Structural practices used by community colleges to assess, place, and teach students are undergoing transformation. Many recent changes have been shaped by the idea that barriers to success, combined with traditional policies, work against helping students pass through the developmental writing pathway. This article's purpose was to investigate…

Argues that basic writing students need incremental assignment sequences to experience success in writing and to develop their abilities to write about abstract concepts. Describes a four-part sequence of writing assignments moving from observing to narrowing to generalizing to theorizing. (RS)

Discusses the organization of two basic writing courses around reading and summarizing, following the typical description of summary found in composition texts. Notes that, based on their research, the authors no longer believe that summaries can be completely objective: instead, they believe that summary is an interpretive act and that students…

Argues for a progressive version of mainstreaming remedial writers through a focus on one student who benefited from a two-semester course responsive to diverse language and cultural backgrounds. Discusses the political dimensions of mainstreaming which are an indelible aspect of writing program administration. (TB)

Describes a case study of a basic writing student that was undertaken to examine the ways that low self-confidence can undermine a writer's voice and text. Emphasizes the important role basic writing instructors have in strengthening students' sense of self in addition to their intellectual competence. (MAB)

A study investigated whether there were significant differences between male and female basic writers, examining the writing processes and products of 19 male and female college freshmen basic writers in a university and 33 male and female freshmen basic writers in a junior college. Results indicated that both groups of students, male and female…

Describes a method of teaching basic writing to native and nonnative students that emphasizes a regression to the most basic elements of writing. Considers what writing content, rhetorical techniques, grammar exercises, and proofreading methods are most effective for the two groups. (TB)

A multilingual basic writing course is an ideal laboratory for language learning for both second language students and native English speakers. This latter group at Bronx Community College (New York), which is located in a poor, minority urban community, are generally English-as-a-Second-Dialect (ESD) students. What one instructor tries to do is…

Argues that writing is a social practice, and as such, student writing should be thought of as part of the larger society. Reports on responses from 393 (over 50% of those solicited) students in developmental writing courses, which indicate that students want to feel they have a stake in their own learning. (Contains 26 references.) (NB)

For many years, Arizona State University (ASU) allowed its basic writers into its standard English (ENG) 101 course, only after they took ENG 071, a remedial class offered by a local community college. However, it soon became obvious to English Department faculty that the remedial grammar-focused class was not giving this group of students the…

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…

According to 1995 data collected by the National Center for Educational Statistics, first-year students at public community colleges were twice as likely to be enrolled in a remedial education course than their public four-year counterparts. Ninety-five percent of community colleges offer remedial instruction, yet critics of the community college…