From Falling Through the Cracks to Pulling Through: Moving from a Traditional Remediation Model Toward a Multi-Layered Support Model for Basic Writing

This article examines two course redesigns undertaken to improve student learning, and retention in the basic writing program at Oakland University, a doctoral research university in southeast Michigan, where support for developmental writers has fluctuated dramatically between nurture and neglect over the past fifty years. However, conditions—including the creation of a new department of writing and rhetoric and university-wide commitment to student support and retention—have set the stage for dramatic revisions to the way our basic writing and supervised study courses are administered. the last five years, the writing and rhetoric department at Oakland has revised both of these courses to better align them with our first-year writing program's focus on rhetoric, research, revision, and reflection. These changes have formed the groundwork for a new curricular model that we believe will provide multiple layers of faculty and peer support for our most vulnerable students.