Describes techniques for motivating "new students," many of whom are economically, socially, and academically disadvantaged, and for improving their literacy skills.

Discusses applying psychological principles to modify behavior of open enrollment students in introductory psychology courses. Open enrollment students frequently are inadequately socialized in the requirements of the student role, lacking in study skills, and poorly motivated to achieve academically. Procedures are integrated into the formal…

Notes difficulties encountered teaching history in an open university. Describes methodology used in a twentieth-century history course, combining current events with the course content. Using a major continuing news story as the basis for a semester project, students are asked to consider multiple scenarios and to predict outcomes of current…

Describes an open admissions program, a public university's nontraditional population, and their unique academic needs. Provides a political science briefing book assignment in which students research and write about one country. Claims the book is effective in helping students to organize and focus their thoughts and to improve their research and…

Sketches the historical movement from orality to literacy that Walter J. Ong theorizes, applying it to basic writing instruction for open admissions students. Suggests that teachers first concentrate on narrative and rhetoric to develop writing about particularized details, saving sentence control exercises such as sentence combining for…

Nontraditional students in the community college can profit from their composition courses if these courses give them the chance to discover what words can do and to use that discovery to best serve their own interests and ambitions. To serve these aims, composition courses should be based on the following assumptions: students are to be accepted…

Nine complete papers and 32 abstracts are contained in this special issue drawn from the proceedings of the fifth annual meeting of writing supervisors within the City University of New York (CUNY). The first complete paper surveys basic writing programs over the decade and points to difficulties overcome, accomplishments,and future needs. The…