While basic writing has made a public turn by incorporating service learning and community literacy pedagogies, basic writers are not often discussed in the vast and growing research on public writing in composition studies. Scholarship on public writing in composition has produced important discussions of the outcomes of public writing pedagogy,…

This essay describes the process of reassessing our BW program at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in order to cultivate a more deliberate, transparent negotiation among stakeholders toward a "transcultural ethos." Informed by Bruce Horner's argument that leading-edge work on language and language difference can take place in BW, we…

This article examines two course redesigns undertaken to improve student support, learning, and retention in the basic writing program at Oakland University, a doctoral research university in southeast Michigan, where support for developmental writers has fluctuated dramatically between nurture and neglect over the past fifty years. However,…

Notes that Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) is growing at a perceived time of crisis in education and perceived strengthening of the forces of globalization. Suggests WAC should tinker with its existing techniques to promote critical thinking in even the most basic exercises. Concludes that in doing so, it can help students develop into…

Discusses the implications of considering different writing components (lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical) separately, in an effort to avoid problems of writing evaluation. Proposes that instead of "balancing" these components, teachers should separate them in working to establish curricula for English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students. (MM)

Discusses how examination of the assessment criteria in a basic writing program prompted fruitful, continuing program evaluation and change. Reports that the assessment study validated efforts to deemphasize grammar and spelling instruction in basic writing courses. (MM)

Examines research on cultural literacy (knowledge of what others know) and relates this research to writing skills and the teaching of writing. (RL)

Responds to a call for proof of the effectiveness of the basic writing program at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, and documents a marked increase in the success rate of basic writers after the program had shifted from a traditional product centered course to a process course. (RS)