Rethinking Remediation

Abstract

Each year a large number of students enter American higher education unprepared for the reading and writing tasks they encounter. Labeled “remedial,”“nontraditional,”“developmental,”“underprepared,”“nonmainstream,” these students take special courses and participate in special programs designed to qualify them to do academic work. Yet, we do not know very much about what it is that cognitively and socially defines such students as remedial. This article describes a research project on remediation at the community college, state college, and university levels designed to provide such information. We focus on a piece of writing produced by a student in an urban community college, examining it in the context of the student's past experiences with schooling, her ideas about reading and writing, the literacy instruction she was receiving, and her plans and goals for the future. Our analyses suggest that the student's writing, though flawed according to many standards, demonstrates a fundamental social and psychological reality about discourse—how human beings continually appropriate each other's language to establish group membership, to grow, and to define themselves in new ways.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1989-04-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088389006002001
Open Access
Closed
Topics

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (9)

  1. Research in the Teaching of English
  2. Written Communication
  3. Teaching English in the Two-Year College
  4. Written Communication
  5. Computers and Composition
Show all 9 →
  1. Written Communication
  2. Written Communication
  3. Written Communication
  4. Rhetoric Review

Cites in this index (2)

  1. Research in the Teaching of English
  2. Research in the Teaching of English
Also cites 6 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.2307/748020
  2. 10.2307/356486
  3. 10.17763/haer.55.2.v30pl5j823545780
  4. 10.2307/747293
  5. 10.2307/747446
  6. 10.1016/S0022-5371(80)90230-3
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