This program profile demonstrates how the first-year writing program at Oakland University has engaged contingent faculty in research, assessment, and program development over the years, employing evidence-based practices to improve individual classroom instruction and to redesign the entire first-year curriculum. The authors describe their…

A year-long exploratory project examined how well students could effectively respond to a piece of first-year writing using an articulated framework--Assignment, Focus, Organization, Support, and Proofreading (AFOSP). The students in these small-group writing tutorials received peer-facilitated support while they were enrolled in first-year…

Every year approximately 1,300 first-year students at the Rochester Institute of Technology complete a 50-minute placement essay during summer and fall orientations. The essays are scored holistically, and the students are placed into one of three levels of an English composition course. At the end of the 10-week quarter of instruction, students…

Describes how three faculty members created a learning community at a nonresidential campus by creating and teaching a linked block of three core-curriculum courses (Composition 1, Speech Communication, and Cultural Anthropology) for incoming freshman students. Relates first-day class activities, describes the linking of assignments and communal…