The Stretch Writing Program at Arizona State University (ASU) is a year-long, or stretched, version of traditional ENG101 aimed at helping students identified as academically at risk (the majority of whom are also members of at risk racial or economic groups). The program, which has been recognized both internally and nationally, is rooted in more than 20 years of research and practice, and has been extraordinarily successful in helping the at risk population succeed at the university. Starting in 2011, a small team of faculty in the College of Letters and Sciences (then the School of Letters and Sciences) at ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus began to reimagine the Stretch Writing Program design for the 21st century by incorporating a wide array of digital technologies and pedagogical practices aimed at leveraging that technology to increase student engagement, digital literacies, and writing skills.
This new, blended version of the SWP, which we have called the “Stretch Writing Redesign” (SWR), was first deployed in fall 2012, and has been continually revised and updated since then. In the spring of 2014, SWR was recognized with the ASU Faculty Achievement Award in Curricular Innovation in recognition of both pedagogical innovation and positive early outcomes based on a review of a random and representative sampling of student work from before and after the redesign. In 2015, we were awarded a CCCCs “Research Initiative” grant to determine if (1) SWR represents a viable and measurable improvement of the SWP previously developed at ASU, (2) SWR successfully engages at risk students, and (3) SWR increase levels of engagement that would signal sustainable student success.
Our proposed “long paper” will present the data collected during the first year of the CCCC supported study, as well as (1) some early reflections on how the blended design of the SWR can enable student success in SWR classes, and (2) what it might tell us about the use of blended designs for other courses with at risk populations.
