A Groundbreaking Five-Week Classroom Resource for Bridging the Gap Between Pre-College and College-Level Writing

THE PROBLEM:

Three-quarters of students entering college lack the writing skills they need for success.

THE CAUSES:

COLLEGE-READY WRITING ESSENTIALS™ IS DESIGNED TO DIRECTLY ADDRESS BOTH OF THESE PROBLEMS

BRIDGING THE GAP

We did something that hasn’t been done before: We took the extensive research on college-ready writing—including frameworks for success, best instructional practices, and composition theory—and translated it into a focused, easy-to-implement resource for pre-college and early-college classrooms and programs.

We designed CRWE on deeply researched, evidence-centered principles, so that schools and instructors can have confidence that their students are acquiring the competencies most needed for college-level writing success.

• Attends to classroom impediments to authentic composition instruction

• Provides a mode of student performance assessment that supports both actionable diagnostic information and evidence-based claims about student readiness

CRWE FEATURES

TRAINING STUDENTS FOR COLLEGE-LEVEL ACADEMIC WORK

CRWE is intended for use in pre-college and early-college classrooms and programs. It is suitable for composition, English, or rhetoric courses, but also for history, communications, culture studies, social science, or other contexts—wherever students may be asked to practice disciplined inquiry: to discover a topic that interests them, define an issue, research it, consider multiple perspectives, and produce an extended composition that takes a position and supports it with evidence and argumentation. Since students choose their own topic to research and write about, they may take multiple passes through CRWE, perhaps in different courses or programs, accumulating and improving skills with each iteration.

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES

The majority of students do not get enough experience with authentic composition prior to entering college. Research points to two primary obstacles:

CRWE’S INNOVATIVE DESIGN SUPPORTS INSTRUCTORS AND EASES THE WORKLOAD THAT COMES WITH TEACHING COMPOSITION

BETTER RHETOR’S MISSION

…is to provide more students with effective writing instruction, practice, and assessment, to improve their opportunities for success at college-level academic work.

COLLEGE-READY WRITING ESSENTIALS™

…targets the right skills and concepts and teaches them in a way that mitigates existing instructional challenges. We aim to better prepare more students for college-level writing, reduce the need for remediation, help increase completion rates, and ultimately better equip more people for success in their educational pursuits, in their careers, and in their personal and civic lives.

CRWE is an equity-minded resource that reflects BetterRhetor’s commitment to helping all students who want a college education succeed in their efforts, regardless of income or background.

EXPERIENCE, EXPERTISE, PASSION

CRWE was developed by BetterRhetor Founder and CEO William Bryant, PhD. Dr. Bryant has more than thirty years of experience as a writer, editor, and educator. As Director of Writing Assessments for a major college admissions testing organization (ACT, Inc.), he worked extensively with student writing, gaining a deep understanding of the college-ready writing gap and its causes. CRWE reflects BetterRhetor’s commitment to helping all students who want a college education succeed in their efforts, regardless of income or background.