Journal of Basic Writing

Volume 15  Issue 1, Summer 1996


Table of Contents

Abstracts


Volume 15  Issue 1, Summer 1996

 

Rebecca Mlynarczyk

"Finding Grandma's Words: A Case Study in the Art of Revising"

Most basic writers are not adept at revising their work, often limiting revision to surface changes at the word or sentence level. Research on composing suggests that many writers are hampered in their efforts to revise by their inability to re-examine the content of their writing and by misguided attempts to follow rigid "rules" internalized from teachers and textbooks. The author reviews the research on revising as it relates to a case study of the revising processes of one of her basic writing students. The resulting analysis yields insights into the complexities of revising and suggests possibilities for more productive teacher response to student writing.

 

Michael Newman

"Correctness and Its Conceptions: The Meaning of Language Form for Basic Writers"

Over the past twenty years, we have come to see that errors are not simply flaws in a text. However, the need for correctness remains undiminished if only because of societal and institutional demands. Yet there is little consensus about correctness or even whether language can be described as correct or incorrect in the first place. This essay suggests a way out of this bind by looking at correctness in a sociolinguistic sense. In this way writers' different formal choices provide information about their identity and the identity of the text they are creating. Correct usage sends the sociolinguistic message the author desires; incorrect forms send undesired ones. The problem basic writers face is that these errors send the message that they are not college students and their writing is not academic. Correctness thus has a sociolinguistic role crucial to the field of basic writing and which helps differentiate that field from other types of writing instruction.

 

Carol Severino

"An Urban University and Its Academic Support Program: Teaching Basic Writing in the Context of an 'Urban Mission'"

The author traces the uses of the "urban mission" trope both nationally and locally as it pertains to the history of the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Educational Assistance Program. Such institutional and support programs' histories are important to basic writing teachers because these programs have served tens of thousands of basic writers in the last twenty-five years. The political dynamics described in this Chicago "story" often determine which and how many students deemed "basic writers" appear in our classrooms, or even whether we teach basic writing courses at all.

 

Willa Wolcott

"Evaluating a Basic Writing Program"

The evaluation of a basic writing program can be beneficial in demonstrating the effectiveness of the program and useful in opening up a dialogue among the instructors in the program. This article describes an evevaluation program that combines a variety of writing assessments - including pre-post impromptu essays, a multiple-choice editing test, and a portfolio assessment - with student and instructor questionnaires and with indirect measures to provide a comprehensive examination of a basic writing program.

 

Kay Harley and Sally I. Cannon

"Failure: The Student's or the Assessment's"

The study of an African American female who participated in a pilot project for underprepared college writers reveals the ways in which current assessment models fail to evaluate adequately the performance of socially, ethnically, and culturally diverse students. The analysis demonstrates the mismatch between the portfolio assessment practices in place and the texts the student produced. Assessment criteria are unable to acknowledge the blurring of genres that is evident in much writing today, and the controversies over the role of voice and the privileging of linear forms of organization in academic writing.

 

Sharon Crowley

"Response to Edward M. White"

The author responds to Ed White's JBW article, "The Importance of Placement and Basic Studies: Helping Students Succeed Under the New Elitism." She believes that White misunderstood her reason for recommending the abolishment of the universal requirement in introdutory composition. The author explains that her position does not represent complicity with the new political elitisim but is instead a radical response intended to represent the interest of "new" students.