This study will analyze the process of revising a first-year writing program at a large Midwestern university. The institutional structure and practice of first-year writing, particularly the connected subject of basic writing, creates a site where many interrelated areas of research converge--disciplinary, pedagogical, institutional, and…

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)

Notes that personal writing continues to proliferate, especially in freshman composition and basic writing courses. Argues that overemphasis on personal writing, on finding a "voice," may become exclusionary rather than liberating. Argues that it is crucial to teach students how to read, react to, and write about anything beyond the…

Presents annotations of 179 writing textbooks (new texts or new editions of previously published texts) having a 1993 copyright date. Includes developmental and ESL writing texts, first-year writing texts, advanced writing texts, special texts, and professional texts. (RS)

Describes the effects of two prewriting strategies for the generation and storage of ideas (external storage and heuristic) on freshman English students' compositions in honors and basic writing classes. Both honors and remedial students produced the best essays when writing under conditions closely approximating their usual prewriting behavior.…

Provides responses by various scholars to two articles on teaching conflict and struggle and its relevance to the field of basic writing published in the December 1992 issue of "College English." (HB)

Offers descriptions of three class activities involving collaboration between basic composition and freshman composition classes, involving magazine production and peer response. (SR)

This collection of essays addresses the anxieties and problems of beginning writing teachers and provides a reality check for those who expect success from "day one." Following an Introduction: "Silences in Our Teaching Stories; What Do We Leave Out and Why?" (Thomas Newkirk), essays in the collection are: (1) "Forty-Eight…

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)

When it comes to "student-centered" teaching, who knows what teachers are talking about? Specifically, the multiple perspectives offered in today's diverse classrooms have rendered such terms slippery and subjective. In a student-centered classroom, to "be" the one who knows what the students are talking about, the writing…

Presents the findings and pedagogical implications of a study that focused on intellectual orientation and multiple-source writing. Suggests that first-year college students who write from multiple sources can approach divergent points of view from a variety of intellectual orientations. (MG)

Questions whether the benefits of separating basic writers into homogeneous classes continue to outweigh the disadvantages. Proposes that teachers gather data about success rates of current basic writing courses (using "mainstreamed" volunteer basic writers) and revise first-year composition courses to ensure they will respond to a wider range of…

Notes that writing instructors want to resist authoritarian classroom arrangements because they want students to be active in their education and in their lives. Describes efforts to develop a "new model of authority, a new space," using peer group leaders, advanced standing students who facilitated writing groups in a first-year basic writing…

Explains how faculty at Quinnipiac College reconceptualized developmental English and designed a new program that provides additional instructional time within the regular freshman English course. Finds that developmental students are better motivated and achieve growth in reading and writing commensurate with students who had a prior semester of…

Discusses the experiences in working with the basic writing curriculum presented in "Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts: Theory and Methods for a Reading and Writing Course." Discusses reasons for selecting "Facts" as a model for the basic writing program and the rationale for making modifications that renders it more applicable…