Responding to a lack of attention to language in transfer pedagogies, this study examines the potential effects that direct language-level instruction has on the metalinguistic awareness of students who were enrolled in stretch and corequisite courses at two four-year, public universities. Informed by a functional view of language, the instruction…

Despite the push for all institutions of higher learning to embrace a corequisite model for writing instruction, there is limited evidence that suggests this model is desirable for all students. This study seeks to expand our understanding of the characteristics of students enrolled in Basic Writing at a 4-year comprehensive university, and the…

Students in rural communities often describe themselves as unsuccessful readers and writers in a university context, yet off-campus their literacy lives may be avidly experienced and richly valued. This article investigates the layered literacies of student clients and writing center consultants on a rural, regional campus in an Appalachian county…

This article proposes to extend the revised transactional theory of reading that I introduced to JBW readers in 2012. That revised theory, building on Rosenblatt's distinction between efferent and aesthetic reading, described a third reading stance I named "deferent" to designate the tendency of struggling student readers to defer their…

In this article, Mlynarczyk traces her career-long exploration of the relationship between personal, narrative writing and so-called academic discourse. Believing that both are important for college students, particularly students placed in basic writing or ESL composition, she has come to believe that rather than viewing the two as separate modes…

The process of digital storytelling allows basic writers to take a personal narrative and translate it into a multimodal and multidimensional experience, motivating a diverse group of writers with different learning styles to engage more creatively and meaningfully in the writing process. Digital storytelling has the capacity to contextualize…

Dominant perspectives of basic writers' self-sponsored literacies tend to overlook the important roles such activities can play in literate development. Drawn from texts, interviews, and participant-observations collected during a five-year study, this article continues the examination of the relationship between one writer's curricular and…

Argues that composition teachers should accept as little blame as possible for students' errors in using the apostrophe, that a large chunk of the blame should be assigned to workbooks with oversimple rules, and that basic writers have more important things to worry about. (RS)

Describes a technique to create, administer, and monitor valid and reliable measures of basic students' writing skills. Shows how the test, requiring students to read a stimulus passage and prepare a written response, uses judgments of experienced language teachers to measure students' writing proficiency. Includes a sample exit-test prompt. (MM)

Asserts that imitation is an effective way to teach form and sense of language while encouraging creativity. Suggests several imitation assignments, including exact sentence imitation, controlled composition, and model compositions. (MM)

Examines the relationship between handwriting speed and the syntactic complexity of the finished piece of writing. Reports that findings support previous research that describes differences in syntax of basic and traditional writers. Concludes that writing teachers should encourage college students to write rapidly as they draft their pieces. (MM)

Outlines the basic elements and classroom applications of "word grammar," a form of sector (tagmemic) analysis to be used in standard English instruction. (RL)

Considers Mina Shaughnessy's metaphor likening the experience of basic writers to that of "uncultured natives" under European colonization. Advocates decolonizing the classroom by devising a pedagogy of voice in a dialogized space that is continually reconstructed from different locations and identities. (HB)

Compares the work of nineteenth-century Scottish philosopher George Jardine with the work of modern theorists, particularly Mina Shaughnessy. Shows how they all created similar plans for meeting the needs of students without the basic skills needed for traditional modes of instruction. (HB)

Argues that the kinds of problems Harvard "basic writers" have are different in degree, but not in kind, from problems of less accomplished student writers elsewhere, from problems all student writers have from time to time, and from the problems experienced adult writers confront in unfamiliar or difficult writing situations. (RS)