Despite common usage, there is no agreed-upon definition of a “basic writer.” In general, when college writing programs use the term, they refer to a student assigned to a writing course that exists below (at least in terms of course number) a first-semester composition course. The class may be a skill-and-drill course in punctuation in which little writing beyond sentences and paragraphs takes place. The reasoning, which is not supported by research, is that students must first master language in smaller bits before moving on to longer and longer prose creations. At the other end of the extreme (and there are many varieties between the two), the course may permit students to partake in engage in the real act of writing in a workshop environment. Those two classroom environments envision students in two very different ways. How we define the “basic writer” is always contingent upon institutional conditions. More to the point, the way in which we understand the group of college students known as basic writers is contingent upon the forms of assessment (both large-scale and small-scale) used at our institutions.
We are working under the premise that “basic writer” is a social construction. By this we mean that the term represents an evolving concept that is continually created by various agents (teachers, students, administrators, parents, scholars, etc) interacting with one another. No deity created a group of humans and called them “basic writers.” There was no such thing as a basic writer until someone with institutional power administered an assessment, scored that assessment, and placed some of those students into a separate class. The academy -- sometimes compositionists, sometimes admissions or testing offices -- created and named a group. Thus, we speak of that group as a social construction. Just as curriculum is significant, so too is the language we use to describe this group. Many prefer the term “basic writer” because it is less infected by medical overtones than “remedial writer” which implies students are in need of a remedy for an ailment (perhaps a disease called “poor writer's ailment”). These terms only take on meaning in relation to a particular writing program, for which some students are presumably not ready.
An assessment defines and enforces the campus definition, sometimes consistently and sometimes not. The basic writing enterprise on college campuses is therefore tied inextricably to assessment, which (like the process of naming basic writers and creating a basic writing curriculum) is a human activity. A basic writer at College A submits a portfolio of writing to the English Department; a group of faculty members read and discuss the portfolio and decide she needs an extra semester of college writing. The English Department or perhaps the Admissions Office at College B looks at SAT scores and places all students who score below a certain number into basic writing. College C has all its 7,500 or so incoming students sit for a thirty-minute timed writing test, which is scored by graduate students who are paid slightly better than minimum wage to assign a score which determines placement into basic writing, composition, or honors English. Each college defines “Basic Writing” in a particular manner. The form of large-scale assessment instrument used at each school helps the institution construct the basic writer.
Who is the basic writer? Someone who hasn't produced writings to include in an impressive portfolio of their work? Someone who can't write a sentence? Someone who chokes in a high-pressure thirty-minute exam (or went to a big party the night before)? Someone weak at standardized tests like the SAT? How writing programs go about sorting students speaks volumes about their institutional values. The form of assessment dictates how a “basic writer” is defined.
It is possible to view basic writers in social terms as an institutional device to isolate (or even to expel) the “other,” a term that suggests that no matter how we assess basic writers, they are usually grouped for being different than us. The term “other” comes to composition studies from critical and social theory and represents a grouping of individuals who are marginalized by a more powerful group. It is also possible to view basic writing programs as an institutional device to support and welcome the “other.” Mina Shaughnessy in Errors and Expectations reversed traditional thinking about basic writers by asking what we might learn from them, even as we help them succeed in academe. Fifteen years later, David Bartholomae in “The Tidy House” provocatively wondered whether basic writing programs have become expressions of our desire to produce “basic writers.” We are arguing that the particular form of assessment used at a given institution is one of the most important factors determining how “basic writers” are socially constructed.
The work of Hull and Rose is particularly instructive. In "This Wooden Shack Place" they tell us about a basic writer, Robert, whose reading of the poem "And Your Soul Shall Dance" subverts traditional interpretations. The poem portrays a young Japanese-American girl hanging clothes bought at Sears outside of a small dwelling. Most readings suggest the poem is about struggle, but Robert suggests the poem is about success. Although his reading could be construed as "wrong," Robert uses sensible logic. Sears, to him, suggests economic stability, and there is no evidence, he argues, that the "wooden shack place" is where the young girl lives. Robert's reading of the poem, of course, is guided, "constructed," by his own identity. His reading subverts dominant readings but is no more wrong than the alternative. Robert's rhetorical utterance is informed by socio-economic background and the will to read against dominant modes of thinking. We are left wondering how Robert might be assessed. Might his teacher scold him for being illogical? Is his reading indicative of inferior thinking? If we accept Robert as a social being, then we will want more context and we will want to know Robert's reasoning.
The issue is not as simple as multiple interpretations of poetry. Basic writers commit worse sins than unique interpretations of poems. At various times, basic writers are characterized as paying excessive attention to sentence-level features of their own writing, or having writing processes so recursive that they are unable to generate much prose. They are also described as failing to use particular niceties of academic writing such as calling authors by their last names, or lacking confidence. These are indeed features of student-writers that could impede college success, and we ought to create strategies to help basic writers widen their options and abilities. But we fail basic writers when we pretend these so-called deficiencies are always negatives. Sometimes creating less prose is effective. Sometimes referring to authors by first names is appropriate. And like Robert in the Rose and Hull essay, sometimes new and engaging interpretations of literary works are what academic careers are built upon. The person(s) doing the act of assessment have the power here. New teachers of basic writing must decide how they will mark papers, on what scale they will assign grades, what they will say to students in class and in conferences. These are acts of assessment we should not take lightly, for they are evaluative acts (they “evaluate” students and their work) and constitutive acts (they play a role in “constituting” student identities).
Like Hull and Rose, Bartholomae also cites the transgressive work of one of his basic writers, "Quentin Pierce." Pierce, in a timed writing exam at the University of Pittsburgh, crafts a rebellious tirade against teachers from his past. According to Bartholomae, the rant has "skill and force," despite (or perhaps because of) the obscenities and the angry tone. In another context, Quentin's rant might be considered a great piece of radical poetry. But in the context of a placement exam, the text is considered "remedial" and not much more. Bartholomae's narrative is instructive on several levels. First, the extent to which the rhetorical situation of a placement exam fails to give basic writers any agency is striking. Because it is a situation that is usually decontextualized and fake, basic writers are not permitted to have any "voice" or authorial liberty. Normally, holistic graders pay lip service to their desire for original, risky writing. But writing that transgresses politically or stylistically, like Quentin's rant, is often punished with a low score and the transgressive student is disciplined with a low placement. Once again, the assessor has the power, and the student is the “other.”
The following represent the different ways basic writers are placed into their classes. Each is an example of large-scale assessment:
We mentioned early in this module that our classroom activities also contribute to our construction of basic writers. What goes on in the classroom is also an issue of assessment. Consider the following modes of response to basic writers and their work:
Discussion prompts
We hope this module helps prompt discussion of issues of assessment in relation to the teaching of basic writing. We are excited to entertain the discussion(s) that interest you, but here are some prompts you may want to use to start discussion.
Placement procedures and basic writing programs
Designing assignments for basic writers
Responding to/grading the writing of basic writers
Works Consulted and Recommended
Bartholomae, David. "Inventing the University." Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. Ed. Victor Villanueva Jr. Urbana: NCTE, 1997. 589-620.
---. "The Tidy House: Basic Writing in the American Curriculum." Journal of Basic Writing 12 (1993): 4-21.
Gray-Rosendale, Laura. Rethinking Basic Writing: Exploring Identity, Politics, and Community in Interaction. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2000.
Hindman, Jane E. "Reinventing The University: Finding the Place for Basic Writers." Journal of Basic Writing 12 (1993): 55-76.
Horner, Bruce, and Min-Zhan Lu. Representing the 'Other': Basic Writers and the Teaching of Basic Writing. Urbana, NCTE: 1999.
Hull, Glynda, and Mike Rose. "'This Wooden Shack Place': The Logic of an Unconventional Reading." On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998. Ed. Lisa Ede. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. 272-283.
Hull, Glynda, Mike Rose, Kay Losey Fraser, and Marisa Castellano. "Remediation as Social Construct: Perspectives from an Analysis of Classroom Discourse." On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998. Ed. Lisa Ede. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. 284-311.
Rose, Mike. Lives on the Boundary. New York: Penguin, 1989.
Shaughnessy, Mina P. Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.
Shor, Ira. "Our Apartheid: Writing Instruction and Inequality." Journal of Basic Writing 16 (1997): 91-104.
White, Edward M., William D. Lutz, and Sandra Kamusikiri, eds. Assessment of Writing: Politics, Policies, Practices. New York: MLA, 1996.
White, Edward M. Teaching and Assessing Writing. 2nd Ed, Revised and Expanded. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.
--. "The Importance of Placement and Basic Studies: Helping Students Succeed Under the New Elitism." Journal of Basic Writing 14 (1995): 75-84.