In this article, we offer practical suggestions for teaching writing to diverse groups of students who represent the fields of composition studies, basic writing, and ESL.

A film that presents a compelling and particularly American moral dilemma provides the scaffolding that helps basic writing students to construct convincing argumentative essays.

Case histories of basic writing programs at regional campuses need to incorporate concerns of social class. Attention to class helps scholars identify institutional patterns that distance basic writing from the university’s mainstream business.

Contrastive rhetoric provides tools that community college teachers need in order to understand the rhetorical forms that students from other cultures employ. Greater understanding of contrastive rhetoric can change the way that teachers interpret the difficulty linguistically different students may have in using conventional American academic writing patterns and can provide new avenues for teaching those patterns.

E-mail peer response teaches students about audience and text more effectively than synchronous peer response.

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.

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.

Research Article| October 01 2001 Overcoming Inertia in the Basic Writing Classroom at Midsemester Laurie Bower Laurie Bower Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Pedagogy (2001) 1 (3): 535–538. https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-1-3-535 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Laurie Bower; Overcoming Inertia in the Basic Writing Classroom at Midsemester. Pedagogy 1 October 2001; 1 (3): 535–538. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-1-3-535 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsPedagogy Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2001 Duke University Press2001 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: From the Classroom You do not currently have access to this content.

Presents a questionnaire that helps gather valuable information about students’ attitudes toward mandatory placement in basic writing courses. Concludes that with the kind of information gleaned from responses to questionnaires similar to this one, educators can better understand the strengths and weaknesses of basic writing programs and revise their curriculum and placement procedures as necessary.

Four case studies of proficient undergraduate writers from working-class backgrounds were conducted in the context of a course preparing sophomore and junior students to be tutors for first-year basic writers. It was found that, in contrast to much of the theorizing by and about working-class academics that emphasizes loss, a stronger theme in these students’ narratives of growing academic literacy was gaming. Students explained their experiences in ways that suggested a greater degree of agency, an awareness of themselves as writers in a contact zone, and a stance of tricking teachers on the way to producing acceptable texts. These findings suggest that writing in the contact zone of the classroom may require a double-voicedness that need not always be heard by instructors but is nevertheless important to students.

Presents a sequenced writing assignment on shopping to aid basic writers. Describes a writing assignment focused around online and mail-order shopping. Notes steps in preparing for the assignment, the sequence, and discusses responses to the assignments.

Presents and describes a narrative writing assignment used by the author in a developmental writing course that helps to demonstrate to students how and why sexist language usage can limit thinking, sometimes injuriously, and that concretely illustrates how language and gender stereotyping interact causally. Describes the assignment, how it is used in class, and class discussions resulting.

Describes how the author uses the poems of Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology” in her developmental writing classes to foster literary discussion, build vocabulary, and teach a broad range of essay writing skills.

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.

Shows how letter writing can motivate basic writers. Describes how the author began teaching his first remedial writing class with a class-wide engagement in letter writing. Discusses how the class developed an active, collaborative, engaged, and inclusive spirit as students learned to put expression first and polishing later.

Considers how the revising skills of basic writing students improve when they receive both inductive and deductive teacher feedback. Finds that students who received inductive feedback changed their largest percent of errors when given oral conferences and students who received deductive feedback changed their smallest number of errors when given oral feedback.

Considers how allowing developmental students to incorporate some of their language and culture into their writing helps them become more proficient writers. Suggests that the best way to teach basic writers is through both process and a respect for the social discovery that ensues as one composes.

Reviews five books: Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing, by Mina Shaughnessy; Telling Writing, by Ken Macrorie; Writing without Teachers, by Peter Elbow; Structured Reading, by Lynn Quitman Troyka and Joseph W. Thweatt; Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, by Stephen D. Krashen.

Reviews six books: Mina P. Shaughnessy: Her Life and Work, by Jane Maher reviewed by Judith A. (Jay) Wootten; Your Choice: A Basic Writing Guide with Readings, by Kate Mangelsdorf and Evelyn Posey reviewed by Lynn Summer; Constructing Knowledges: The Politics of Theory Building and Pedagogy in Composition, by Sidney I. Dobrin reviewed by Julie Drew; Academic Advancement in Composition Studies: Scholarship, Publication, Promotion, Tenure, ed. by Richard C. Gebhardt and Barbara Genelle Smith Gebhardt; Publishing in Rhetoric and Composition, ed. by Gary A. Olson and Todd Taylor; Writing for Academic Publication, by Frank Parker and Kathryn Riley reviewed by Cynthia Simpson.

Argues that, to deal effectively with sentence errors of basic writers, it is crucial to distinguish between what should be left alone and what can be productively marked and how it should be marked. Proposes a taxonomy of four sources of errors (knowledge, dialect, process, and developmental errors) and seven ways to address them.

Describes how one teacher uses life writing (reading and writing about transformative life experiences) in her basic writing class to engage students and to help them understand the power and purpose of reaching out to a variety of audiences. Discusses grading life writing.

Argues that the labels "basic" or "developmental" as applied to students often obscure the complexities of knowing who is underprepared for what, kinds of barriers that countermand mastery, and instructors’ roles in helping construct these barriers. Views closely the behaviors by which four students in a developmental writing class presented themselves.

Contends that developmental writing students’ self confidence improves when they understand their learning styles. Outlines how the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is used to pinpoint students’ learning styles and how to help students work "their way."

Considers why basic writers write in "phrases patched upon phrases." Examines how language is patterned and acquired to clarify a framework for teaching basic writers. States that speaking and writing, two different ways of organizing and presenting information, have different structures. Explores what cognitive psychology can say about how the mind processes and produces language.

Diane Allen, in "Tapping the Sources Within: A Three-Step Approach", gives a strategy for helping basic writing students develop better essays with stronger voices.

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Using diverse texts to critically examine America’s melting pot ideal supports basic writing students’ successful matriculation through rhetorically and socially challenging locations.

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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

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

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This article presents insights about writing development of urban college students that can be gleaned from longitudinal research that examines both personal and academic histories. Factors in students' lives, revealed through ongoing interviews and classroom observations, influence both students' abilities to respond to certain types of reading and writing tasks and their potential to develop as successful college students. A set of categories developed by Larson is used to analyze the texts produced by a basic writing student in her first 3½ years of college to illustrate the richness and complexity of analysis available through longitudinal research.

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“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

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