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Over 1.4 million high school students enroll in college-credit-bearing courses yearly and 80% of that instruction occurs on secondary campuses under the tutelage of high school teachers (US Dept. of Education). Since First-Year Writing remains a common choice among enrollees, Concurrent Enrollment (CE) classrooms present a unique space for inquiry and collaboration into the quality and rigor of CE writing instruction. This study investigates CE writing instructors' definitions of "rigor" in the college writing classroom and explores the training and support provided to CE writing instructors representing two- and four-year higher education institutions in Ohio. Findings suggest that on-going discipline-specific professional development can lead to definitions of rigor in high school writing spaces that align to postsecondary standards. This study also demonstrates that disparity exists in instructor preparation and support, especially in regard to discipline-specific training that could help close gaps in writing instruction.
In 2014, the State General Assembly of Ohio charged then chancellor John Carey with transforming Ohio's dual credit system "into a highly effective and indispensable component of the state's education infrastructure" (Ohio Board of Regents 5). The result, College Credit Plus (CCP), became Ohio's answer to more robust dual enrollment programs that potentially situated other states' students "with competitive advantages that exceed[ed] Ohio students" (6-7). Since the inception of CCP in 2015, Ohio has grown its dual enrollment population from 54,053 students to 71,485 in 2017-18 ("College Credit Plus" 5). Delivery varies, with the majority of students taking courses in a high school setting with a high school instructor (36.2 percent) or college instructor (8.9 percent). Courses are also delivered on the college campus (37 percent) and online (17.9 percent) (6). It is worth noting that eligible seventh and eighth graders may take CCP courses; however, those students "comprise fewer than 400 of the 71,485 (0.005 percent) enrolled [in 2017-18]" (7).
Although nearly half (45.1 percent) of all dual enrollment students in the state of Ohio take college courses at their respective high schools, the US Department of Education reports a much higher rate nationally: 80 percent of "[s]tudents who took courses for postsecondary credit while in high school most commonly took those courses at their own high school" (n.p.). This subcategory of dual enrollment, known as concurrent enrollment (CE),...