Donna McKusick:

First, I think this project should just apply to students placed in the top half of ENGL 052. I am not ready to mainstream ENGL 051 students into ENGL 101, not am I ready to mainstream students who place in the bottom half of 052. I would rather see out the "pilot" goes with the top half of 052 students and then, if it goes well, extend further down into 052.

As for the models, here is my input:

Model 1- By far the best choice and in my view, the only choice. This reduces students' time in developmental English and intensifies the experience. Student placed in RDNG 052 could possibly enroll in ENGL 101 the next semester. As it is right now, with our complicated system of prerequisites, it takes RDNG 052 students 3 semesters to reach 101.

Model 2- I do not see an advantage in this model. Would students be able to exit 101 as soon as they met the requirements? Students do not know what they are doing from one semester to the next. They cannot make 2 semester commitments.

Model 3- I think having two different instructors for the 101 experience would be confusing to the student. If the standards and practices were completely consistent among all writing faculty, this may work, but right now we accept quite a bit of variation in our approaches to writing. I do not see how this could work.

Model 4- The statewide Chief Academic Officers have an agreement that all students are assessed in English, thus to not assess students in ENGL would not be acceptable. Furthermore, there is virtually no money saved, because that money is out of one of my budgets that is running a deficit. There is no money to be saved. Finally, it would require a major adjustment of the writing prerequisite from almost every other department in the college. Tis is because writing prerequisites are in place for all general education courses and most other courses.

Model 5- This model only gives the student extra attention from the faculty member and not extra "time on task." I think students need more than just attention.

Jan Allen:

I prefer Model 5, mostly because I perceive potential problems for students and instructors with the other four that are not so evident in #5.

Carol Joseph:

Beyond that, I think we should use a word other than "mainstreaming" for our pilot project.  Carroll CC has a 6 billable hours course called Writing Effective Paragraphs with Review.  Cecil has a separate 4 billable hours course called Fundamentals of Writing, which teaches the relationship of grammar and effective writing. On the Catonsville Campus, about a hundred years ago, we had a 5 billable hours course called ENGL 101 with Review.

"Mainstreaming" has a connotation that is not exactly what we want to portray.

Fawcett Dunstan

I like model 5 also.

David Truscello

As I said in the first English Dept meeting on this in January, I would recommend not choosing a model until we know (from further research, consultation and collaboration) what the central conclusion [i.e. the problem] is. Shouldn't we design the next refined iteration of the study before designing the answer?

Pat Hunt

I agree with Donna's criteria for student-participants: only the upper half (according to Accuplacer and reading scores) should qualify, and under no circumstances should we "mainstream" Engl 051 students.  (Also I agree with Carol's comment about the connotation of "mainstream".  In a million years I wouldn't want the 052 students to hear that we, out of a sincere desire to help them, were considering "mainstreaming" them.)

I like Model 3 best--if we are really trying to remove "stigma" of developmental and give 052 students good student writers as models.  However, Donna's comments about the new/different instructor for the supplemental sections are valid; given the great variation in how and what instructors teach, students may experience more confusion than assistance.

I like Model 1 second best.  As Carol has observed, at Catonsville we would be bringing back that dinosaur, English 101-R (the "R" stood for with Review and it died because fewer and fewer students agreed to pay more money for the 3-credit 101).

Mary Jo Garcia

I am in absolute agreement with David.  I feel that the next step should be to revisit the research and be certain we truly understand the problem(s) before we begin to formulate and attempt solutions.
 
As we work to shape the research question(s), I believe we need to involve all the stakeholders: developmental writing students, faculty, key administrators, and staff from the developmental studies, assessment, financial aid, and counseling areas.  Changes to the course sequence will have a "ripple" effect that I believe the current models do not necessarily consider. Faculty alone are not equipped to address all of these issues.

Carol Joseph

These folks are going off the deep end here.  They don't understand.  We already have a precedent for such a course--it was successful at the Catonsville Campus and served many students who otherwise would have had to spend another semester taking the 052 course.  Who better than faculty would know? 

Peter Adams

My thinking is that, based on the study I did in 1993 and on our own experiences teaching 051 and 052, we are fairly certain we have something like the following problem: too many students placed in developmental writing courses give up and stop taking writing courses either before they have taken even the first course or even after succeeding in one or two courses.  We will be conducting a study in the coming weeks to see whether the early data remain the case today.

In the meantime, we are conducting this electronic discussion so that once we have the data we will be well along the way toward deciding which model or models we would like to pilot in order to determine whether they improve our success rates with developmental student.

I agree that we should not make any firm decisions until we have data that is more current, but I don't see that as a reason not to have a conversation . .

Carol Joseph

Peter, I agree with you completely, particularly since at one time at Catonsville (not that many years ago) we had a 101R course that was successful and well-enrolled.  Students benefited and faculty liked teaching it.  In fact, all 052 graduates should be required to take the extended courset. They are still marginal even after successfully completing 052 and are often the weakest 101 students.  Who would know best?  Faculty!

Margy McCampbell

I like the idea of experimenting with Model 1. I think it would be a good idea to begin with offering it to students who are assessed at the higher half of ENGL 052.  Offering students the opportunity to earn credit may help them seek other assistance like tutoring in the writing center.  Maybe we could offer special-topic tutorials in the writing centers to give students extra assistance in their weaker areas (sort of a modification of what the Dundalk SSC does with the ENGL 052 and 101 classes.)
 
Another idea is a form of a hybrid course - students placing in a "gray" zone could enroll in a section that meets 5-6 hours a week.  Their goal is to complete the course requirements for ENGL 101 and get the extra assistance described in Model 1.  By midterm, however, the student and faculty member review her/his work to see if s/he would benefit by continuing the semester with more developmental level work to prepare her/him for a standard ENGL 101 the following semester.  In this case, the student would finish the course on a non-credit level, but would not have a failing ENGL 101 grade.  I think this could be worked out administratively if Banner cooperates.  THe benefits of this hybrid course would be having the student take more responsibility by checking her/his progress at midterm and deciding whether it is realistic to continue on a credit track (ENGL 101) or to continue on a non-credit, developmental track (ENGL 052).

Peter Adams

I've been following the discussion of models carefully.  It seems to me that the models that place developmental students in sections of 101 designed for them with an additional 1 to 3 hours of meeting time per week (Models 1 and 5) have the advantage that they would allow the same students and teacher to meet for all the weekly hours.  This makes coordinating what goes on in the supplemental hours with what goes on in the 101 hours much easier.  The disadvantage is that developmental students are still segregated, perhaps stigmatized, and deprived of exposure to stronger writers.

The models that place developmental students in regular sections of 101 and then provide 1 to 3 hours a week of additional instruction (Models 3 and 4) have the advantage of reducing the stigma of being placed in developmental classes and of allowing developmental writers to work side by side with stronger writers.  But these models have the disadvantage of making coordination between what goes on in the 101 sections and what goes on in the supplemental hours per week extremely difficult because the supplemental sections will involve students from several sections of 101 and will likely be taught by a different instructor from the 101 sections.

I wish someone could come up with a model that combines the strengths of all these models without the weaknesses.

Jan Allen

How about setting the maximum enrollment in the experimental sections at 16, admitting 8 developmental students into each of these sections, pairing the dev. students with a non-dev. partner/tutor? The instructor would then have extra help to offer the students both from a peer and from her/himself.

Cheryl Scott

In theory, Jan's model sounds great.  The problem I see is that many of
 our regular ENGL 101 students come to us with skills that are sometimes
 not much better than our ENGL 052 students.  So I'm not sure we can
 depend on them to be helpful tutors.  And if students drop (either
 regular 101 or dev. ed 101) then that leaves some students without
 partners.

 I like model 1, but I agree that it is still a problem that we are
 segregating them.

 Model # 3 with some adaptation:  What if students assessed as needing
 dev. ed. writing are placed in regular sections (say 9 regular students
 and 9 dev ed students).  They could be paired up as Jan suggested (if
 the regular students have strong enough skills), and then the dev. ed
 students would be required to attend an additional 2 - 3 hours each week
 with the same instructor immediately following the regular class.  That
 way there would only be 9 (?) students in the supplemental instruction
 class and the instructor could then work with these students on
 projects/papers/readings etc. that were assigned in the regular class or
 give them extra instruction in other areas of weakness (thesis,
 organization, grammar).  They would have the advantage of having the
 same instructor, and even though they would be segregated for the
 supplemental part (We could call it a lab as other classes have labs),
 they would be with regular 101 students for the "main" class.  We could
 even open up the supplemental class to all of the students in the class
 as an option for extra help but only require it for the dev. ed.
 students.  Just a thought.

Peter Adams

Way to go, Cheryl.  This looks promising to me . . . What does everyone else think?
 
Carol Joseph

This seems to be another good idea in theory, but a scheduling nightmare in reality.   What's wrong with just a plain ole 101 with review in which all students meet for 5 or 6 hours a week and get the additional instruction?  Cheryl is correct when she says most of the students who test into 101 are not much better than 052 students; that's the reason we have 2 semesters of 101 instead of one like College Park.

Monica Windley

In my view, Models 1 & 3 appear to be the most promising for the pilot.

Jay Trucker

Jay Trucker, who has taught at U of Delaware, where Option 5 originated, offers the following strengths and weaknesses of the program as he perceived them.

Strengths:

Because of the small class size, students developed a strong bond with one another, which allowed for strong discussions, peer editing exercises, and activity development.

Students met with a tutor for every writing assignment, so they got feedback from both the instructor and the tutor.  Students typically appreciated multiple feedback.

The small class sized made open rewrite policies more manageable for instructors.

Students knew they had an opportunity to receive credits rather than take a noncredit course, which many would likely have not made as much effort to pass.  Most seemed to appreciate this opportunity.

Weaknesses:

Students in the small classes were hyper aware of being in special sections, and often made self deprecating remarks about their deficient skills.

Students sometimes wondered if the regular enrollment classes were easier.  On one occasion, a student proclaimed that his roommate's regular enrollment class was much easier and that he would have preferred to be in a larger class.

The University gave its least experienced instructors (first year MA's) the students with highest needs.  I imagine this would not be a problem at CCBC.

Peter Adams:

The "mainstreamers" conversation seems to have died down, so I thought I would pose a question that I think we have not addressed up to this point.  In most of the models under consideration, there is a provision for students who would have been placed in developmental courses to attend some additional supportive sessions.  How many hours per week and under what circumstances remains to be determined, but my question is this: what do you envision happening in these additional meetings?  What do you think developmental students need, in addition to what takes place in regular 101 classrooms, in order to succeed?

Bob Miller

 Perhaps the greatest need for these students is additional work on syntax. Unfortunately, the only "grammar" class we currently have is, as you know, a credit class that is geared towards students on the 101 level. I do not know how advanced that class is, but we could model the "extra hours" on that class. In addition, it could reinforce lessons in
 organization, helping students with what they are encountering in the 101 class.  Perhaps 1 to 2 hours a week would suffice?

Mary Jo Garcia

As some of you may know, this whole mainstreaming discussion has been disturbing me for a while, but I've had difficulty pinpointing exactly why this has been the case. When I was at the 4Cs the week before last, I attended a session on mainstreaming by some folks out of the University of Louisville in KY.  Of course, their reports of success were remarkable, and to hear them tell it, hardly anyone at their institution is batting an eyelash as they make preparations to move students who are the equivalent of our ENGL051 into a credit-bearing course.  It's all just daisies and sunshine, wouldn't you know?  Peter Adams, Amy Wilson, and Fawcett Dunstan were at this session, too, so perhaps they will discuss their reactions to the U of L folks at this Friday’s meeting. 

Nearly everyone at 4Cs refers to students enrolled in pre-college-level coursework as "basic writers."  It didn’t take me long to determine that this buzzword is linked to the Conference on Basic Writing (CBW), which appears to embrace pedagogies somewhat apart from those others might term "developmental education" (those pedagogies championed by NADE and educators such as Hunter Boylan).  In other words, what I think we have here in the mainstreaming discussion is primarily a theoretical/territorial dispute, and it's definitely not a new one.  But then, we knew that.  If you looked at Peter Adams' numbers and the article that he passed around at last fall's meeting (which, I should point out, is frequently cited in mainstreaming literature), much of his work on this subject is fifteen to twenty years old.  Even so, he continues to be a major proponent of mainstreaming, a concept which has gained considerable momentum nationwide if the articles in the JBW and the texts Peter has been passing around are to be believed.  

To re-frame this discussion in terms of "developmental" versus "basic" writers, take a look at this e-mail I found on the LRNASST-L listserv from 1997:

Date:         Thu, 20 Mar 1997 21:00:54 -0500
Reply-To:     rjwilley@earthlink.net
Sender:       Open Forum for Learning Assistance Professionals
              <LRNASST@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
From:         Robert Willey <rjwilley@EARTHLINK.NET>
Organization: Oakland Community College
Subject:      Re: Remedial Rumbles

Richard and others: I can offer a bit of insight at least in terms of what's been going on in basic/developmental/remedial reading/writing programs over the recent years.

Unfortunately, similar rumbles are going on all over the country. In basic writing the debate goes under the "mainstreaming" umbrella term, and I'm sorry to say that the CUNY folks, who've always been at the forefront of developmental writing, have been among the voices challenging at least developmental writing programs. I say, "I'm sorry to say," quite obviously, because I don't agree with them most of the time.

The first major rumblings of this "mainstreaming" movement began at the National Conference on Basic Writing several years back at U. of Maryland College Park. Peter Dow Adams, as keynote speaker, among many others, began to challenge the whole notion of having separate developmental writing tracks when, indeed, pedagogy in developmental writing and composition were changing and coming together. Quite rightly, Adams and others pointed out that we're doing the same things in basic writing and mainstream composition. So some questions arose/arise as to why we're still separating basic writers from mainstream students.

A prime source of disagreement between us, however, between those of us still heavily invested in a developmental writing/reading curriculum and many of the voices for "mainstreaming" students, is that we basic writing sorts continue to question institutions' true motivations. Bucks. Bucks. Bucks. Developmental ed. in all its form costs bucks, and wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to spend those bucks anymore? After all, we invest major bucks in a vast number of students who wouldn't even be in college otherwise, many of whom will never complete a traditional degree program (and again it's obvious I'm speaking from a two-year college educator's perspective), and who don't add a lot statistically to our institutions' understandable concerns about retention, graduation, transfers, etc. It's no wonder in these days of dwindling bucks that remedial/developmental/basic programs are coming under such pressures as Richard mentions.

Our resistance is necessary and, I feel, ethically and morally imperative. All of us who work with "developmental" students every day know how important our work is in these people's lives, retention/graduation statistics notwithstanding. It is understandable and appropriate for us to distrust these notions that somehow the work will get better done by pouring dollars and resources into public secondary schools. Many of the students we all work with each day spent their entire lives in special ed. programs and still need us when they enter college. And of course, we can't trust that polticians, whether they're in the guise of elected representative or our boards of trustees, will make the correct decisions for our students. Our resistance is necessary.

As Annette points out, our developmental students, despite their lack of preparation and abilties, are often the most highly motivated to make their lives better. I will add that this is true whether they "succeed" academically, by our traditional standards of degree taking, or not. And to Lonna I will say, go back to these folks in the state system (I graduated from CSU Long Beach, by the way), and insure them that they can pretend developmental education doesn't exist; in the meantime, traditional course offerings will be watered down, or, those students who can and will transffer will come in even greater numbers to us in community colleges (as I did, before graduating from CSULB).

R.J. Willey, PhD
Department of English
Oakland Community College
Farmington Hills, MI 48334
(810)471-7651
Work: rjwilley@vm.occ.cc.mi.us
Home: rjwilley@earthlink.net
Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~rjwilley/

Clearly, this post is a part of a longer thread, a thread you can view at the LRNASST-L archives if you wish.  I think Dr. Willey points to some of the very issues that have been niggling at me for months now, specifically the idea that mainstreaming is a kind of sweeping of developmental writers under the proverbial carpet in hopes that they will just disappear into our traditional composition classrooms.  After all, teaching developmental classes is a lot like “real” work, isn’t it?  That’s why so few faculty actually enjoy doing it.  It’d be a lot easier to staff classes if none of them were labeled developmental, I imagine.

Here are some other interesting (hopefully relevant) facts my searches around the Internet have turned up, facts that probably are not news to those of you who have been around for a while:

• The Conference on Basic Writing, as I mentioned before, is almost entirely responsible for framing the “mainstreaming” discussion.
• Peter Adams was one of the early organizers of the CBW and is heavily cited in their bibliographies.
• The CBW seems to have a very close relationship with Bedford/St. Martin.  The Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Basic Writing is now in its second edition.  A link to the e-book version of this text is available through the CBW website. 
• Peter currently has a handbook for basic-level writers in development for Bedford/St. Martin.

So what does all this mean?  I’ll leave that up to you to decide.  Personally, I feel like I’m being asked to experiment with my most vulnerable students’ educations by someone who has been pretty heavily invested in the mainstreaming movement for a very long time, perhaps too heavily invested for my own comfort.  Of course, I might just be resistant to change and clinging hopelessly to the status quo.  Who knows? 

Any thoughts?  I’d love to hear them.

Mary Jo Garcia

Today I held an informal discussion with my ENGL052 students in which I presented the concept of mainstreaming as a possibility now being considered here at CCBC and then briefly explained the various models under discussion. 

I asked students if mainstreaming had been an option for them at the start of spring 2007, whether they would have elected to enter ENGL101 or whether they would have chosen to enter ENGL052.  Eight out of the eleven students present said they would have chosen to be mainstreamed. 

When I asked them which model of mainstreaming they preferred, those expressing a preference indicated that Model 5, Jay’s model with the smaller class size that places students of a similar skill level together, was the ideal.   The model that was soundly rejected was Model 2.  While students understood that taking both ENGL052 and ENGL101 takes two semesters anyway, the notion of taking the same course for two semesters seemed altogether unpalatable to them.  In my discussions of the models, I failed to explain the difference between Models 1 and 3 (same instructor for lab and class versus different instructor for lab and class); I presented both models as three hours of class plus one to three hours of lab.  Students didn’t seem to mind class plus one hour of lab.  In fact, students insisted that having a lab component to the course similar to the one they already have for ENGL052 (an hour a week in Dundalk’s Student Success Center) would be extremely helpful in a mainstreaming scenario.  Class plus three hours of lab was rejected out of hand as excessive, however.

I then asked those students who said they would have opted for mainstreaming this semester had they been given a choice to explain to me why they would have made that choice rather than entering ENGL052.  Here are their responses:

• “I’m an adult who works and has kids, and I want to finish school faster.”
• “This would motivate me to work harder because I would feel like I was really working toward something.”
• “Finding out I had placed into this class [ENGL052] made me not want to come to school.  Going into 101 would have been totally different.”
• “I’m not on financial aid, so paying tuition for a class that I don’t get credit for is hard.  I’d rather pay for a credit class.”
• “Really, when you are coming back to school after being out for a while or even coming straight out of high school, you really only need a touch up on your grammar and stuff, and we can get that in the Student Success Center, so the lab part [of the mainstreamed course] would help.”
• “One thing, though, I don’t like how the lab is separated from our classes.  I wish the lab would be right after class.  That way I would remember more stuff.” [ENGL052 and ENGL101 classes are scheduled into the Student Success Center one day a week]

I directed my next question at students in the class who had taken ENGL051 prior to coming to ENGL052.  I asked this small group of four students what they thought of a mainstreaming model that might eliminate ENGL051, thereby placing all students who would have previously placed into ENGL051 into a course resembling ENGL052. I explained this plan would also place many or possibly all students who would have previously been placed into ENGL052 instead directly into ENGL101.  The students in the course who had come from ENGL051 seemed to agree that placing straight into ENGL052 (as it is currently taught) would have been a struggle for them.  A couple drew parallels between difficulties they have had to overcome in their developmental math courses and the progress they feel they have made through their developmental writing courses. One young woman said, “Students would be lost,” and another explained, “The introduction [to grammar and composition] is important.”

Finally, I asked students how they might feel if mainstreaming was to be implemented once they were already enrolled in ENGL101. In particular, I wanted to know if students who had already completed ENGL052 would feel any sort of resentment toward students they might perceive as “lower performing” being placed in ENGL101 alongside them. All students present agreed that they would have no problems with the placement of mainstreamed students in ENGL101.  Members of the class offered the following:

• “You get differences in the way people learn in every class.”
• “Besides, you don’t really know something until you explain it to someone else.”
• “[I wouldn’t have a problem with it] unless they were really annoying.”

Can I draw any broad conclusions from one discussion held on one day with one small group of ENGL052 students?  Of course not.  Still, I think their responses are quite revealing.  I was not surprised, for example, that the majority jumped at the (hypothetical) opportunity to be mainstreamed.  I regret that I neglected to ask those who did not choose the mainstreaming option about their decision, but I had a limited amount of time in which to hold this discussion since we had other items on our agenda today.  I was surprised, though, that given the choice of models, students will choose not to be “fully” mainstreamed and would instead choose Model 5 where they would remain with students who made similar scores on the placement exam.  One student said of this model, “it would be good that everyone is working at about the same rate.”  I was also pleasantly surprised (though I suppose I shouldn’t have been given the nature of the students in this class) at how generous and practical my students were in their responses to my last question about being placed in classes with “lower-performing” students.  This discussion has reinforced for me many of the ideas that Peter and others have brought to the table in the past couple of months, particularly placement in developmental courses being a blow to student self-concept and an impediment to access.

Peter Adams

Before spring break, I asked everyone what they thought developmental students need, in addition to what takes place in regular 101 classrooms, in order to succeed?  In each of the models we are considering, developmental students are placed in a section of ENG 101 and then have some extra time in addition to the three hours a week for one semester that a regular ENG 101 meets.  I'm trying to get a feel for what we think might be helpful to these student, what might improve their chances of succeeding in ENG 101. 

Only a couple of people have responded, so I thought I would sketch out my ideas of all the possibilities.  I'm not sure there would be enough time for all of these or that they are all necessary even if there were enough time, but these are all the things I have seen included at a variety of schools or that I have thought of myself:

• discussion of writing processes
• discussion of how to get started on a paper.
• discussion of how to revise a paper
• discussion of how to read a text and respond to it in writing
• assistance with computers and various software
• work on grammar, punctuation, and usage.
• discussion of paper assignments in the 101 section.
• review of the students' drafts of papers for the 101 section.
• discussion of writing topics such as audience, organization, development, and the like.
• discussion of the instructor's comments on a draft of a paper.
• discussion of how their lives are going outside of school and whether there are issues that might interfere with their success.
• discussion of resources that might help them with problems such as finances, health problems, family issues, transportation issues, and a lack of confidence.

Peter Adams

As I look at the six models that have been proposed, I have tried to come up with criteria that make sense for choosing among them.  Here are the criteria I have been able to develop.  I would love to hear additional criteria or improvements on these from members of the committee. In this discussion, I am using the term "supporting course" for the course that mainstreamed developmental writers would be required to take in addition to ENG 101.

Each of the following is a desirable quality for a mainstreaming model:

1. Students would benefit from taking ENG 101 in a section that also includes students placed directly in ENG 101.  Because writing is a social act and because so many of us make extensive use of peer response groups, it will be advantageous if the developmental students are in a 101 section with students who are stronger writers so that they have models of good student writers to emulate.
2. The literature on learning communities indicates strongly that, in terms of both retention and grades, students benefit from being part of a community that allows them to form bonds with their classmates and their instructor.  Therefore, it is advantageous for a model of mainstreaming to have students taking both their 101 section and their supporting course with the same group of developmental students and the same instructor.
3. This may seem obvious, but it needs to be stated that students benefit from increased contact hours devoted to improving their writing skills.
4. Models that maximize the coordination between the 101 course and the supporting course are preferable to those make this coordination more difficult.
5. Much research has shown that students will benefit from smaller class size, so models involving smaller classes are preferable to those with larger classes.