Postsecondary literacy instruction--the teaching of basic writing and transitional, or developmental, reading in community colleges and 4-year colleges--is an important and growing field, but also one still developing in key areas. In this article, we discuss three of these areas within which postsecondary literacy instruction can continue to…

In this article, the author profiles a university student during her first year in a support classroom for students deemed to be academically underprepared. Focused on the impact of gender in the classroom, the study examines how this young woman crafted an identity through literacy at a Midwestern public university. The author argues that the…

This study will analyze the process of revising a first-year writing program at a large Midwestern university. The institutional structure and practice of first-year writing, particularly the connected subject of basic writing, creates a site where many interrelated areas of research converge--disciplinary, pedagogical, institutional, and…

Claims that there is general agreement of a need to rethink the basic writing course. Posits that there is also a need to rethink the view of literacy on which the course is often based. Questions aspects of academic literacy and suggests ways to reform writing instruction at all levels by looking at literate practices outside the academy. (PA)

Identifies two factors that contribute to the recycling of deficit pedagogy in programs targeted for marginalized students: traditional, technocratic definitions of literacy; and "uncritical dysconsciousness" (the acceptance of culturally sanctioned beliefs that, regardless of good intentions, defend the advantages of insiders and the…

Examining the intersection of culture and literacy education, this book explores the roles that class, race, ethnicity, and gender play in students' learning to negotiate the conventions of academic discourse. A foreword by Gary A. Olson is followed by an introductory chapter, in which it is claimed that recent literacy scholarship has tended to…

Examines the debate initiated by Thomas J. Farrell's 1983 article, "IQ and Standard English." Suggests the importance of social class in assessing the situation of basic writers coming to college from predominately oral cultures, who are generally unprepared to write critically, follow complex lines of argument, or handle new vocabulary…

Literacy narratives have been pedagogically important in writing instruction, particularly in the basic writing class, as a means for students to interrogate the politics of language and education and thus to establish a critical connection to writing. But the literacy narrative as a critical genre is problematic. Such narratives often are…

Focuses on how various literacy narratives portray passages between language worlds. Considers how such passages are relevant to a writing pedagogy. Stresses the relationship between such literacy passages is useful in basic writing contexts. Analyzes two essays written by one student who portrays such a literacy passage. (HB)

Describes an ESL department's whole language approach to writing and reading, replacing its traditional grammar-based ESL instructional sequence. Reports the positive quantitative and qualitative results of the first three years of using the new approach. (KEH)

Argues that the "failure" of traditional writing instruction is actually its success, protecting the elite and maintaining inequality, which requires mass failure and illiteracy to preserve the unequal hierarchies now in place. Argues that bogus testing should be eliminated, basic writing mainstreamed into an expanded and untracked form of…

Arranged chronologically, the essays in this book trace the attempts of one writing teacher (Patricia Bizzell) to understand theoretically--and to respond pedagogically--to what happens when students from diverse backgrounds learn to use language in college. Over the 10-year period chronicled in the essays that make up the book, the teacher sees…

This collection of essays is intended to spark thoughtful discussion about future directions for developmental education. The essays grew out of a conversation among 21 local, regional, and national leaders in the field of developmental education at the "First Intentional Meeting on Future Directions in Developmental Education," held in October,…

Rereading the history of basic writing can serve as a context for and a springboard to a reading of selected contemporary basic writing textbooks. For critical scrutiny, articles by Joseph Harris and David Bartholomae offer retellings of the history of basic writing, retellings that challenge the more "heroic" tellings that have become…

Of interest to students of literacy, education, planning, and policy studies and cross-cultural analysis, this book examines the cultural and political dynamics underlying literacy. Case studies focusing on the historical role of literacy and the maintenance or suppression of marginal groups are complemented in the book by reports of data on…