College Composition and Communication

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December 2024

  1. “You could have students who barely speak English with someone who’s almost ready to go to comp”: Latinx Basic Writers in Iowa Community Colleges
    Abstract

    Latinx students are a growing demographic in postsecondary English classes, but the majority of research on them and on the faculty who teach them is based in the US Southwest at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The purpose of this study is to describe some of the pedagogical and extracurricular considerations of faculty who teach Latinx students in two community colleges in the Midwest in order to support these students, especially in developmental courses. This study draws from qualitative data collected at two community colleges, Mann College and Kinsella College (pseudonyms). This exploratory study provides recommendations for the kind of professional development that faculty may need in order to support Latinx students, the importance of understanding students’ myriad identities, and the ways political forces may shape students’ experiences.

    doi:10.58680/ccc2024762263

February 2018

  1. With “Increased Dignity and Importance”: Re-Historicizing Charles Roberts and the Illinois Decision of 1955
    Abstract

    I revisit the so-called Illinois Decision of 1955, which eliminated basic writing from the University of Illinois Rhetoric Program and caused a chain of similar programmatic actions on other campuses nationwide. I contend that reviewing and archiving the Illinois Decision as a locally specific act with multiple actors besides WPA Charles Roberts historicizes a familiar narrative present today—namely, how WPAs address anxieties about writing in high school versus college, and how composition students and programs are beholden to ongoing institutional and extra-institutional imperatives regarding literacy and efficiency.

    doi:10.58680/ccc201829490

June 2015

  1. Difficulty Paper (Dis)Connections: Understanding the Threads Students Weave between Their Reading and Writing
    Abstract

    Using Mariolina Salvatori’s difficulty paper assignment to explore student experiences when reading, this paper examines basic writing students’

    doi:10.58680/ccc201527363

June 2014

  1. The Legal and the Local: Using Disparate Impact Analysis to Understand the Consequences of Writing Assessment
    Abstract

    In this article, we investigate disparate impact analysis as a validation tool for understanding the local effects of writing assessment on diverse groups of students. Using a case study data set from a university that we call Brick City University, we explain how Brick City’s writing program undertook a self-study of its placement exam using the disparate impact process followed by the Office for Civil Rights of the US Department of Education. This three-step process includes analyzing placement rates through (1) a threshold statistical analysis, (2) a contextualized inquiry to determine whether the placement exam meets an important educational objective, and (3) a consideration of less discriminatory assessment alternatives. By employing such a process, Brick City re-conceptualized the role of placement testing and basic writing at the university in a way that was less discriminatory for Brick City’s diverse student population.

    doi:10.58680/ccc201425448

September 2008

  1. Before Mina Shaughnessy: Basic Writing at Yale, 1920–1960
    Abstract

    This article examines Yale’s “Awkward Squad” of basic writers between 1920 and 1960. Using archival materials that illustrate the socioeconomic conditions of this early, “pre-Shaughnessy” site of remedial writing instruction, I argue for a re-definition of basic in composition studies using local, institutional values rather than generic standards of correctness applied uniformly to all colleges and universities.

    doi:10.58680/ccc20086750

September 2003

  1. The Politics of Remediation: Institutional and Student Needs in Higher Education
    Abstract

    While some students need more writing instruction than others, The Politics of Remediation reveals how that need also pertains to the institutions themselves. Mary Soliday argues that universities may need remedial English to alleviate their own crises in admissions standards, enrollment, mission, and curriculum, and English departments may use remedial programs to mediate their crises in enrollment, electives, and relationships to the liberal arts and professional schools. Following a brief history of remedial English and the political uses of remediation at CCNY before, during, and after the open admissions policy, Soliday questions the ways in which students' need for remedial writing instruction has become widely associated with the need to acculturate minorities to the university. In disentangling identity politics from remediation, she challenges a powerful assumption of post-structuralist work: that a politics of language use is equivalent to the politics of access to institutions.

    doi:10.2307/3594206

February 2003

  1. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies
    Abstract

    Reflecting the rich complexity of contemporary college composition pedagogy, this unique collection presents twelve original essays on several of the most important approaches to the teaching of writing. Each essay is written by an experienced teacher/scholar and describes one of the major pedagogies employed today: process, expressive, rhetorical, collaborative, feminist, critical, cultural studies, community service, and basic writing. Writing centers, writing across the curriculum, and technology and the teaching of writing are also discussed. The essays are composed of personal statements on pedagogical applications and bibliographical guides that aid students and new teachers in further study and research. Contributors include Christopher Burnham, William A. Covino, Ann George, Diana George, Eric H. Hobson, Rebecca Moore Howard, Susan C. Jarratt, Laura Julier, Susan McLeod, Charles Moran, Deborah Mutnick, Lad Tobin, and John Trimbur. An invaluable tool for graduate students and new teachers, A Guide to Composition Pedagogies provides an exceptional introduction to composition studies and the extensive range of pedagogical approaches used today.

    doi:10.2307/3594179

December 2002

  1. “The Politics of Location”: Text As Opposition
    Abstract

    Foregrounding issues of race, ethnicity, and education, this article ties together two important issues in teaching (so-called) basic writing: how social and pedagogical issues in higher education shape possibilities for bicultural students’ writings and how these students can use their developing sense of literacy and their texts to explore identity.

    doi:10.58680/ccc20021482
  2. "The Politics of Location": Text as Opposition
    Abstract

    Foregrounding issues of race, ethnicity, and education, this article ties together two important issues in teaching (so-called) basic writing: how social and pedagogical issues in higher education shape possibilities for bicultural students' writings and how these students can use their developing sense of literacy and their texts to explore

    doi:10.2307/1512147

June 2002

  1. English Only and U.S. College Composition
    Abstract

    In this article, we identify in the formation of U.S. college composition courses a tacit policy of English monolingualism based on a chain of reifications of languages and social identity. We show this policy continuing in assumptions underlying arguments for and against English Only legislation and basic writers. And we call for an internationalist perspective on written English in relation to other languages and the dynamics of globalization.

    doi:10.58680/ccc20021465

September 2000

  1. Rethinking Basic Writing: Exploring Identity, Politics, and Community in Interaction
    doi:10.2307/358551

June 2000

  1. Evaluating Writing Programs in Real Time: The Politics of Remediation
    Abstract

    A case study of the evaluation of a three-year pilot project in mainstreaming basic writers at City College of New York suggests that the social and political contexts of a project need to be taken into account in the earliest stages of evaluation. This project’s complex evaluation report was virtually ignored by college administrators.

    doi:10.58680/ccc20001398

February 2000

  1. Representing the "Other": Basic Writers and the Teaching of Basic Writing
    doi:10.2307/358752

May 1998

  1. Strategies for Struggling Writers
    Abstract

    Unlike purely process-orientated approaches, which hold that skills are acquired intuitively through writing and revising, strategic writing instruction sees the acquisition of key skills as integrally related to effective self-expression. Based on extensive research, the book describes how teachers and students can work together to develop writing strategies - thinking procedures for solving problems ranging from spelling a word correctly to planning a whole project. Illustrative case studies demonstrate how the co-construction and implementation of writing strategies can help students formulate and achieve their own personal writing goals.

    doi:10.2307/358940

December 1997

  1. Writing in an Alien World: Basic Writing and the Struggle for Equality in Higher Education
    doi:10.2307/358467

May 1996

  1. A Brief Guide to Basic Writing
    doi:10.2307/358801
  2. Discoursing Basic Writing
    Abstract

    Preview this article: Discoursing Basic Writing, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/47/2/collegecompositionandcommunication8700-1.gif

    doi:10.58680/ccc19968700

February 1996

  1. What's It worth and What's It For? Revisions to Basic Writing Revisited
    doi:10.2307/358278
  2. Interchanges: Rethinking Basic Writing
    Abstract

    Housewives and Compositionists Akua Duku Anokye Mapping the Terrain of Tracks and Streams Suellynn Duffey What’s It Worth and What’s It For? Revisions to Basic Writing Revisited Judith Rodby

    doi:10.58680/ccc19968713
  3. Repositioning Remediation: Renegotiating Composition's Work in the Academy
    Abstract

    I think basic writing programs have become expressions of our desire to produce basic writers, to maintain the course, the argument, and the slot in the university community: to maintain the distinction (basic/normal) we have learned to think through and by. The basic writing program, then, can be seen simultaneously as an attempt to bridge and preserve cultural difference, to enable students to enter the normal curriculum but to insure, at the

    doi:10.2307/358274

October 1994

  1. Resisting Privilege: Basic Writing and Foucault's Author Function
    Abstract

    shot through as the term is with local contexts, different approaches, and standardized grammar tests. Any article or research report on writing has to be read carefully for how its author describes writing. are equally elusive. Sometimes they are called remedial, implying that they are retaking courses in material that already should have been mastered. Sometimes they are called developmental, suggesting a cognitive or psychological problem. At other times and in other places, they may be called Educational Opportunity Students, suggesting division by access to education. Or they are just basic, requiring foundational or fundamental instruction in writing. As a case in point, several years ago, I wrote an article, on the writing program at Indiana UniversityIndianapolis, published in the Journal of Basic Writing. Impossibly, it seemed to me, I found an article on Harvard University's writers in the same issue in which my own article appeared. Surely, we weren't talking about the same students, nor the same writing. And, indeed, we were not. While the students I wrote about were having trouble producing any text, even text with attendant problems in organization and mechanics, the Harvard students were instead having problems with originality, creativity, and elaborating arguments (Armstrong 70-72). Yet the presence of basic is tenacious in English departments and we might want to ask ourselves why the term-which seems only to give some vague indication of a deficiency-continues to signify something important to us. The signification of the term is often masked by the way basic is

    doi:10.2307/358814
  2. Resisting Privilege: Basic Writing and Foucault’s Author Function
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc19948776

May 1992

  1. At the Point of Need: Teaching Basic and ESL Writers
    Abstract

    At the Point of Need is a richly detailed account of the experiences of teachers, tutors, and students over a five-year period in a university writing center, whose main mission was to enable basic and ESL writers to handle college writing demands. By and large, it's a success story, with implications and applications far beyond the purview of that particular writing center. Essentially, it wasn't broad knowledge of teaching or writing that these teachers and basic writers needed. What they needed was permission and encouragement to evaluate their own work; a way to evaluate it for themselves while including feedback from others; peers to help them brainstorm things to try when they got stuck; support for trying the unconventional; and freedom from constant impersonal assessment.

    doi:10.2307/357572

December 1991

  1. Textual Carnivals: The Politics of Composition
    Abstract

    This is the first book-length study of the status of composition in English studies and the uneasy relationship between composition and literature. Composition studies and institutional histories of English studies have long needed this kind of clarification of the historical and political contexts of composition teaching, research, and administration. Susan Miller argues that composition constitutes a major national industry, citing the four million freshman-level students enrolled in such courses each year, the $40 million annual expenditure for textbooks, and the more than $50 million in teacher salaries. But this concrete magnitude is not expressed in political power within departments. Miller calls on her associates in composition to engage in a persistent critique of the social practices and political agenda of the discipline that have been responsible for its institutional marginalization. Drawing on her own long experience as a composition administrator, teacher, and scholar, as well as on a national survey of composition professionals, Miller argues that composition teachers inadvertently continue to foster the negative myth about composition' s place in the English studies hierarchy by assuming an assigned, self-sacrificial cultural identity. Composition has been regarded as subcollegiate, practical, a how-to, and has been denied intellectual rigor in order to preserve literature' s presentations of quasi-religious textual ideals. Winner of three major book awards: The Modern Language Association' s Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize The Conference on College Composition and Communication' s Outstanding Book Award The Teachers of Advanced Composition' s W. Ross Winterowd Award

    doi:10.2307/358011

May 1991

  1. Reviews
    Abstract

    “CCCC Bibliography of Composition and Rhetoric, 1988”, Erika Lindemann and Mary Beth Harding Lynn Z. Bloom “Research in Basic Writing: A Bibliographic Sourcebook”, Michael G. Moran and Martin J. Jacobi LisaJ. McClure “The Writing Teacher as Researcher: Essays in the Theory and Practice of Class-Based Research”, Donald A. Daiker and Max Morenberg Shirley K Rose “Personality and the Teaching of Composition”, George H. Jensen and John K. DiTiberio Lynn Quitman Troyka “Farther Along: Transforming Dichotomieisn Rhetoric and Composition”, Kate Ronald and Hephzibah Roskelly Catherine E. Lamb “Writing Better Computer User Documentation: From Paper to Hypertext”, R. John Brockmann Designing and “Writing Online Documentation: Help Files to Hypertext”, William K. Horton Stephen A. Bernhardt “Modern Rhetorical Criticism”, Roderick P. Hart Timothy W. Crusius “Oral and Written Communication: Historical Approaches”, Richard Leo Enos Thomas J. Farrell The Older Sophists, Rosamond Kent Sprague Richard Leo Enos The Student’s Guide to Good Writing: Building Writing Skills for Success in College, Rick Dalton and Marianne Dalton Charles W. Bridges

    doi:10.58680/ccc19918934
  2. Research in Basic Writing: A Bibliographic Sourcebook
    Abstract

    Introduction Social Science Perspectives Who are Basic Writers? by Andrea Lunsford and Patricia A. Sullivan Development Psychology and Basic Writers by Donna Haisty Winchell Literacy Theory and Basic Writing by Mariolina Salvatori and Glynda Hull Linguistic Perspectives Modern Grammar and Basic Writers by Ronald F. Lunsford Dialects and Basic Writers by Michael Montgomery TESL Research and Basic Writing by Sue Render Pedalogical Perspectives Basic Writing Courses and Programs by Michael D. Hood Computers and Writing Instruction by Stephen A. Bernhardt and Patricia G. Wojahn Writing Laboratories and Basic Writing by Donna Beth Nelson Preparing Teachers of Basic Writing by Richard Filloy Appendix: Selective Bibliography of Basic Writing Textbooks by Mary Sue Ply Name Index Subject Index

    doi:10.2307/358206

May 1989

  1. Transference and Resistance in the Basic Writing Classroom: Problematics and Praxis
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc198911131

December 1988

  1. Talking into Writing: Exercises for Basic Writers
    doi:10.2307/357707

May 1988

  1. Teaching Writing as a Second Language
    Abstract

    Classrooms filled with glassy-eyed students provide an experiential base for Alice S. Horning s new comprehensive theory about basic writers.Horning explores the theory of writing acquisition in detail. Her examination of spoken and written language and redundancy give a theoretical base to her argument that academic discourse is a separate linguistic system characterized by particular psycholinguistic features. She proposes that basic writers learn to write as other learners master a second language because for them, academic written English is a whole new language.She explores the many connections to be found in second language acquisition research to the teaching and learning of writing and gives special attention to the interlanguage hypothesis, pidginization theory, and the Monitor theory. She also addresses the role of affective factors (feelings, attitudes, emotions, and motivation) in the success or failure of writing students.

    doi:10.2307/358041

December 1987

  1. Collaboration of Teacher and Counselor in Basic Writing
    doi:10.2307/357640

October 1987

  1. Developing the Inferential Reasoning of Basic Writers
    doi:10.2307/357754

October 1986

  1. What Happens When Basic Writers Come to College?
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc198611229

December 1985

  1. Transcription and Basic Writing Skills
    doi:10.2307/357868

October 1985

  1. Computers and Basic Writers
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc198511758
  2. Transcribing Speech: An Initial Step in Basic Writing
    doi:10.2307/357986

December 1982

  1. Training Teachers of Basic Writing in the Writing Laboratory
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc198215832

February 1982

  1. The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook
    Abstract

    Preface 1. THE CONTEXTS OF TEACHING PERSPECTIVES Richard Fulkerson: Four Philosophies of Composition James Berlin: Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class Edward P.J. Corbett: Rhetoric, the Enabling Discipline Min-Zhan Lu and Bruce Horner: The Problematic of Experience: Redefining Critical Work in Ethnography and Pedagogy TEACHERS Peter Elbow: Embracing Contraries in the Teaching Process Donald M. Murray: The Listening Eye: Reflections on the Writing Conference Lad Tobin: Reading Students, Reading Ourselves: Revising the Teacher's Role in the Writing Class Dan Morgan: Ethical Issues Raised by Students' Personal Writing STUDENTS Mina P. Shaughnessy: Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing Vivian Zamel: Strangers in Academia: The Experiences of Faculty and ESL Students Across the Curriculum Todd Taylor: The Persistence of Difference in Networked Classrooms: Non-Negotiable Difference and the African American Student Body LOCATIONS Hephzibah Roskelly: The Risky Business of Group Work Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe: The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class Muriel Harris: Talking in the Middle: Why Writers Need Writing Tutors APPROACHES Min-Zhan Lu: Redefining the Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy: A Critique of the Politics of Linguistic Innocence Mariolina Salvatori: Conversations with Texts: Reading in the Teaching of Composition Gary Tate: A Place for Literature in Freshman Composition Carolyn Matalene: Experience as Evidence: Teaching Students to Write Honestly and Knowledgeably about Public Issues 2. THE TEACHING OF WRITING ASSIGNING Mike Rose: Writing Courses: A Critique and a Proposal David Peck, Elizabeth Hoffman, and Mike Rose: A Comment and Response on Remedial Writing Courses Richard L. Larson: The Research Paper in the Writing Course: A Non-Form of Writing Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor: Teaching Argument: A Theory of Types Catherine E. Lamb: Beyond Argument in Feminist Composition RESPONDING AND ASSESSING Brooke K. Horvath: The Components of Written Response: A Practical Synthesis of Current Views David Bartholomae: The Study of Error Jerry Farber: Learning How to Teach: A Progress Report COMPOSING AND REVISING Nancy Sommers: Between the Drafts James A. Reither: Writing and Knowing: Toward Redefining the Writing Process David Bleich: Collaboration and the Pedagogy of Disclosure AUDIENCES Douglas B. Park: The Meanings of Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford: Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy Peter Elbow: Closing My Eyes as I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience STYLES Robert J. Connors: Static Abstractions and Composition Winston Weathers: Teaching Style: A Possible Anatomy Elizabeth D. Rankin: Revitalizing Style: Toward a New Theory and Pedagogy Richard Ohmann: Use Definite, Specific, Concrete Language

    doi:10.2307/357852

October 1981

  1. Controlled Composition for Basic Writers
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc198115900

February 1981

  1. Basic Writing: Essays for Teachers, Researchers, and Administrators
    doi:10.2307/356362

October 1980

  1. The Content of Basic Writers' Essays
    Abstract

    In 1976, when was struggling with a bewildering explosion of figures gathered in relation to a study of basic writers, wrote to Mina Shaughnessy. Help, said, I am awash in a sea of uncontrolled variables, error counts, and tests for statistical significance. Now that I've started counting things, can't seem to stop. As always, Mina somehow found time to write back, and she gave me some eminently sensible advice: Cut the list of countable items in half, she said, and then begin to narrow from there. But while you count and categorize, don't forget to listen to what the students are telling you. Her concern was later reiterated in the essay, Basic Writing:

    doi:10.2307/356488
  2. The Content of Basic Writers’ Essays
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc198015940

February 1979

  1. Mina Pendo Shaughnessy
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc197916253
  2. The Random House Guide to Basic Writing
    doi:10.2307/356757
  3. Handbook of Basic Writing Skills
    doi:10.2307/356758

December 1978

  1. Introducing Rhetoric in Remedial Writing-Courses
    doi:10.2307/357028

February 1978

  1. What We Know-and Don’t Know-About Remedial Writing
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc197816339
  2. What We Know. And Don't Know. About Remedial Writing
    doi:10.2307/356255

February 1977

  1. Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing
    doi:10.2307/356923

October 1976

  1. Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc197616563

October 1973

  1. Designing Remedial/Developmental Writing Programs
    doi:10.2307/356876