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,…

Tracing the correspondence composition courses taught at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill from 1912 to 1924, this essay argues that examining distance education in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can reveal possible problems or solutions to issues composition instructors face in twenty-first-century debates about moving…

For the forty-third time, the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented online during the annual AECT Convention. Volume 1 contains 37 papers dealing primarily with research and development topics. Papers dealing with the…

Investigates specific writing skills of both native and nonnative business students to see whether traditional instruction in grammar prepares students for business communication classes and the corporate world. Finds that, although most students passed objective grammar and punctuation tests (and the two groups showed no statistical differences),…

Describes how a computerized environment supplemented traditional undergraduate courses in English literature and composition at the University of Florida, and was developed with a grant from IBM. Highlights include the use of MOO (multi-user, object-oriented) space; student assignments; the client-server setting; and student and teacher…

A 16-week study to investigate the effects that two methods of teaching writing had on writing apprehension and on overall quality and length of student writing involved over 100 college freshmen enrolled in English Composition classes. Except for the methods of writing instruction, both control and experimental group conditions were held…

Twenty-eight composition teachers at a large university, a two-year college, and an engineering college, all of whom had taught composition through both the tutorial method and typical classroom methods, were interviewed regarding advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches. Among the advantages of tutorials mentioned were the chance to…

College freshmen practicing rhetorically based sentence combining for a semester proved superior to conventionally trained students in both quality and syntactic maturity of writing. After 28 months, on a post test, intergroup differences were no longer statistically significant. (This study report includes a research review and experimental and…

The writing center at Bluefield State College (West Virginia) is called the SPICE Center, SPICE being an acronym for Self Paced Instruction for Competency in English. In addition to emphasizing skill acquisition and flexibility, it stresses face-to-face evaluation of written work, and places heavy emphasis on writing as process instead of writing…

Although writing today generally is perceived as process, college English departments are still deeply rooted in the concept of writing as product. Hiring depends upon product in terms of letters of inquiry, vitae, and credentials; retention, promotion, and merit raises rest on product in the form of publications, grants, awards, and teacher…

Intended as a comprehensive textbook for preservice teachers, this book aims to present a thoughtful, balanced approach to the teaching of reading and writing, incorporating the best of both traditional and holistic practices. It incorporates the teaching of both skills and strategies within a literature-based reading perspective, and is intended…