advance to the next level in that discipline as they pass each course. The third level may be entered only by passing the preceding second-level course. Retests in writing and reading are offered at the end of the third-level courses to all students in those courses whose attendance and performance have been satisfactory. Retests may be offered at the end of the second-level courses, by recommendation of the instructor and at the discretion of the ESOL Coordinator, to students whose attendance and performance in those courses has been excellent. Retests are not offered in the first-level courses. Retests are also offered in inter-semester University Summer Immersion Program (USIP) courses and in CLIP. Students exiting those courses are placed in ESOL courses on the basis of their CUNY.

Assessment Test scores. Students who meet the CUNY placement criteria in both writing and reading are eligible to take the credit-bearing ENG 1101, English Composition I, required of all students.

ESOL 1300, Oral Expression for English Language Learners may be taken by any student who is taking any ESOL course, with either reading proficiency or department approval. Students in ESOL 1300 will be evaluated by ESOL faculty, and those with near-native speaking skills may be referred to a comparable course for native speakers.