Journal of Basic Writing
Volume 17 Issue 2, Fall 1998
Table of Contents
·
Susanmarie
Harrington and Linda Adler-Kassner: “The Dilemma that Still Counts: Basic
Writing at a Political Crossroads”
· Jeanne Gunner: “Iconic Discourse: The Troubling Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy”
· Laura Gray-Rosendale: “Inessential Writings: Shaughnessy’s Legacy in a Socially Constructed Landscape”
·
Howard Tinberg: “Teaching in the Spaces Between: What Basic Writing Students Can Teach
Us”
·
Jeffrey T. Grabill: “Technology, Basic Writing, and Change”
Abstracts
Volume 17 Issue 2, Fall 1998
Susanmarie Harrington and Linda
Adler-Kassner
“The Dilemma that Still Counts:
Basic Writing at a Political Crossroads”
In light of current debates about basic writers and basic writing (like those in these pages and beyond), it seems abundantly clear that there is a need to assess our field's definition of basic writing and basic writers in order to articulate what we are, both to ourselves and to others outside the field. This article begins by reviewing definitions of basic writers and basic writing in research from the last twenty years, using this review to argue that basic writers are not defined only in terms of institutional convenience. It then offers future directions for basic writing research, suggesting that in order to learn more about writers who truly are "basic," we must return to studies of error informed by basic writing's rich traditions of cognitive and cultural research.
Jeanne Gunner
“Iconic Discourse: The Troubling Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy”
The "legacy" of Mina Shaughnessy takes the form of a particular discourse that has, until recently, directed the means of discussion of basic writing issues. This discourse is characterized by two prominent functions: it routinely returns to the Shaughnessy icon constructed since her death (a concept supported by Foucault's notion of the author function), and it treats the teacher-figure as an idealized embodiment of "authentic" knowledge and democratic feeling. Two debates within the Basic Writing community--the reaction against Min Zhan Lu's early theoretical work and the more recent acrimonious response to Ira Shor's defense of mainstreamingreflect contending paradigms of the basic writing field, with "critical" discourse challenging the conventions and so authority of Shaughnessy-based "iconic" discourse.
Laura Gray-Rosendale
“Inessential Writings: Shaughnessy’s Legacy in a Socially Constructed Landscape”
This article offers a rhetorical analysis of the charges that have been waged against Mina Shaughnessy's scholarship from poststructuralist, feminist, and Marxist quarters. While arguing that the philosophical and political interventions such work has furnished are crucial, Gray-Rosendale contends that too often Shaughnessy's research has been somewhat mischaracterized. First, the paper investigates the contradictory terminological investments within the charges against Shaughnessy (i.e., "essentialism," "accommodationism," and lack of "materialist praxis"). Second, through close readings of Shaughnessy's texts, the paper maintains that the complexity and "self-difference" of Shaughnessy's own scholarship and its historical-political context indeed undermine such criticisms.
Howard Tinberg
“Teaching in the Spaces Between: What Basic Writing Students Can Teach Us”
In a time when remediation is being attacked from both the right and the left, it would seem odd that we have not sought out the views of those directly affected: basic writers themselves. Perhaps if we did so, public discussion as to who "lost" the remediation wars would be replaced by the more productive question, "Whose responsibility is it to promote broad-based literacy in this nation?"
Jeffrey T. Grabill
“Technology, Basic Writing, and Change”
This article explores a way to change the status and position of basic writing by focusing on technology design and its relationship with larger institutional systems. Many of our efforts to change the identity of writing programs focus on classroom issues or particular curricular efforts. The argument in this article is that the identity of basic writing is a function of larger institutional decision-making processes and therefore the focus of our efforts to change basic writing should also engage these institutional processes. The article focuses on how participating in technology design can be a wedge for engaging in decision-making about the purpose and identity of basic writing programs.