Despite the push for all institutions of higher learning to embrace a corequisite model for writing instruction, there is limited evidence that suggests this model is desirable for all students. This study seeks to expand our understanding of the characteristics of students enrolled in Basic Writing at a 4-year comprehensive university, and the…

This article uses Zak Lancaster's 2016 discovery that academics do not actually write the way "They Say/I Say" says they do to reflect on relations between, on the one hand, facts about academic writing and, on the other, the pedagogical values that underlie and guide those facts--or, put another way, to reflect on how values we may…

This article argues the importance of designing writing placement procedures that support linguistic diversity at community colleges. Using data on community college writing programs and student demographics at an urban community college, it examines prevailing structures of ESL and developmental writing programs at two-year schools and identifies…

This article writes the histories of CUNY Open Admissions and hiphop toward each other, illuminating both. Bringing Open Admissions to bear on hiphop history helps us see that, while historians locate the birth of hiphop culture in a 1970s New York gutted by divestment and displacement, in fact the decade before hiphop's birth was characterized by…

Scholars such as Diane Kelly-Riley and Patricia Bizzell have argued that the student writing feature most likely to place a student into a basic writing course is the presence of dialect other than standard academic English. This essay examines how assessment practices can foster students' diverse languages rather than inhibit them. I conducted a…

In this essay I conduct a Critical Discourse Analysis of the language surrounding the California State University (CSU) Chancellor's Office latest plan to curb remediation, the Early Start program. I consider Early Start in the context of what I argue is the evolution of three major frameworks for Basic Writing in the CSU: the CSU Chancellor's…

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,…

This article explores one basic writer's evolution as he moves from the lowest level of developmental English at a community college to graduate with a Bachelor's degree. Combining personal narrative, essay excerpts, and textual analysis, this piece aims to expand the borders of scholarship in composition studies to include basic writers as…

In 2012, the State of Connecticut enacted Public Act 12-40, legislation that dramatically changed the way remedial education was theorized, designed, and delivered at community colleges and regional state universities in Connecticut. One of the most controversial features of this legislative movement was that it appeared to establish a…

This article discusses basic writing pedagogy at a two-year tribal college, an institution type that has not been visible in the basic writing literature to date. In many tribal college contexts, socioeconomic challenges, under-resourced K-12 schools, and linguistic diversity all contribute to high student placement rates into…

Basic writing instruction at the University of Pittsburgh is offered through a three-hour writing course, a six-hour reading and writing course, and a voluntary writing workshop. Work in these courses involves students in studying their own writing as they attempt new perspectives and gather new information. (RL)

Describes a weekly vocabulary assignment for college students with poor reading skills and shows how it provides incidental reading and writing benefits. (RL)

Gives a step-by-step description of the two years of research and testing that preceded the opening of the Ohio State University Writing Workshop, and a report on the current activities of the workshop. (RL)

Discusses the characteristics of the ideal basic writing instructor, including commitment, curiosity, and confidence. Describes some of the ways in which the Ohio State University faculty has tried to foster these characteristics in its basic writing instructors. (HTH)

Describes both past and more recent efforts by the California State University (CSU) system to come to terms with "remediation." Describes recently mandated collaborations between high school language arts faculty and CSU English faculty to reduce the need for remediation. Describes an ongoing outreach program addressing the needs of…