Student writers labeled "underprepared" by colleges often have trouble imagining themselves as scholars. Challenges these students routinely encounter include difficulty forming original insights and translating ideas to the page. Although the usage of the term "underprepared" varies across institutional contexts, the…

As an instructor of the developmental reading and writing course at Texas State University, Barrie McGee is required per state mandate to design a course as an accelerated version of an integrated reading and writing (IRW) course. Furthermore, she is uniquely positioned as a student enrolled in the program in developmental education to access…

Acceleration reduces the time and/or course sequence in developmental education (DE), allowing students to enroll in gateway courses more quickly and/or co-enroll in the first college-level English course while taking the remedial course (Venezia & Hughes, 2013). Texarkana College (TC) piloted an Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) with a 12:1…

Katie Hern is an English Instructor at Chabot College and Co-Founder of the California Acceleration Project (CAP), a professional development network that supports the state's 113 community colleges to transform remediation and increase student completion and equity. Hern speaks nationally on remediation reform and integrated reading and writing.…

Only 25% to 38% of secondary education graduates in the United States are proficient readers or writers but many continue to postsecondary education, where they take developmental education courses designed to help them improve their basic academic skills. However, outcomes are poor for this population, and one problem may be that approaches to…

Almost two-thirds of students who enter community colleges every year are judged to be academically not ready to engage in college-level coursework. In order to enroll, these students typically must take one or more "remedial" or "developmental" math or English courses that will not count toward their college degree. The…

Graduate students are typically expected to know how to write. Those who write poorly are occasionally penalized, but little in-class attention is given to help students continue to develop and refine their writing skills. More often than not, writing courses at the graduate level are remedial programs designed for international students and…

Describes the use of speech communication activities as springboards for writing assignments. Focuses on interviewing, storytelling, role-playing, letter-writing, and nonverbal communication exercises. Concludes that such prewriting activities help remedial writing students in organizing thoughts, generating information, interacting with peers and…

Describes a locally developed writing program that includes a diagnostic device for pretesting and posttesting, a writing skills checklist, an individualized educational program format, a series of parent notification letters, and a remediation system involving all staff members. (Author/IRT)

Describes a writing program for kindergarten through grade 12, including a curriculum outline from writing readiness to maturity. (AEA)

One of four reports describing the basic skills programs in writing, reading, English as a second language, and mathematics at the City University of New York (CUNY), this volume describes the writing aspect of the program--including content, structure, methodology, and support services--at nine senior colleges and eight community colleges in the…

Traces the evolution of the basic writing program at the University of Louisville, as related by its first seven directors. Concludes that pedagogical and political strategies that worked took advantage of the academic and student community around them; unsuccessful ideas were those imposed without consideration of local context. (SR)

Describes a systematic intervention program used at the University of New Haven which increased the persistence of developmental composition students using seminars on goal setting, learning styles, time management, and career planning and informal counseling by mentors to meet students' affective and academic needs. (DMM)

Looks at the notion of the democratic public sphere as a useful construct for collaborative practices in portfolio classrooms. Describes the author's efforts to foster democratic participation by situating portfolio talk and assessment within the public space of one developmental writing classroom. Describes conflicts unseen until the end of the…

When teaching remedial writing in a correctional facility, a teacher may carry assumptions shaped by formal education that do not always translate to a prison context. These include the idea that the classroom will provide a sphere of intellectual activity, immune from heavy-handed institutional intrusions; that students will want to get to know…