Finally, there have been unrealistic demands placed on FYC instructors charged with preparing students to conduct research and write in all disciplines. Many people, among them univer-sity faculty outside of composition, tend to expect FYC—in the course of just one or two semesters—to remake students into writ-ers capable of conducting research and writing for their chosen fields of study.

As teachers understandably grew fearful about losing their jobs because of low test scores, they devoted class time to preparing students for the tests rather than developing prac-tices that would have helped students improve as readers and writ-ers. Standardized tests often rely on multiple-choice responses that neither allow for complexity of thought nor invite students to draw connections between the text under consideration and their own experiences.

but those same teachers frequently fail to assume respon-sibility for teaching students how to read. This often manifests itself in teaching only surface-level reading strategies in K–12 such as skimming and reading for the gist, and in cries of, “They should know this stuff before they get here!” at the university level. This abdication of responsibility has far-reaching effects for students