The value of grammar instruction in improving students' writing has been debated for at least 150 years, and is showing no signs of tiring. But would teaching grammar actually improve writing? In fact, study after study has shown that the study of grammar does not translate to improved student writing. Indeed, the basic skills of writing are not…

While many college students at two-year public colleges need Basic Writing classes before entering college-level writing courses, only 34% have successfully passed their Basic Writing classes (Ternes, 2008). Troyo (2000) maintained that the reason students failed in Basic Writing classes was that more research-based effective teaching strategies…

This article investigates the tendency of those who explore the topic of "electronic literacies" to downplay the fundamental nature and importance of the perceptual habits associated with print literacy, and highlights the opposite tendency of reading and writing specialists to decontextualize the acquisition of these fundamental skills…

Work with 12 students in a basic writing class led to the conclusion that textual analysis alone will not provide basic writing teachers with the information they need to deal effectively with student errors; instead, contextual analysis is needed, an understanding of how students compose and what their guiding concerns and basic problems are.…

Proposes as a follow-up to an article on controlled composition for basic writers a necessary bridge between strict copying and independent composing. (HTH)

Claims recent research involving premature editing--thinking aloud for the study--is too narrow in scope to allow for basic writers whose writing processes do not resemble the model. Using eight basic writers produces evidence to support the claim that many or most basic writers can write without editing prematurely.(NH)

Replicates, using diverse quotations grouped under four metaphors (dreamcatcher, gatekeeper, spider web, safety net) representing the dissonance of the reading/writing processes as they might be experienced by basic skills readers. Questions the relationship of basic skills to its students; implements D. Bartholomae's recommendations to reform of…

A basic skills workshop in teaching writing for secondary school teachers held at the State University of New York at Brockport had a focus radically different from the self-defeating skills-drill remediation usually associated with instruction for "basic writing" students. Four assumptions underlay the workshop sessions: (1) all individuals, even…

Describes a basic writing program which provides an enabling environment to give students opportunities and a plan for composing sentences and texts and interacting with readers, through such techniques as collaborative learning, writing as process, and sentence combining. Offers profiles of typical basic writers including examples of their work.…

Argues that Mina Shaughnessy's view of language as a politically innocent vehicle of meaning overlooks basic writers' need to confront the dissonance they experience between academic and other discourses. Suggests educators need to abandon the limitations of the essentialist view of language informing their pedagogy. (KEH)

While placement procedures and lack of writing skills are certainly perplexing, classroom practices and procedures remain the most fundamental of challenges for the developmental writing instructor for good reason: time-on-task methods are the most direct means by which students improve skill levels. One instructor found that this approach to…

Reviews nine readers for basic writing courses in three categories: reader-rhetoric, readers designed for basic writing classes, and readers adaptable to both freshman composition and basic writing. States that texts should offer prose models and topics for composition as well as offering a selection appropriate to students who have difficulty…

Examines the extent to which asking 20 entry-level and 19 basic-level college writing students to articulate their initial intentions for writing facilitated the identification of 3 kinds of instructional problems students face in moving from intentions to texts. Suggests that students with useful initial intentions write more effective texts than…

One way to help basic writers become more effective writers is to encourage them to consider and write about what they do in writing--the problems they face and the satisfactions they glean. Using a scheme that involves using a hierarchy of stages of abstraction in discourse, students can be led to development of their writing skills. One such…

The authors assert that school writing programs inhibit students through meaningless topic assignments and emphasis on the technical aspects of transcription rather than the really basic skill of composing. They describe a first-grade classroom ideal for writing instruction, where the teacher collaborates in children's writing, instead of teaching…