Many students who are nonnative speakers of English, yet highly proficient, are placed into basic writing or English as a Second Language courses when they enter college. While these students may have advanced oral English proficiency, their writing frequently suffers from a lack of training in academic writing and commonly contains fragments and…

Describes a pilot project conducted at Queensborough Community College which involved teaching summarization skills to students in a required, no-credit reading course. Concludes that summarizing is a viable strategy for improving reading comprehension and recall, while acknowledging the difficulties encountered by both the students and their…

Explains a teaching method which uses students' sentences as examples of faulty writing, provides a clue system which guides students in error diagnosis, and requires the revision of example sentences. Explores the use of the method in developing students' understanding of the importance of revision. (AYC)

Describes a research paper assignment requiring community college students to locate several reviews on a theatrical production and, using critics' opinions as evidence, write a paper to convince readers that they should or should not see that particular show. Offers a rationale for the assignment based on student characteristics and needs. (DMM)

A writing-across-the-curriculum program has been initiated at the East Campus of Pima Community College in an effort to improve student literacy. The program operates in the following manner: (1) faculty in all disciplines on campus are asked to get involved in the program, those who participate being paid a one-time fee of $100 for their efforts;…

Argues that writing to a real audience in the form of a letter is an effective way for students to learn the importance of audience in writing. Stresses the idea that students who are intimidated by the writing process will view letter writing in a more positive light and be more amenable to the learning process. Describes a specific…

Responding to the increasing use of the DACUM (Developing A Curriculum) process as a means of meeting industry demands for relevant curricula, this paper describes an approach supplementing DACUM with direct contact with industry. Following introductory material on the increasing emphasis on meeting industry's needs for training, discussions are…

Offers guidelines on using student journals and microthemes in writing across the curriculum programs, drawing from the experiences of faculty at Queensborough Community College. Includes sample assignments. (DMM)

This packet of competency-based instructional materials was developed for use in all sections of North Shore Community College's developmental composition course. Introductory material traces the development of the competency-based system at the college, which stemmed from a need for a more consistent approach in the composition classes. Next, the…

This digest draws upon the thirteen published volumes of "Inside English" to offer a summary of practitioners' advice on techniques to improve two-year college students' writing skills. First, the paper summarizes underlying principles of writing instruction, indicating that: (1) usage, formal grammar, phonics, and spelling are best…

Community college students tend to perceive a gap between their current writing ability and the level of writing skill they expect to need as employees in the future. Unfortunately, college composition classes generally do a poor job of capitalizing on the true value of writing to career development, and fail to have students practice the kind of…

Discusses the differences between developmental students and their teachers in terms of pragmatism and background. Describes the use of a classroom publishing project, which requires students to contribute articles to the magazine and share editing responsibilities. Discusses the benefits of the approach. (DMM)

Arguing that remedial/developmental students' lack of exposure to the fine arts relegates them to a permanent underclass within the student body, this paper describes the use of poetry, music, and other materials drawn from the fine arts in a remedial writing class. After presenting a rationale for including artistic concerns in the developmental…

The Learning to Write Sentence by Sentence curriculum was developed at the College of Marin (California) to promote increased student awareness of quality in communication by providing concentrated exercise in writing. This self-paced course forces the student to think before writing, by using rhetorical and complicated instructions on how to…

Describes the Language across the Curriculum programs operating at Hostos Community College for English-as-a-Second-Language students; at Miami-Dade Community College for bilingual transfer students; and Dawson College for faculty. (DMM)