Engaging Accountability - Faculty-led, Statewide Implementation of a Corequisite Model of First Year Writing across Two-and Four-Year Public Institutions

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by kopisore

Engaging Accountability outlines a statewide implementation of a corequisite model for first-year writing across Idaho’s two- and four-year public postsecondary institutions. The study examines how faculty and administrators respond to political and economic mandates for educational reform while protecting instructional quality and faculty working conditions. It describes revised curricular configurations, including replacing remedial writing with English 101 Plus and pairing the course with a concurrent corequisite support section. The article reports preliminary results on student learning for diverse populations and highlights collaboration and agency.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Purpose and context of statewide implementation

Corequisite model and curricular design

English 101 Plus structure

Accountability and outcomes framework

Outcomes Statement for First Year Composition

Policy mandate and implementation results

Idaho remedial course elimination and early findings

Engaging Accountability: Faculty-led, Statewide Implementation of a Corequisite Model of First Year Writing across Two-and Four-Year Public Institutions Diane Kelly-Riley This article reports on a statewide implementation of a corequisite model of instruction for first year writing at two-and four-year public, postsecondary institutions in Idaho. This project explores how these institutions manage political and economic mandates for educational reform while preserving educational quality for students and teaching conditions for faculty. In presenting a model of agency and collaboration, this article reports preliminary results from the corequisite revised curricular configurations and the potential for this model to meet the instructional needs of varied student populations across the state. Iporesstspeconodndtoay wnstrrituicntigo,ncaolreaqnudisitcuerrcouriculasres havneedes eovfoldved aevelospa viabmentallemwroitdeerls while also addressing external accountability mandates for increased retention, course and program completion. These approaches are informed by research and disciplinary best practices and are also attentive to political and economic constraints and realities. While early versions of corequisite instruction have been around since the early 1990s, this approach recently gained more traction as a way to meet educational reform mandates. However, writing studies often characterizes scholarship that engages accountability work negatively or with a great deal of suspicion. The villains in this story are often characterized as “efficiency-minded administrators” burnishing outcomes assessment to “diminish the value and purpose of writing program[s]”(Gallagher 25) . In Composition in an Age of Austerity, Nancy Welch and Tony Scott assert that“in the age of corporatization and austerity, we now face the consequences of a field that has never established a scholarly habit of positioning composition scholarship in relation to the powerful political economic factors and trends that shape composition work” and they worry about “pedagogical ‘innovations’ that come under the gun of cost-cutting and . . . embrace neoliberalism’s privatizing and commodifying market pursuits as somehow compatible with the field’s public ethos and mission”(6) . Such perspectives forget the long history of corequisite courses in composition studies and the agency and collaboration required to sustain these Composition Studies 48.2 (2020): 35–53 programs for so long. Writing studies scholars and practitioners have developed sound disciplinarily instructional models of corequisite instruction that attend to the needs of students, faculty, and institutions while preserving the ideals of the field. This article examines how Idaho writing studies faculty at two- and four-year public institutions managed political and economic mandates for educational reform in order to implement a statewide model of corequisite writing instruction called English 101 Plus while working topreserve best practices informed by scholarly and research innovations from composition. This model, English 101 Plus, replaced remedial writing with a required three-credit first year writing course (FYC) taken with a one or two credit concurrent corequisite section that provides instructional support for the FYC content. I served as Director of Composition at the University of Idaho beginning in 2013 and was involved with the implementation of this program statewide. I will explore the context that gave rise to these educational reform mandates, describe the collaboration between faculty at the two-and four-year Idaho public institutions, review the curricular configurations of the corequisite model of English 101 Plus, and report on preliminary results related to student learning from the statewide implementation. In our state, Idaho writing program administrators and faculty adapted lessons from the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) development of the Ou

FAQs

What statewide model does the article focus on for first-year writing in Idaho?

The article focuses on English 101 Plus, a corequisite model that replaces remedial writing with a required three-credit first-year writing course paired with one or two credits of concurrent corequisite instructional support.

How does the project balance accountability mandates with educational quality?

It describes faculty-led agency and collaboration that preserve best practices and maintain instructional quality while still meeting external political and economic reform requirements.

What was the key policy driver for adopting the corequisite approach in Idaho?

In 2012, the Idaho State Board of Education mandated eliminating or reducing remedial courses in public postsecondary institutions, prompting adoption of the English 101 Plus corequisite model.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by kopisore