The product of a course at the University of Pittsburgh, this book offers educators the opportunity to see how the acts of reading, writing, and thinking that characterize work in academia appear to those students who lack adequate preparation for such work--namely, basic writers. The introduction to the book presents an overview of the course and the versions of reading and writing that hold it together. The second part, "Teaching Reading and Writing," includes the course materials, presented in the exact order in which they were designed for distribution to students in the course, and a short chapter on how they are used. The final part of the book, "Discerning Principles," includes essays that bring together some of the writing and collaborative research that has been done with reference to the course. The essays in this part do not defend or explain a curriculum, but examine basic issues and problems in composition, including revision, editing, invention, reading, and interpretation. (JD)