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 collaborative writing intervention in one CUNY community college examined the effectiveness of mixing English language learners (ELLs) and native English speakers (NES) in advanced-level developmental writing courses. We describe the translingual approach to curriculum and intervention along with promising developmental education practices.…

Since high school students are failing to master writing proficiency, developmental writing programs at the college level have become increasingly necessary. This article explains the lack of readiness with which students are entering college and the workplace, examines the reasons students are having trouble writing, and describes elements of…

This article presents the results of three comparative analyses on forty-seven student papers in order to examine the effectiveness of a basic writing course in developing students' academic writer identity. The course curriculum, grounded in social identity theory, focuses on the core writing concepts and dispositions that promote writer…

Some teaching strategies grow out of the curricula educators inherit or develop through professional reading; others originate in the aromatic humus of their autobiographies. This article presents a proposal that has its origins in the latter. The author recognized that what delights her in prose or poetry is the figurative language a writer uses…

In basic writing classrooms and scholarship, reading too often remains invisible; neither research nor established practice provides tangible activities to support reading and connect it to writing. This article documents a search for structured, scaffolded, low-stakes reading activities, a search that moves off the college campus and into the…

The current study examined differences in student performance and retention rates for those who completed remedial reading or remedial writing courses and those who did not in a private university in South Florida. International students also were compared to non-international students on academic performance and retention rates. The conceptual…

The education of under-prepared college students is a topic that interested and motivated this researcher to conduct a study on learning communities and measuring change in writing apprehension and locus of control of developmental students at a community college. Higher education is generally viewed as a place for the intellectually elite.…

Background/Context: Twenty percent of first-year students in public 4-year institutions and 42% of first-year students in public 2-year institutions in the United States enroll in remedial courses. Yet despite widespread remediation across U.S. colleges and universities, there remains a great deal of uncertainty about how remedial courses develop…

Presents a developmental perspective on text construction, understood as managing information within and across sentence boundaries. Claims that the systematicity in non-standard constructions in basic writer's texts reflects student awareness of three obligatory areas of information management in texts: topic management, reference tracking, and…

Describes the problems some basic writing students have had generating ideas for writing in response to timed essay tests. Proposes a technique based on the classical notion of the "topoi," which enables students to generate ideas and equips them for participation in the social and political dialogs they encounter in higher education.…

Describes a language pedagogy which can help basic writers to understand language's potential to shape, not just to convey information about, social experience. States that students from diverse backgrounds can then more effectively critique the relationships of language's uses in a variety of social contexts. (PA)

Posits that basic writing serves a vital function by providing writing support for at-risk students and serves the needs of a growing student population that universities accept yet feel needs additional writing instruction. Concludes that the basic writing classroom is the most effective educational support for at-risk students and their writing.…

Course designs for Basic English Writing classes vary from one course to another. The objective of this study was to investigate the semantic misinterpretation of English words found in the English compositions written by native-Chinese-speaking undergraduate students and to overcome if such a barrier occurred in the process of writing. First,…

Details, in a personal narrative, some techniques which have proved effective for enabling student success in the basic writing classroom. (PA)