Throughout the 90s, Expos 10 has attempted to maintain its original pedagogical structure.

“It was paced more moderately, and was more targeted towards basic grammar and paragraph-building skills than the regular Expos course was,” Buell said. “Faculty accepted it as a transitional class for the less prepared students.”

But one of the worries surrounding Expos 10 has been the stigma of being placed into a “remedial” course. Even in 1985, Faculty were wary of terming the course as “remedial,” and gave it the title Expos 5 to avoid any pejorative connotation.

But some students who took Expos 10 this year reported positive experiences.

Stephanie N. Regan ’13, who took Expos 10 with Zachary C. Sifuentes ’97-’99 in the fall, described her Expos 10 experience as one where the students learned “how to build an essay from the ground up” and one that was “rigorous in different ways” from the Expos 20 she took in the spring.

“I had weaker English teachers in high school,” she said. “[Sifuentes] was definitely one of the best teachers I’ve had this year...he really broke down writing style and techniques.”

“And Expos 20 didn’t really do much for me besides practice the techniques I learned in Expos 10,” Regan added.

—Shan Wang contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Rediet T. Abebe can be reached at rtesfaye@college.harvard.edu.