Arrested Development: Revising Remediation at John Jay College of Criminal Justice

<p>Basic writing has played a large role in the history and institutional identity of the City University of New York (CUNY). From the Open Admissions era of Mina Shaughnessy to the present day, "remedial courses" at CUNY have been revised in response to different colleges' missions, curricular initiatives, university policies, and public opinion. Briefly reviewing a short history of remediation at CUNY and the university policies which affected it, this article then describes an intensive developmental writing course newly implemented at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. It explains the course's strategies, rationalizes its approach, and examines its successes as well as its continuing challenges. Theoretically approaching the basic writing course from the combined perspectives of Mary Louise Pratt and Lev Vygotsky ("the contact zone of proximal development"), this newly revised course takes seriously what Mike Rose says when he suggests "that a remedial writing curriculum must fit into the overall context of a university education. "In a pedagogical situation where a gatekeeping exam (over) determines students' educational progress, this course goes beyond skills and drills or test-taking preparation to challenge students'critical thinking and develop their college-level writing abilities. It gives students and instructors a curriculum that does not teach to the test but, instead, with it.</p>