If assessment is about improving learning and facilitating better teaching through research and helping students learn what higher education purports to value, then the often-invisible institutional barriers that do not always embrace the ways in which classroom assessment can teach an institution about student learning within individual…

This narrative essay describes a basic writing instructor's engagement with student confusion in a hybrid Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) course. The story examines the ways confusion can mark sites of engagement for students and teachers and how ALP courses, in particular, might mediate effective (and ineffective) forms of confusion.

According to sociocultural theory (SCT), corrective feedback (CF) entails a negotiation process whereby writing instructors support second language (L2) writers in self-correction and provide a level of guidance needed for writers to actively engage in revision tasks (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994). Drawing on SCT, this collaborative self-study…

Against a Racial Real backdrop, I argue for consciously adopting a sociocultural approach to style in linguistically and racially diverse Basic Writing classrooms. To make this argument, I focus on a multilingual writer named Tejada, who reveals how she had internalized a racialized stereotypical discourse about herself as a minority--a discourse…

This Grounded Theory study utilized Self-determination Theory to analyze the interview results of 18 community college African American and Latino males. The goal was to learn what helped participants to succeed and persist in developmental and transfer-level writing courses despite the obstacles that they faced. Three major themes emerged: (a)…

Many composition teachers use the writing conference to provide feedback to their students; however, the existing literature on the subject indicates that teachers may unintentionally harm their weaker students by using this strategy. To better understand the effect of the writing conference on developmental writing students, the researcher…

In this article, I describe how policy changes instituted by our State Board of Education prompted the composition faculty at Boise State University to develop a Stretch program. Our goal was to support basic writing students by linking two writing courses (one of which is non-credit-bearing) , thus allowing students to remain with the same…

This essay responds to Jane Danielewicz's and Peter Elbow's recent piece on contract grading in "College Composition and Communication" (December 2009). I discuss the similarities of their approach to my own contract process, finding that we share a quantitative/performative method for grading. I also explore our differences. While they guarantee…

The purpose of this case study was to describe the role of teacher knowledge in the instructional methods of a community college developmental literacy instructor and determine in what ways that knowledge may have impacted the perceptions of the student participants regarding their authority over their academic progress in the class. Therefore,…

Considers the circumstances under which "basic writing" emerged both as a college course and as a field of study. Aims to map the "strange context" of discourses that have composed basic writing and to determine the strategic function of each of these discourses, including David Bartholomae's recent call for undoing basic…

Using Susanmarie Harrington's investigation of the presence and absence of basic writing students in articles in the "Journal of Basic Writing" as a starting point, this article investigates the visibility or invisibility of race in student-present articles from 1995 to 2005. The investigation reveals that the discursive practice of colorblindness…

Relates experiences of three colleagues who organized the panel "Confronting Class in and out of the Classroom" at a Conference on Basic Writing workshop. Suggests social class has been ignored in composition studies; neglect appears to be ending; neglect must end; and instructors' own class histories must be understood and accepted…

Examines a curious incident of racial tension in which an Asian teacher's approach to teaching writing became a subject of heated debate among white and black students. Probes the causes of tension within the class. (TB)

Describes a writing studio program that replaces the standard basic writing course by offering special assistance to certain students enrolled in mainstream writing classes. Examines how writing programs have been constructed to include such categories as "basic writer" and how students, teachers, and administrators can get beyond such…

This collection of essays addresses the anxieties and problems of beginning writing teachers and provides a reality check for those who expect success from "day one." Following an Introduction: "Silences in Our Teaching Stories; What Do We Leave Out and Why?" (Thomas Newkirk), essays in the collection are: (1) "Forty-Eight…