While many of these intelligences can be incorporated into the higher education classroom, intrapersonal intelligence poses some intriguing opportunities in the developmental writing classroom. As an instructor of developmental writing, the author stumbled upon the value of students developing their self-knowledge as an aid in learning to write…

Cell phone ubiquity enables students to record and share audio file versions of their essays for proofreading purposes. Adopting this practice in community college developmental writing classes leads to an investigation of both writing as a technology and the influence of modern technology on composition and composition pedagogy.

This article offers a revised version of transactional reading theory to explain how students classified as basic writers tend to employ counterproductive reading and thinking processes that inhibit them from full participation in academic life. Louise Rosenblatt proposes that readers have two main positions or purposes in reading--the efferent…

This profile articulates the authors' response to a statewide mandate to eliminate "remedial" writing instruction at four-year public universities, including their own. The profile describes the difficulties the authors faced in responding to this initiative, given the context of their regional comprehensive university and its specific…

Mina Shaughnessy continues to exert powerful influences over Basic Writing practices, discourses and pedagogy thirty-five years after her death: Basic Writing remains in some ways trapped by Shaughnessy's legacy in what Min-Zhan Lu labeled as essentialism, accommodationism and linguistic innocence. High-stakes writing tests, a troubling hallmark…

This article presents the results of three comparative analyses on forty-seven student papers in order to examine the effectiveness of a basic writing course in developing students' academic writer identity. The course curriculum, grounded in social identity theory, focuses on the core writing concepts and dispositions that promote writer…

Despite the growing linguistic diversity of students in today's community college writing classes, there has been little research on the unique problems that instructors face when students from differing second linguistic and cultural backgrounds populate the same classrooms. This study explores the extent to which four community college writing…

In 2012, the State of Connecticut enacted Public Act 12-40, legislation that dramatically changed the way remedial education was theorized, designed, and delivered at community colleges and regional state universities in Connecticut. One of the most controversial features of this legislative movement was that it appeared to establish a…

In the 1990s, leading rhetoric and composition scholars criticized basic writing programs for their "liberalism." Basic writing had its defenders, however, and the ensuing debate exposed deep rifts in the field. This article argues that neither side in this formative debate nor the more recent alternative models of teaching basic writing…

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…

Students' basic reading and math skills can decline significantly during the summer months. Most attribute this to the prolonged period during which young students are outside of a structured learning environment (Cooper et al 1996). While summer learning loss occurs among all income groups, the effects are more pronounced for those from…

An adjunct turned writing program administrator reflects on her professional journey and describes efforts to improve the teaching environment amongst composition faculty--primarily part-time--within her department. Based on a local program review, a pilot faculty relations plan was implemented that addressed two major areas: offering more…

This essay looks to Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) for strategies that can be implemented in order to combat contemporary neoliberal attacks against the programmatic and institutional spaces of basic writing within Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Working from Nedra Reynolds' notion of thirdspace-oriented "dwelling"…

To effectively address the needs of second language (L2) learners in college writing courses, many postsecondary institutions, especially those located in cities with high concentrations of immigrants, offer college-level courses for L2 students. Such courses include noncredit English language courses in an intensive English program, developmental…

The paper describes a case study in which the main objective is to understand how engineering students can improve their writing skills, regarding spelling and syntax, when taught specifically on these issues. The methodology Writing To Learn is applied in two courses and, making use of the written texts, the students' writing skills are assessed…