Describes a first-year composition course that used writing assignments to give students the opportunity to explore the transition from high school to college and their inclusion into campus culture, and to argue for campus policy changes. Offers preliminary data concerning the course's effectiveness in enhancing retention of first-year students.…

First years students' experiences and knowledge about research paper writing were studied to investigate how strongly the process writing movement has influenced instructional practice, and how appropriately students have been prepared for their college experience. Finds that many of the students arrived at college without the experience of…

This article recounts the author's experiences with students in a Writing Center, and examines the troubles of traditional teaching styles that reflect the notion of a single norm of thought and experience. Asserts that prescriptive writing instruction stymies personal and scholastic development and undermines democratic learning. Contains 12…

Examines the effectiveness of two writing-to-learn formats in helping developmental students master biological information and in decreasing writing anxiety. Objective measures showed a small but significant decrease in writing anxiety over the quarter, unrelated to writing format. Writing format also had little effect on content knowledge, based…

Presents results from a study of eight college freshman to determine differences between revising essays on-screen and on-paper. Eighty-one percent of on-screen changes were above the mechanical or word level, often related to meaning and content. Students working on-screen tended to add more information and recreate paragraphs, but sometimes…