Bringing Them Home: Arizona State University's New Model of Basic Writing Instruction

For many years, Arizona State University (ASU) allowed its basic writers into its standard English (ENG) 101 course, only after they took ENG 071, a remedial class offered by a local community college. However, it soon became obvious to English Department faculty that the remedial grammar-focused class was not giving this group of students the help, background, and writing experiences they needed to produce rhetorically effective college-level compositions. In the fall of 1992, ASU's English department piloted what it called the "stretch" program, a 2-semester sequence of classes designed to give beginning writers more time to move into the university community. The stretch program, in essence, stretches the standard ENG 101 course over 2 semesters to give beginning writers more time to work on and revise and think about their writing. Instead of doing all the ENG 101 assignments in one semester, they do three papers each semester, each with multiple drafts, along with a portfolio analysis of their writing as a final examination. The first class in the stretch sequence is a pass/fail course, but the grades students earn on the papers go on to count toward 50% of their ENG 101 grade. Results show that more students are staying at ASU for ENG 101 than before, and more are passing ENG 101 than before. Retention in the spring and summer semesters is not as good as retention in the fall, but the stretch program is significantly better than the old system. (TB)