Provides the rationale for an open composition laboratory, such as the one at Auburn University, within a remedial freshman English program. Suggests guidelines for the design and implementation of such a laboratory. (RL)

As part of the development of a university-wide writing program at the University of Michigan, a study was undertaken to judge the effectiveness of various composition courses. A pretest consisting of a writing sample was given to 3,913 entering students and evaluated. Students were then assigned to a regular composition class, to a tutorial…

Writing programs and their directors have taken on a new importance because writing has become more necessary to society. However, the status of the writing program in the modern university is usually low and its financial support tenuous. (MLW)

West Chester State College's pilot project to improve writing builds on writing skills established in the freshman English courses and extends these skills through writing practice and instruction in the humanities and other disciplines. Obstacles encountered in developing the program, program design, instructional techniques, and spinoff projects…

Eastern Michigan University's opportunity program for underprepared students, called the Promote Academic Survival and Success (PASS) program, is described. The improvement of the students' reading and writing skills was emphasized. This was seen as the most direct way for the students' to achieve academic competence and self-integration. (MLW)

Describes a program for writing across the curriculum that involves English majors tutoring students in other disciplines. (HTH)

A difficult task facing college English departments is the creation of a freshman English program that is coherent and theoretically sound and which allows instructors a certain flexibility. Recently, the English department at Francis Marion College undertook a major revision of its freshman program with these goals in mind. The result was a…

The English department of a technical college has developed a writing program that uses real audiences and real situations to better prepare students for the communication requirements of their professions. The exercises for each class are focused on the course content. In an advanced technical communication course, senior design, the students are…

Following a discussion of problems involved in using composition research, this paper describes six categories of research from which a taxonomy of compositional competencies may be abstracted: studies of rhetoric and discourse structure, developmental research, research on the composing process, research on various practice activities other than…

FOR A REPORT ON COLLEGE PROGRAMS IN FRESHMAN COMPOSITION, THE ASSOCIATION OF DEPARTMENTS OF ENGLISH OBTAINED SYLLABI AND COURSE DESCRIPTIONS FROM DIRECTORS OF FRESHMAN COMPOSITION IN 66 COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. AMONG THE DATA ASSEMBLED FOR THE FULL REPORT (AVAILABLE AS TE 500 190) ARE THE DESCRIPTIONS OF FRESHMAN ENGLISH COURSES AT NINE…

FOR A REPORT ON COLLEGE PROGRAMS IN FRESHMAN COMPOSITION, THE ASSOCIATION OF DEPARTMENTS OF ENGLISH OBTAINED SYLLABI AND COURSE DESCRIPTIONS FROM DIRECTORS OF FRESHMAN COMPOSITION AT 66 COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. AMONG THE DATA ASSEMBLED FOR THE FULL REPORT (AVAILABLE AS TE 500 190) ARE THE DESCRIPTIONS OF FRESHMAN ENGLISH PROGRAMS AT THE SEVEN…

Intended for writing instructors and content instructors who require writing in their courses, this document describes a college's writing skills assessment program and reviews the implications of a campus-wide approach to evaluating writing. The paper emphasizes that the scoring of placement and developmental English exit exams is done by the…

A questionnaire sent to universities across the United States, asking for information about remedial English programs, yielded responses from 85 universities. Analysis of the responses resulted in the formulation of seven rules for organizing a successful remedial English course: (1) Don't bind the course to a textbook. (2) Aim the course toward…

Essays and reports useful to English teachers are collected under four headings: (1) "Issues and Problems" contains a 1959 report on the basic issues of teaching English, the Report of the Language Committee of the School and College Conference on English (April 1940), and the Report of the Literature Committee of the School and College Conference…

Detailed analyses are given of the most effective teaching techniques in each of four major basic skills areas: writing, reading, English as a second language, and mathematics. Six basic questions are addressed for each area: (1) What are the objectives of skills programs in this area? (2) What are the different skills levels of entering students,…