This profile describes the first three years of initiating new writing-intensive seminars for the General Education curriculum at a small, career-focused, Catholic University. The primary reason for implementing the program was to initiate new writing-intensive seminars to replace existing writing-intensive General Education introductory courses…

Over the years, a number of interventions aimed at increasing student engagement and performance have been implemented in higher education. Some of these, labeled high-impact practices (HIPs), when done well, have led to documented evidence of student success. Two approaches that have been identified as HIPs--first-year seminars and learning…

Although teacher commentary on student papers and students' revisions have been investigated separately, the relationship between commentary and revision has not been much studied. Such a gap in the research leaves the nature of the progression from effective commentary to substantive revision obscure. This article describes a mixed method study,…

A qualitative case study design was used to explore the use of the think-aloud reading comprehension strategy in the implementation of math journals. The goal of the study was to determine if a teacher's direct instruction in the implementation of think-alouds improved "at risk" eighth-graders' abilities to answer word problems more…

This article reports a study that examines the efforts of one school--Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania--to improve student writing in first-year learning communities by promoting so-called process-based writing pedagogy outside of writing classes. Administrators encouraged instructors of subject-matter classes to integrate the…

With more frequency, writing associates (WA) are being placed into courses where the goals for writing include learning to write for a particular discipline. As WAC directors we negotiate the different expectations from professors and students that exist within this context. This article introduces a two-year case study of an introductory biology…

By examining her experience directing an online writing across the curriculum course at the University of Pennsylvania, Peshe Kuriloff identifies elements of e-pedagogy that can lead to more effective teaching strategies. Kuriloff's carefully designed course provides structure and clarity, flexible instruction and accountability, collaboration…

A writing course (adapted from Eliot Wigginton's "Foxfire" method) for college freshmen and sophomores is taught in a way that is not only important to the students concerned but to their community--a valley in the "rust belt" of Pennsylvania--as a whole. The course differs from the usual writing-in-the-social-sciences course…

A group of reading teachers at a Pennsylvania middle school was charged with developing a uniform reading program and selecting reading materials to meet their students' needs. This article describes the committee's work, focusing on the selection and adaption of a whole-language basal-reading program that incorporates writing and other language…