Presents findings from an ethnographic study of four high school basic writers collaborating on an assignment in their school's computer lab. Finds that the students were largely unsuccessful as writers and as collaborators--three of the students became, for the most part, nonwriters. Suggests that computer-assisted writing environments may result…

Argues that the writing center is an ideal place to teach and practice a critical and self-reflective form of acculturation, encouraging underprepared students (especially those marginalized by race, class, and ethnicity) to adopt critical consciousness. Discusses acculturation verses the goals of critical consciousness, the traditional writing…

Argues that Basic Writing students, teachers, and scholarship are crucial to enabling colleges and universities to realize their ideals of diversity, interdisciplinarity, and student-centered learning. Calls for more research exploring the potential of basic writing students to develop (and help others develop) "borderland" perspectives which may…

Surveys basic-writing teachers nationally. Reports diverse ways in which developmental writing curricula have been changed by introduction of new technologies. Presents findings related to classroom practice, teacher development, and distribution of resources. Finds several patterns of computer use: resistance, lack of infrastructure, uneven…

Argues that, to deal effectively with sentence errors of basic writers, it is crucial to distinguish between what should be left alone and what can be productively marked and how it should be marked. Proposes a taxonomy of four sources of errors (knowledge, dialect, process, and developmental errors) and seven ways to address them. (SR)

Contrastive rhetoric provides tools that community college teachers need in order to understand the rhetorical forms that students from other cultures employ. Greater understanding of contrastive rhetoric can change the way that teachers interpret the difficulty linguistically different students may have in using conventional American academic…

This article relates case histories of basic writing programs at regional campuses in Florida, and the perceived need to incorporate concerns of social class into basic writing curriculum. Attention to class helps scholars identify institutional patterns that distance basic writing from the university's mainstream business. This author describes a…

This study investigates a basic writing course within a freshman learning Community at Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW). Multiple layers of data, both qualitative and quantitative, provide a thick description of what occurred overall in that classroom over the course of one semester. My findings suggest that basic writing…

An instructor recently concluded that the students (rural mountain, white) that she teaches at Pikeville College, Kentucky, (population 6,500) have a part in multiculturalism; consequently, multiculturalism has become part of the classroom agenda. There are four steps in the curriculum. First, stereotypes and dialectical differences of Appalachia…

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…

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…

In the form of a story, this paper reveals the life and lifework of a committed Latino professor of English who was born in Brooklyn in the Bedford-Stuyvesant projects. First recounting the early years of a bright boy, the paper then proceeds to tell about the young man as a dropout, as a soldier in Vietnam, as a student in college, and then as a…

The purpose of this study is to determine whether college juniors and seniors view their freshman-writing instruction as beneficial and to assess its impact on the writing they do within their specific disciplines. Although a great deal of theory surrounds the teaching of freshman writing, very little research has been done to assess its…

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…

This guide is intended for use in conducting a reading lab for a broad group of workers ranging from nonreaders to persons reading at a fifth-grade level. Presented first is a course overview that includes the following: information on the course's targeted population, student selection process, and demographics; strategies for adult remediation;…