The two-year institution where I teach first-year composition serves multilingual students who excel, keep pace, or fall behind. In addition to these students, there are one or two whom I identify as "promising but struggling multilinguals." While this small but everpresent contingent attend regularly, submit work somewhat consistently,…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, institutional parameters shifted unexpectedly, which influenced how writing instructors took up and taught their courses. This article reflects on an instructor's experience teaching a corequisite support course during the pandemic, utilizing the concept of liminality, as basic writing scholarship draws on various…

The author argues that significant inroads in the destigmatization of basic writing courses and students can be made when students are asked to choose not only which FYW course they believe best meets their needs (directed self-placement, or DSP) but also to choose from among a variety of courses (including corequisite courses, particularly those…

After eliminating a developmental writing course and creating an accelerated "Studio" composition course for basic writers, I investigated these students' needs (uninterrupted time, quiet spaces, social support, and academic help) and the resources that met those needs. Qualitative analysis of interviews with forty-nine students…

This narrative essay describes a basic writing instructor's engagement with student confusion in a hybrid Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) course. The story examines the ways confusion can mark sites of engagement for students and teachers and how ALP courses, in particular, might mediate effective (and ineffective) forms of confusion.

This article argues that the national trend to replace developmental writing programs with mainstreaming and corequisite courses presents an important opportunity to reconsider writing goals and assessment practices for all students. This insight emerges in part from data collected over several semesters at one community college, which showed that…

At a four-year public comprehensive university in 2017, a mandated attempt to implement a corequisite model for Basic Writing education challenged assumptions about the types of students enrolled in the existing program. Students, who by institutional placement measures (ACT scores) would be placed in First-Year Writing, were voluntarily enrolling…

In the context of ongoing discussions about student costs of non-credit developmental writing, this study reports on the affordances of Basic Writing as a traditional, stand-alone course at a career-focused, four-year university. Participants were students who took Basic Writing and Composition 1 between Fall 2011 and Spring 2013 (N = 2,693) in…

Presents a response to Joseph Harris's article in this issue. Acknowledges that differences in opinion were less in principle and more in what they emphasized in their respective essays. Suggests that communities have possibilities for opening different sorts of spaces on university campuses. (SG)

Describes some of the thinking behind learning communities, how they have been defined, and considers why they can be effective. Suggests a direction that educators might go to rehabilitate the idea of learning communities because it represents something fundamentally good about human beings in their relations with one another. (SG)

Examines the concept of intellectual development, focusing on how differences in writing reflect different developmental models, such as those developed by Piaget and Vygotsky. Discusses the consequences of developmental models on theories of composition and the function of narrative. (MM)

Argues that the kinds of problems Harvard "basic writers" have are different in degree, but not in kind, from problems of less accomplished student writers elsewhere, from problems all student writers have from time to time, and from the problems experienced adult writers confront in unfamiliar or difficult writing situations. (RS)

Suggests that a new elitism seeks to abandon the required freshman composition course and placement tests. Argues, based on two studies, for placement into the course. Argues that the effect of a placement program, followed by a careful instructional program, is to allow many students who would otherwise leave school to continue successfully in…

Describes how journals can be used to explore students' perceptions of self and society. Analyzes ("deconstructs") student journal entries to examine the language used to express experiences, and notes that encouraging students to examine their own entries helps them find language that more closely coincides with their realities. (MM)

Analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of a project that used a peer group leader to help build bridges between basic writers and academic writers. Discusses the implications for the further use of peer group leaders in basic writing. (NH)