Before a student is enrolled in Writing and Reading Lab, the approval of the English department head is required. Students enrolled must value this special learn ing environment, which is designed for cooperative, mutually supportive work. Thus, referrals made to address behavioral problems or to sort students for a variety of reasons other than those stated below will not be approved. For students currently mainstreamed, referral is made by the current English teacher, and will be based upon observed and persistent deficiency in the student's fundamental literacy skills. The student's reading is laborious, difficult, and slow, even when reading materials of personal interest.
Comprehension is achieved only with significant work.
The student's writing shows profound and recurring deficiencies in correctness, problems with sentence sense, spelling, and other fundamentals of written expression. For students currently receiving instruction through special services, a request for referral is made only after consultation with the English department head and appropriate special services personnel. As a lab course, the setting for addressing literacy tasks is altered from what students have previously experienced. The classroom becomes a workplace, a workplace where language is at the center of their work, and they are expected to be purposeful workers. Students are asked to comprehend and contend with a range of reading, writing and viewing tasks.