Pedagogy vs. Practice:
Outsourcing Basic Writing Instruction


Brenda Tuberville
University of Texas-Tyler

Graduate programs at many universities across America include at least one course in the teaching of basic writing. I took one such course a few years ago, and I clearly recall reading and discussing the works of Mina Shaughnessy, Bartholomae and Petrosky, Mike Rose, Ira Shor, and others who decried the current-traditional, grammar-based curriculum (with its focus on error) formerly found in much basic writing instruction. We examined some of the more popular basic writing textbooks at that time, bemoaning the fact that these grammar modules could not and, indeed, would not convey what writing is all about. In addition, we discussed (and debated) how basic writing can best be taught – in a writing-intensive atmosphere (bolstered by a good writing center, of course) that highlighted invention and revision.

But I was quick to come face to face with two cold realities: first, the fact that much of the basic writing instruction going on in America continues to be focused on local rather than global concerns: computerized modules and best-selling textbooks filled with exercise after exercise on sentence construction, parts of speech, and grammar rules; basic writing faculty (usually adjunct or part-timers) who were unfamiliar with basic writing scholarship; departmental syllabi with clearly delineated goals and expectations – listing the actual writing of a full essay almost as an afterthought; and second, a growing trend among larger universities to “outsource” basic writing courses.

This wasn't the world of basic writing to which I had been introduced; however, in the ensuing years, I have learned that, more and more, this is the view of basic writing that continues to pervade higher education. A growing number of universities across America are opting to discontinue their basic writing programs in favor of “outsourcing” this instruction to community college or professional (technical) colleges such as Sylvan or DeVry. Even in the City University of New York system, which provided Shaughnessy with the impetus for her work in the “open admission” days of the 1960s (see Soliday's Politics of Remediation ), and in many other state university systems, basic writing instruction – and, indeed, basic writers – are disappearing.

With the bulk of basic writing instruction now under the aegis of community colleges or professional colleges, and with growing numbers of under-prepared students enrolling in these classes, administrators have an even greater interest in continuing the current-traditional basis of basic writing instruction. After all, with more sections of basic writing being offered each semester, it makes sense (at least to them) that the best way to address this problem is the hiring of more adjuncts and part-time instructors, few of whom have any real training in basic writing instruction and for whom a current-traditional approach is well-suited. For example, a small two-year college where I have worked part-time in the past has decided to address this influx of students who need basic writing instruction by hiring adjuncts to teach additional sections of basic writing; however, when I asked if a familiarity with basic writing pedagogy and scholarship would be an important hiring factor, one administrator laughed and said, “Probably not.”

In a recent edition of Teaching English in the Two-Year College , the Teacher-Scholar Initiative, formed to promote the role of teacher-scholar, printed its proposed “Guidelines for the Academic Preparation of Two-Year College English Faculty” (Valentino 437-8). As for areas of in-depth preparation by these English faculty, the group proposes: an undergraduate degree in English with an emphasis in grammar and linguistics, Western/non-Western literature, and composition; and a master's degree with possible emphases in reading, literary theory, research methods, bilingual/bicultural education, ESL, technology in the classroom, and classroom assessment (437-8). Nowhere in this proposal does the group recommend a knowledge of or familiarity with basic writing theory or pedagogy – even though the bulk of basic writing instruction is, year by year, moving to the two-year and community college.

In the face of this shift in basic writing instruction, there has been an eerie silence in the area of scholarship on how basic writing is being taught at the two-year and community college level. On a daily basis, pedagogy is coming into direct opposition with practice, and it's not fairing well in the fight. Adjuncts with little experience in or knowledge of teaching basic writing are facing classrooms full of basic writers each semester, armed with only a textbook filled with exercises that could be easily graded. And yet colloquia and courses in the teaching of basic writing continue at the graduate level, with few if any mentions of this growing outsourcing trend. We know how basic writing should be taught, but are we paying attention to how it is being taught and will be taught in the foreseeable future?

Questions:

(1) How can graduate programs better prepare future basic writing instructors to face this growing reality?

(2) What impact will this continued current-traditional curriculum have on future student writers and the future of the teaching of writing, not only basic writing but mainstream, credit-bearing composition courses?

(3) Who wins – and who loses – at the university level when basic writing is outsourced to a community or technical college? (For example, how will writing centers be impacted by this shift?)

(4) What can and should basic writing professionals do to help turn this situation around, particularly in the area of scholarship regarding the teaching of basic writing at the community (or technical) college level?

References

Teaching Basic Writing

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