If assessment is about improving learning and facilitating better teaching through research and helping students learn what higher education purports to value, then the often-invisible institutional barriers that do not always embrace the ways in which classroom assessment can teach an institution about student learning within individual…

Explores basic writing students' current writing processes, their thoughts on their writing, and their introduction to a structured writing process model. Suggests that educators can assist basic writers in becoming successful college writers by introducing them to a structured writing process model while also helping them to become reflective…

This study examined student perspectives about writing by interviewing both typically developing and struggling writers in Grades 2 through 8. The findings revealed a progressive developmental pattern of writing knowledge in which novice writers place more emphasis on the physical product and local meaning, while more experienced writers focus on…

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…

An interim study measured changes in attitudes towards writing and the writing process among basic writing students taught in an electronic classroom (consisting of 25 networked computers). Students in six sections of basic writing which used the electronic classroom for at least 50% of their classroom time, and six control sections which did not…

Viewing writing as a way to heal wounds and even reconstruct past experiences also helps heal the composition discipline's dichotomy between the academic and the personal, the self and the institution. Academicians are not the only writers undermined by this perceived separation: most incoming university students, in particular basic writers,…

Examines research on the causes of writing apprehension. Profiles high-apprehensive writers, characterizes their written products, and describes their writing processes. Suggests four procedures for dealing with writing apprehension: peer group workshops; positive reinforcement; teaching about writing process, and gradually increasing students'…

Stretch 107 is a version of English 107 (a first-year composition course for international students at Arizona State University), designed to provide those with low proficiency in English with various strategies for writing acceptable prose in English. Since it is a 2-semester course, Stretch 107 gives students more time to work on their…

A program was developed and implemented for use with college freshmen at a community college in southeast Florida whose entrance examination scores fell below the acceptable range for admission into a regular English classroom. These students lacked an adequate background in basic English language skills, had an insufficient understanding of the…