ABSTRACT
The effects of composition instruction are most frequently examined in terms of the accomplishments of students over a single semester. Because of the longitudinal nature of this study, it is possible to follow students through several levels of instruction within the composition curriculum and beyond into their upper level courses. Since I have partial data for students other than the 9 students whose work has been examined in previous chapters, I am able to present findings from a somewhat larger sample of the original population. For the composition sequence, my data includes papers from 4 students who completed the two levels of basic writing, English 1 and English 2, 2 students who completed both basic level courses and the freshman composition course, and 8 students who completed the second level of basic writing and the freshman composition course. (Brief demographic backgrounds are provided for the “new” students.)
