Remediation/Underprepared Students

TR 19. Rethinking Remediation: Toward a Social- Cognitive Understanding of Problematic Reading and Writing, by Glynda Hull and Mike Rose. This paper presents a case study of the writing produced by a community college student, considered "at risk" of not succeeding in school, for a basic reading and writing class. The authors reveal what writing strategies, habits, rules, and assumptions characterize the writing skills of this underprepared student and suggest a pedagogy to move such students toward more conventional discourse. May, 1989; 16 pages; $3.50.
Order report

TR 44. Remediation as Social Construct: Perspectives from an Analysis of Classroom Discourse, by Glynda Hull, Mike Rose, Kay Losey Fraser, and Marisa Castellano. This paper examines remediation as a social construct, as the product of assumptions, perceptions, and beliefs about literacy and learning. The authors illustrate some ways in which notions of learners as remedial, as deficient, can be created and played out in the classroom. They look closely at one college student and detail the interactional processes by which she is being defined as remedial. February, 1991; 30 pages; $4.00.
Order report

TR 57. Technological Indeterminacy: The Role of Classroom Writing Practices in Shaping Computer Use, by Cynthia Greenleaf. This study examines the integration of computers into a remedial high school English class. Greenleaf focuses on writing practices before and after computers were introduced, and concludes that the teacher's structuring of writing instruction had the greatest impact on student writing and the ways computers entered into writing. She argues that computers do not function as independent variables in classrooms, but rather as part of a complex network of social and pedagogical interactions. Winner of NCTE's Promising Researcher Award. January, 1992; 40 pages; $4.00.
Order report

TR 60. Collaboration Between Children Learning to Write: Can Novices be Masters? by Colette Daiute and Bridget Dalton. Daiute and Dalton explore the role of peer collaboration in literacy development as a case study in the broader inquiry on the social nature of learning and cognitive development. They analyze individual and collaborative stories produced by low-achieving urban third-graders on a computer, as well as transcripts of the talk between collaborative pairs, to illustrate that children can learn and use complex story elements by working with their peers. April, 1992; 54 pages; $4.50.
Order report

OP 22. "This Wooden Shack Place": The Logic of an Unconventional Reading, by Glynda Hull and Mike Rose. Hull and Rose analyze an interaction between Rose and a student in a remedial college composition class, where the student's personal history and cultural background shape an unconventional reading of a poem used in a writing assignment. They discuss the logic of the student's interpretation of the poem, showing the value of conversing with students about interpretations that initially strike the teacher as "a little off the mark." December, 1990; 10 pages; $3.50.
Order report

OP 37. What's Involved?: Setting up a Writing Exchange, by Sarah Warshauer Freedman. This paper describes a writing exchange pairing classes in the San Francisco Bay Area, grades six through nine, with classes in inner-city London. Through these writing exchanges pairs of teachers on both sides of the Atlantic worked to get students seriously involved in using written language, especially students with long histories of school failure. Freedman shows how writing substantial pieces for a distant but real whole-class audience helped students to care about their writing and make significant strides as writers. June, 1994; 26 pages; $4.00.
Order report