Reflection on Basic Writing Course

Brittany Zayas

Professor Lynn Reid

ENGL B8104 Basic Writing Theory & Practice

19 December 2016

Final Reflection Paper

In the first class, we were asked to define “basic writers” and “basic writing.” Like everyone, I came in with certain understandings of these terms. My definition of basic writers drew from my own experiences working with them one-on-one at a college learning center and in small group settings at the private learning center I manage now. I wrote this in my notes that day: Basic writer: A writer who lacks fundamental writing skills, may not be able to pin them down to a grade level, but did not usually have writing taught to them in a cohesive structured way or in a way that suited their learning needs. May be a reader, but may read in such a way where they are not picking up on technique. May be well-spoken, but has trouble putting thought onto paper/screen. Variety: May be native English speaker, may be ESL/ELL; may have learning disability, may not. Important to know [these things] when teaching them, as they will be key to reaching them. Also should consider learning type.

This definition does not encompass all that basic writers can be, as I did not mention those suffering trauma (whether learning-related or not) or those who have not before had access to traditional education or support to build their comfort with Standard American English. I do hold to my original definition, but would add these other considerations, which I was aware of, but which were not on my mind that day. I do find that most basic writers lack certain foundational skills, which is why the majority are entirely aware of where they are at skills-wise and know there is room for improvement. I administer reading and writing assessments to children and adults at my job, so have seen patterns in struggling writers’ habits and educational history. The tests students are given generate a grade level equivalency (GLE) when scored. This is only a rough estimate and is just a number, as I tell my students, but more often than not, the GLE pinpoints the grade where the student struggled the most–even if the student is now an adult. A sixth grade GLE on a twenty-one-year-old’s test usually indicates troubles in middle school and precisely where the student felt sure that ELA was not their subject. After that grade, the student has been trying to catch up while teachers pushed them ahead. In adulthood, they have picked up common sense and independent skills, but they still lack those fundamental skills they missed out on, and that holds them back.

The class was also asked to define “basic writing”. I wrote: Basic writing: The fundamentals/foundation of writing. Elementary grammar knowledge, but also confidence/comfort with own writing voice, building on speaking skills. Reading comprehension can impact this but it’s not the same skill. I would now add a lot more about the field of basic writing, as that was what was most eye-opening to me in this course. Basic writing deals directly with issues of class, privilege, and access to education, as well as the implicit biases within academia. It is about ensuring students have a firmer foundation in writing, but also providing access to a space they may not have been able to enter because they don’t speak the same standardized dialect. This can lead to that confidence in one’s own voice–something that has always been important to me as an educator. When a student becomes aware of their own voice, their writing becomes drastically stronger. It’s easy to correct grammar errors, but much harder to pick on a lack of clear voice. Once a student can express an idea fully, everything else is just tidying up.

I tell my students that using my own experiences as a writer. I was never a basic writer; I always loved writing and had a solid grasp of grammar and technique. But as a creative writer primarily, I had a hard time gaining comfort with academic writing. My first paper in freshman composition was given back ungraded with a gentle observation that what I was saying made no sense at all. Subsequent papers were graded low, and being an overachiever, this was devastating. Thankfully, I had a friend in the learning center who tutored me and helped me structure standard papers, moving me up from a B student to an A student. Yet the more I wrote in college, the more I realized how subjective writing was. I would get points off for my constant semi-colon usage or lengthy sentences from one professor and then be praised for my details and descriptions by another professor. I learned that a grade only told so much. That is something I try to impart to my students, who take grades as the final word and judgment.

In my last two years of undergraduate school, I was fortunate enough to have professors who encouraged me in my writing. I was a history major, so was graded on content knowledge and accuracy. Creativity was not always of interest. But certain professors valued having fun with writing, even in historical study. I began to see my own voice as valuable in academia. For my senior thesis, I wrote a 100-page historical study on nationalism in the US and USSR during World War II. It was intense research, but writing it was unlike any other writing I had done before. I was presenting my own ideas at length, and I had opportunity to be both serious and ironic, to be fair but opinionated, and to even be funny when I wanted to be. I could be the kind of historical writer I enjoyed. That broke me out of the confines of academic writing and the constant professor-pleasing. I was bold in my writing that year, and produced some of my best academic work.

Graduate school writing has not been easy for me, as I may be out of practice with academia, but also because I struggle with the rules more than I used to. I get frustrated when I feel myself following a formula or picking up on things that a professor may like. I want to say what I want to say and I want to say it how I say it. This was my first graduate course and I know I struggled with expectations. How much freedom does one have a graduate student? I am paying my way this time, out of my own pocket, one class a semester, and I feel determined to get what I need from my studies.

I think a lot about academic papers, and I notice the variance in structure within them. Some writers stick to staid formulas, quoting and paraphrasing more than they give their own opinions. I can’t bear that kind of writing. My favorites that we read were writers who gave real-life case study examples and spoke with passion for the subject. The Edward Quinn essay we read early on was fascinating and gave insight into 1970s college campus life that was far more memorable than any statistics were. I do enjoy the philosophy of Paulo Freire, because though Freire can be dry, he is passionate. As a writer myself I want to be better at writing with passion and taking care to be as comprehensive as I can. Perhaps I’m still finding my academic writing voice, especially since it’s been a few years since I last exercised it. In the next few years in which I slowly complete this degree, I hope to strengthen that voice. The more capable I am the better use I will be to my students, who teach me new things every day.

Beyond Basic and Academic Writing: A Review and Analysis of Tinberg and Nadeau’s The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations

Brittany Zayas

Professor Lynn Reid

ENGL B8104 Basic Writing Theory & Practice

21 December 2016

Beyond Basic and Academic Writing:
A Review and Analysis of Tinberg and Nadeau’s The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations

Howard Tinberg and Jean-Paul Nadeau’s The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations, a 2010 study of the expectations of first-semester writing students and their instructors, provides a critical overview of challenges faced and possible changes to be made for the benefit of the future. Both Tinberg and Nadeau bring their experiences as tutors, teachers, and educational directors, as well as their time as students and writers, to the table and attempt to be empathetic to the perspectives of students and faculty. The authors preface the book with their abbreviated biographies, noting that they both were raised in families that encouraged and valued education (Tinberg and Nadeau 4, 9). This not only demonstrates an openness about their own privilege and bias, but also a contrast to many of the students included in the study, who did not grow up with much educational support. As Tinberg relates, most of his students at community colleges have been interested in vocational learning that they can “market and apply in their careers” (7). They are not all there to learn for learning’s sake; rather they are there to gain demonstrably useful skills that they believe they can only get in a higher learning environment. This reality affects how the study itself is conducted, as students are at school to gain a degree, so do not have time for extracurriculars. It also affects Tinberg and Nadeau’s conclusion that something (it is never clear what), must be done by faculty and institutions to balance academic and career needs.

In order to find common ground in a variety of locations, Tinberg and Nadeau surveyed and interviewed students at four American community colleges in four separate states: Bristol Community College in Massachusetts; Santa Barbara City College in California; Illinois Central College on Illinois; Whatcom Community College in Washington. Tinberg and Nadeau sought to determine if students in these various institutions felt prepared for academic writing after basic or introductory writing freshman courses and if they were given writing assignments besides the typical academic essay, such as those from the sciences or the arts (3). Starting with this, Tinberg and Nadeau could establish a bridge between student expectations and goals to faculty’s, as they also inquired about students’ understanding of revisions and what role faculty feedback played in those. Consequently, faculty was also surveyed and interviewed, though only at Bristol Community College. These were both full-time and part-time faculty members, in diverse fields of learning, so as to understand the expectations that must be met for the non-English major in the majority of their classes.

From the start of the project, student input was brought into the process. New students in a required college writing course at Bristol were interviewed the semester prior to the study so as to better tailor the questions later on. A survey was then administered the following semester to students at all four community colleges above. At Bristol, only 337 (a third of the total first-semester students population) responded, so their answers can only be assumed to represent the student body as a whole based on their being average students (Tinberg and Nadeau 25). This survey asked students to rate their writing abilities, understanding of the writing process, and past writing education. The core of Tinberg and Nadeau’s study, however, was the student cohort, which was partly pre-selected and partly volunteer, but all new to the college experience, and which came down to sixteen fully engaged students. This cohort was interviewed at the beginning and end of the semester, and finally informally interviewed the next semester. Unfortunately, there were fewer students with each interview, with only a quarter of the cohort attending the third interview. Of course, while students’ metacognition and self-analysis was useful in providing framework and structure to the study, the collecting of student writing was essential evidence of students’ initial abilities and subsequent progress. Students were encouraged to submit everything from notes to essays, but not all turned in a significant amount of material. Overall, the lack of student engagement in the study played an even larger role than researchers anticipated, which does affect the comprehensiveness of the results and conclusion.

To demonstrate that these issues are not unique to their cohort, Tinberg and Nadeau reference other studies that show how most community college students deal with several complications as they get their education: working many hours during the week, being first-generation college students, having children or families to take care of, returning to school after a period away, or a combination of these issues. The statistic that 73% of community college students are non-traditional is gleaned from other studies (Tinberg and Nadeau 58), but it is suggested they apply to the students at the colleges surveyed here. This same conclusion was reflected on by Sara Webb-Sunderhaus in her essay “When Access Is Not Enough: Retaining Basic Writers at an Open-Admission University.” As her title states, it is not simply enough to let all students in, institutions must consider that not all student needs are the same, especially at a two-year college (Webb-Sunderhaus 107). Webb-Sunderhaus explores more specific solutions to this problem by comparing theories of both David Bartholomae and Vincent Tinto, but like Tinberg and Nadeau she ends up raising more questions than answers. Non-traditional students come to college to better their chances at a job in a world they have already known is tough. This can make them more determined students and more responsible learners, but it also makes them hard to retain and rely on for consistency.

How that problem manifests itself is in student work is an idea that homework or assignments are for the professor and that class grade only.  In fact, students’ answers to the survey questions show that many feel that their academic writing courses are important (95%) but not beneficial for the future (48%) (Tinberg and Nadeau 59-60). This means half of those who know they need writing skills in college are only seeing writing skills as necessary for a grade and diploma, not as inherently useful. That attitude is seen more clearly in one of the cohort, Kim, who continually adapts her essay to the exact comments given by her professor, without giving attention to the overall structure or statement of the piece (Tinberg and Nadeau 77), or in Ben, whose teacher line-edits and pushes Ben into a formulaic essay and paragraph structure (Tinberg and Nadeau 87). Additionally, most of the 120 pieces of writing received were from English courses, which suggests that not much writing was being required of students in other courses (Tinberg and Nadeau 61). It was in the non-English courses that students were more likely to receive no comments and merely a check on submitted work, which decreased their motivation and made it difficult for struggling writers to improve. Overall, a recurring theme in the student snapshots was a desire for better feedback and scaffolding from professors.

A strength of Tinberg and Nadeau’s study is the comparison and contrast of student response to faculty response. Engagement was an issue with not only students, but faculty as well. Even after surveys that offered prizes, it took pushing a hard copy survey in staff meetings to get more faculty to participate. With a five-point rating system like the student surveys, faculty were asked to disagree or agree with statements regarding writing standards, faculty feedback, and expectations for students. Seventy faculty surveys were completed; most of those were full-time instructors. Tinberg and Nadeau note that the lack of significant adjunct participation was likely due to time and adjuncts not attending departmental meetings. Unfortunately, they do not delve deeply into the effects this predominance of full-time faculty and lack of part-time faculty had on the answers. A faculty cohort of eleven members (eight full-time and three part-time) was also selected by the authors, mostly based on the desire to have faculty from a variety of departments and disciplines. That cohort was interviewed at length, and those questions were mainly an expansion of the survey questions, though it certainly got more personal. Interview questions included queries like “What brought you to BCC?” and “If you could change one thing about students’ attitudes about writing in your course(s), what would it be?” (Tinberg and Nadeau 142). These interviews were also more organic than the question outline indicates, as researchers encouraged conversation or modified the order of questions based on faculty response and attitude.

The faculty cohort was selected by the researchers from all the divisions of the college, and all emphasized writing in their courses, though not the typical writing assignments of basic or introductory writing courses. An occupational therapy professor stated that “clear written and oral communication skills” were essential in her field, though it was a technical and scientific discipline, as errors or vagueness in communication to nurses could result in harm to patients (Tinberg and Nadeau 41). Thus, “cross-border literacy” is highly valued; students should “demonstrate competence with literacy, both visual and word-based, and must produce exposition, analysis, and speculation” (Tinberg and Nadeau 54). To make that possible, faculty must be giving feedback that not only corrects grammar and structure, but also offers support for idea development and builds on students’ thoughts. However, most faculty rated their feedback as important, but most gave feedback electronically rather than face-to-face, eliminating that human element that is most useful for students and faculty to understand each other (Tinberg and Nadeau 147-148). A percentage that should be alarming to any institution is that when asked to rate how prepared their students were for “challenging writing assignments” by the end of the semester, 47% of faculty rated their confidence in the students as neutral with only 31% being sure students were prepared (Tinberg and Nadeau 148). Good writing teachers  will push struggling writers to explain their thoughts with more detail. But many teachers do not explain themselves, expecting vague feedback and numbers or checks to be enlightening to students–a major error if the goal is to get students to improve writing skills for the future.

Tinberg and Nadeau’s study itself is not unique–Marilyn Sternglass’ 1993 longitudinal study of writing development used student interviews and work samples to analyze student progress. Sternglass’ study was five years long (though she published findings 3.5 years in) so it gave a more comprehensive view of student growth over years, as opposed to Tinberg and Nadeau’s semester-long study. But with her case study of Linda, Sternglass came to many of the same conclusions as Tinberg and Nadeau. Linda picked up on academic expectations of formal writing after one semester, but she struggled with the varied types of writing across disciplines. She excelled in narratives in introductory composition, but she had trouble using evidence and her own analysis in her second semester psychology course (Sternglass 248). Like Andrew of Tinberg and Nadeau’s study, Linda struggled with being both analytical and creative in a film review (Tinberg and Nadeau 113; Sternglass 249). “Cross-border literacy” was something that Linda, like the students at Bristol, lacked, as it was not taught in basic composition courses, but only picked up over time. As Sternglass states, it is not enough for students to write, as “writing alone is not a sufficient teaching tool” and instructors must provide regular support for “students whose reading and writing processes require continual assistance and development” (258). Free-writing and narratives are great for getting students comfortable with writing, but do not build cross-border literacy and may not prepare a student who needs scaffolding for a technical science paper or historical analysis. Two decades after Sternglass’ study, this is clearly still an issue.

Tinberg and Nadeau’s main purpose, which they get to in a roundabout way near the end of the book, is to explore the goals and expectations of students and faculty during the first semester in order to provide insight into preparation for incoming students and support later on. Students are at community college to learn useful skills, and they expect to be told what to do to succeed. Vague instructor feedback creates confusion, as students do not know how to begin fixing what seems to be wrong. Conversely, as de Beaugrande and Olson state in their 1991 study of the writing of student athletes, very precise instructor feedback is often taken by inexperienced writers as gospel, as students “follow the first draft much too closely” and attempt to change “cosmetic” issues of grammar rather than development of ideas (18). Twenty years later, at Bristol, this is an issue for students Kim and Ben, who as discussed earlier, followed instructor revision notes without considering their own voice or original intent (Tinberg and Nadeau 77, 87). Mina Shaughnessy in her Errors and Expectations (1979) explains how a student who makes corrections as given does not necessarily understand the reasoning behind it (289). Shaughnessy recommends that a “full session be given to introducing each assignment, and the assignments themselves should be highly specific in such matters as length, structure, and possible difficulties. All assignments should be accompanied by at least two examples, one by a student” (288). This gives students a broader perspective and helps them to see their own writing as something they can own for themselves. Tinberg and Nadeau express similar ideas about students’ shying away from ownership of their writing. They suggest teachers not give “directive” feedback, but instead give “non-directive” feedback that explains how something comes across and inquires about what the student-writer intended (Tinberg and Nadeau 125). This gives students agency, something students from underprivileged backgrounds may not have experienced before in education.

Just as every community college student is different, so is every community college. Thus, any study that intends to make a statement about community colleges must be taken as a generalization, even when it is as detailed as this one. Yet the students here in this early 21st century study are not so different in their needs and struggles from the students of community colleges and open admission colleges of the 1970s, as much as the world itself may have changed. Edward Quinn’s 1973 article on the incoming open admission and CUNY SEEK students pointed out that even for low-cost schools, it is an issue that “college students are adults who are not bringing money into the house” (31). This is why Tinberg’s students were so focused on being marketable and career ready (7). To ignore the role that class and privilege play in low-cost institutions versus major universities is to be blind to reality. Tinberg and Nadeau do not focus on class and privilege, but it comes up in the snapshots of the student cohort, most of whom are first-generation college students who lacked academic support in high school. Delving deeper into the sociopolitical aspects of that would have given the study more depth and also more applicability to a larger number of community colleges, especially those in urban areas, which are not discussed in the study.

Tinberg and Nadeau’s study brings up a question that is not new, but still is not always answered or considered by these kinds of studies. What is the point of giving first-semester college students writing-intensive instruction? It is not merely so they can pass a single-semester course. It is to prepare them for other writing courses across disciplines, so should allow for a balance of creative and technical writing skills. It is also not just to keep them in the academic world, but to give them a voice in it, which they can then apply and expand to the workplace and beyond. A major takeaway from Tinberg and Nadeau’s study is that these students came to community college with intent to learn. Instructors do students a disservice by merely telling them what they need, just as instructors do students a disservice by passing along knowledge without contextualization and clarity. There is no easy solution for the struggles of community college students and faculty. The first step to any change is faculty listening—not just to students from case studies, but from every student that walks into their classroom, whether they perform well or not. We will never know what we should give if we presume what students need.

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Works Cited

De Beaugrande, Robert, and Mar Jean Olson. “Using a ‘Write-Speak-Write’ Approach for Basic Writers.” Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 10, no. 2, Fall 1991, pp. 4-32.

Quinn, Edward. “We’re Holding Our Own.” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, vol. 5, no. 6, Summer 1973, pp. 30-34.

Shaughnessy, Mina P. Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing. Oxford University Press, 1979.

Sternglass, Marilyn S. “Writing Development as Seen Through Longitudinal Research: A Case Study Exemplar.” Written Communication, vol. 10, no. 2, April 1993, pp. 235-261.

Tinberg, Howard, and Jean-Paul Nadeau. The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations. Southern Illinois University Press, 2010.

Webb-Sunderhaus, Sara. “When Access Is Not Enough: Retaining Basic Writers at an Open-Admission University.” Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 29, no. 2, 2010, pp. 97-115.

Building Writing Confidence with Speaking: An Analysis of the Write-Speak-Write Method

Brittany Zayas

Professor Lynn Reid

ENGL B8104 Basic Writing Theory & Practice

13 December 2016

Building Writing Confidence with Speaking:

An Analysis of the Write-Speak-Write Method

In “Using a ‘Write-Speak-Write’ Approach for Basic Writers,” authors Robert de Beaugrande and Mar Jean Olson analyze the biases behind pedagogical theories on basic writing and introduce a pilot project that demonstrates basic writers’ ability to use speech skills in revising written work.

De Beaugrande and Olson break down the main standpoints from which to view basic writing and its implications. The first is linguistic, which views basic writing as a type of language that displays the writer’s natural speech patterns. The second is psychological, wherein the basic writer’s abilities reflect the point in development where their writing skills were atrophied. The third is social, which links the writing to the writer’s social group and suggests a move into a different writing style is a move out of their social group. The fourth is educational, which allows for all learners to join in, but alienates them by favoring the socioeconomically privileged.

The project itself centered on fifteen scholarship athletes at the University of Florida, who were told to explain their game of choice to an inexperienced audience. First, they would write the composition in thirty minutes. Second, they would, a week later, be recorded explaining the same topic aloud to Olson. Third, another week later, they would have thirty minutes to write a revised draft using the original writing sample and a transcript of the recorded monologue as sources. Results showed variance among individuals in quality, technique, and voice, but overall showed that students were both more engaged and more verbose orally. Additionally, the students tended to combine elements from both the first draft and the transcript to develop stronger beginnings and endings for the final draft, resulting in lengthier and more structured final drafts.

From the outset, de Beaugrande and Olson seek to dismantle certain presuppositions about basic writing, touching on the classist and racist implications of some basic writing instruction, as it can dismiss dialects associated with poor or minority populations as simplistic and inferior forms of communication. This presumably allows the speech of the wealthy or majority populations to guide the standard of proper communication (6-7). Despite their belief that one of the many problems of remedial courses is failure to “take the writer seriously as a communicative participant with a concrete social history” (De Beaugrande and Olson 16), the authors do not disclose any personal history of their study participants. All we are told is that these students are dependent on their athletic skills, due to being on athletic scholarships, and have long been lumped into the category of basic writers. It is possible that de Beaugrande and Olson wanted to keep the focus of the study on the material results and not bring in the complex variable of students’ personal history, as it would raise other issues.

Nevertheless, dialectical attributes do not obscure the students’ intent, and actually can give more insight to what they mean even when word choices are weak. When working with basic writers as a writing tutor, I saw this often and whenever I asked a student to explain their thought process behind a confusing word choice, there was generally a strong reason as to why. A more experienced writer might defend it as a stylistic choice, but a basic writer may not know to do that, just as they might not know how to phrase a culturally-specific idiom in a way that is clear to all readers. Yet this does not mean that the dialect itself is the problem. This is why Sarah D’Eloia advocated for structural equality of all languages or dialects, stating that “no language or dialect is inherently any ‘better’” or “intrinsically any more ‘logical’ or ‘illogical’ in the way it segments reality into grammatical categories and combines grammatical categories into words, phrases, clauses, and sentences” (D’Eloia 6). Every language or dialect has its own logic, and an understanding of that logic is necessary before corrections are made. Whether or not an academic standard must be met, if an instructor means to build on a basic writer’s knowledge of writing, they must understand the foundation it is built on. In view of this fact, Kroll and Schafer point to errors as “clues to the linguistic and cognitive processes” of students’ minds (242). In other words, errors should give instructors insight into the student’s intent and perspective, as well as how the standards of academic discourse can best be explained to them. Errors, or deviance from writing standards, must not be viewed as roadblocks, but as tools, with which to build on a student’s writing.

Another tool that instructors should not neglect is an understanding of the way basic writers communicate orally, as many basic writers, especially those in de Beaugrande and Olson’s study, are more comfortable expanding on ideas aloud. Their speech may be in dialect, as well, and studded with fragments, run-ons, and subject-verb disagreement. That being said, most people, even the highly educated, speak differently than they write—de Beaugrande and Olson note a University of Florida study where transcripts of recorded English professors looked similar to the speech of freshmen (14). One might also think of presidential candidates, who are typically highly educated members of the elite, but when recorded and then transcribed, use constant filler words such as ‘um’ or ‘ah.’ Speech errors do not necessarily indicate ignorance, but if used repeatedly, they can indicate either a linguistic misunderstanding or the speaker’s logical intent within their dialect. Whatever the case may be, the speech of basic writers is a “key resource, not a liability, and…it does not have to be transformed before their writing competence can develop” (De Beaugrande and Olson 15). Instructors ought to draw from this resource, and encourage students who lack confidence in writing or who write only the bare minimum to write as they would speak, and then grammar errors, when seen in clear patterns, can be corrected. [this was the paragraph that was missing]

There must, however, be some kind of grammatical standard, especially in written academic discourse. Resolutions like the Students’ Right to Their Own Language are well-intended, but that was proposed in 1974, and it is clear not much has changed. Some in the field of basic writing instruction may hold to it. Yet overwhelmingly in not just English departments, but in offices and courtrooms and other places dominated by the highly educated, there is a belief in a Standard English. The standard exists. It is not helpful to basic writers to say such a standard should not exist and then simply ignore it, denying students access to a standard that they may need to attain to if they want to be successful. But there is no reason any culturally-crafted standard should be used to shame students or block them from communication. It should not also be the altar upon which certain groups must sacrifice their own language and culture if they want to be rewarded with inclusion. As de Beaugrande and Olson note, even estrangement from a culture where non-standard English dialect is prominent will not guarantee certain groups inclusion, especially when social exclusion is based on numerous biases (11).  A standard should not be something that everyone needs to reach, but something that brings people together.

In many ways, education is accessible to the general public in the Anglo-American world, and is not given based on race or class. We tend to ascribe more to a meritocracy, which in theory seems fair, but has its own set of problems. Standardized testing is impersonal, not taking background into account, so it cannot be explicitly biased, but it is implicitly biased in that it leans in the favor of those with standardized academic preparation. IQ and SAT testing do not reflect the “innate competence or fixed scholastic potential as [much as they do] the complex and variegated social situations” of the test-takers (De Beaugrande and Olson 6). Test preparation is, as de Beaugrande and Olson point out, a “heavily acculturated middle-class activity” (6) and it is not fair to use it judge students whose foundational education was not curated towards high-level tests. The standard of correctness is biased towards those who create it: the elite.

The kind of non-standardized assessments, as used in de Beaugrande and Olson’s study, is not often seen in the testing of pre-college students. The only opportunity for students taking the SAT to demonstrate their own thought processes beyond the process of elimination within multiple-choice has always been the essay, which has, since March 2016, become optional (“SAT Essay”). Students are told that only certain colleges require it, so many students who are insecure in their writing abilities may willingly opt out, and apply only to colleges who do not require the essay. De Beaugrande and Olson wrote their piece in a time where the essay was required for the SAT. However, they do remark that many standardized tests that do not include a writing sample do so because the time and manpower then needed cuts into test companies’ profits (6). They suggest that at least token writing samples do seem to be coming up in standardized tests more often. Unfortunately, twenty years later in America, capitalism is still inextricably tied to success, even in testing, as can be seen from the 1.5 billion dollar profit made by British conglomerate Pearson in its manufacturing of US textbooks, K-12 tests, and teacher certification programs (Singer).

Thus a problematic meritocracy is little better than an openly discriminatory classist or racist avenue to success. It lends to the barrier between social groups, where those who cannot understand the preferred mode of communication cannot enter that elite space, and it also as de Beaugrande and Olson describe, “hinders those who have mastered it from communicating reliably with those who have not” (8). If grammatical standards purely exist to establish superiority and inferiority, grammar and writing become tools of oppression. As Paulo Freire said, “Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision making is to change them into objects” (253). If basic writing instruction emphasizes dialectical superiority, it is no less oppressive than a violent act of discrimination, because it has the same effect on non-elite communities and persons. It forces them to choose between assimilation and risking cultural erasure, or being barred from establishing relationships with other communities and being cemented into a low position on the social ladder.

The very purpose of language should be to foster communication and understanding. Education should be a major force in that. Ideally, language standards should be used to create a common ground, especially within writing, as in the absence of facial expression or audible tone, expression and tone can only be indicated by phrasing and structure. Basic writing instruction, therefore, should allow “students [to] enjoy the wider range of options opened to them by fluency in the standard dialect” (D’Eloia 9). One of the many ways that can be done is by encouraging students to gain comfort and confidence in the act of writing by writing about topics they are invested in. As a writing tutor, when advising students on research topics, my advice was always to choose something they felt strongly about, as that would make the task of unpacking the information much easier. To push struggling writers into writing coherently in a subject they are unfamiliar with forces them to start out doubly handicapped and can diminish self-confidence. It is more beneficial for a basic writer to focus on how best to get across an idea they actually feel strongly about or a subject they truly understand than attempt to explain content they are unfamiliar with in an academic language that they do not fully know. It is more useful for an instructor to be able to focus on cosmetic errors in grammar, as well as areas that need expanding or rephrasing, rather than trying to unravel whether the problem is the student’s content knowledge or Standard English skills. Also, the whole point of students building writing skills is for them to be able to use writing in whatever career path they choose, not be an expert in every field.

Correspondingly, in their surveys of community college students and faculty, Howard Tinberg and Jean-Paul Nadeau sought to determine what purposes writing might be used for in academia and beyond. They went beyond basic writing and English instructors, and spoke to faculty in various fields. In scientific fields, which are often associated with individuals who may not be as adept at writing as they are with hands-on knowledge, there was a great need for clear writing skills. As one occupational therapy professor said, “[I]f one of these students is teaching a [patient’s] family member about how to care for someone, they need to be able to write out very clear instructions….which could actually really hurt somebody if it isn’t done correctly” (Tinberg and Nadeau 41). Even in fields like accounting, professors felt that grammatical errors made it “difficult to access a paper’s content” (Tinberg and Nadeau 42) as they wanted writing that got quickly to the point in a succinct way. The conclusion Tinberg and Nadeau came to was the one that English teachers always want to get through to students: writing is an essential skill for anyone in any walk of life. This holds true for athletes (such as those in de Beaugrande and Olson’s study) as well as academics. When my teenage students who insist that they want to be athletes say they do not need to learn how to be better readers and writers, I remind them that they will need to be able to understand contracts and emails if they want to be independent and successful. In the same way, de Beaugrande and Olson state that the purpose of their field is to “support the human freedom of access to knowledge through discourse” (30). That freedom of access is attained through study in writing and critical thinking.

Writing skills can give students a voice, whether that means putting together a solid resume or explaining their concerns about a political candidate on Facebook. Sternglass, in her close study of a student called Linda, displayed how writing strengthened a basic writer’s voice, providing a mode where she could take apart ideas that had long been swirling in her mind. Linda herself stated, “The more I wrote, the more I understood what I was writing about” (Sternglass 248). The samples Sternglass includes in her paper compare and contrast Linda’s early essay on women’s role in society with a later essay on the same topic. There is definite growth in Linda’s writing, as she touches on ideas she had brought up before and builds on them to fit them into a larger analytical framework (Sternglass 249-250). A similar growth is seen in the drafts of de Beaugrande and Olson’s student athletes. In the athletes’ final drafts, they used the best pieces from their transcripts, though they rewrote them in more formal language. They did not always take care to correct spelling errors, even those spelled correctly in the transcripts, and transitions were still rough. But overall, the athletes picked stronger beginnings and endings (De Beaugrande and Olson 28). One student’s opening statement went from “Football is a real easy game to watch but a hard to play because you get beat up but it’s more harder because the rules are hard” in the first draft to “Glory is what you want in football” in the final draft (De Beaugrande and Olson 25). By going over the same topic twice, students were able to excise unnecessary information and place important information in more prominent sections. The athletes, like Linda, now had a better idea of what they wanted to say, and with re-reading their work, now felt more confident. They did not become technically strong writers, in terms of academic English standards, but they became clearer and more impactful in their expression, which is key to successful writing.

Studies like these show that there is a capability in basic writers, even if they may not have a natural affinity for writing. This matched what I have seen in working with basic writers as a tutor and a teacher. Most are indeed more comfortable with oral explanations. If you ask them, however, to write down something they just explained excellently aloud, many basic writers will hesitate and say they do not recall what they just said. The very thought of writing is intimidating and creates a sort of mental block. The method I have used to deal with that is similar to that of de Beaugrande and Olson. I would write down whatever they said—either in notes or in full exact sentences—and then give that to the students to revise. The important thing is always to get students to put the words on down, even if they are fragments or run-ons. A written sentence can always be adjusted.

De Beaugrande and Olson’s study focused on the hypothesis that students’ final drafts would be strengthened by them reviewing the transcripts of their oral explanation, so did not discuss voice. But voice is demonstrated in each of the athletes’ pieces, especially the informal transcripts, and also in the formal structures of the final draft, which still retain their word choices and individual perspective. That voice is what often gets lost in discussions of basic writing, as the debate goes back and forth between focusing on grammar or just getting students to write. Students ought to be able to express their voice with as much clarity as possible. This means they should be able to use their own unique cultural figures of speech, but should do so within enough structures of standard grammatical correctness to make it as unambiguous to a broad audience as possible.

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Works Cited

De Beaugrande, Robert, and Mar Jean Olson. “Using a ‘Write-Speak-Write’ Approach for Basic Writers.” Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 10, no. 2, Fall 1991, pp. 4-32.

D’Eloia, Sarah. “Teaching Standard Written English.” Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 1, no. 1, Spring 1975, pp. 5-13.

Freire, Paulo. “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education.” Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers, 8th edition, edited by David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky, St. Martin’s Press, 2008, pp. 242-255.

Kroll, Barry M., and John C. Schafer. “Error Analysis and the Teaching of Composition.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 29, no. 3, Oct. 1978, pp. 242-48.

“SAT Essay.” CollegeBoard, https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/inside-the-test/essay . Accessed 10 Oct. 2016.

Singer, Alan. “Pearson Education—Who Are These People?” The Huffington Post, 9 Sept. 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/pearson-education-new-york-testing-_b_1850169.html . Accessed 10 Oct. 2016.

“Students’ Right to Their Own Language (1974).” Conference on College Composition and Communication, http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/srtolsummary . Accessed 11 Dec. 2016.

Sternglass, Marilyn S. “Writing Development as Seen Through Longitudinal Research: A Case Study Exemplar.” Written Communication, vol. 10, no. 2, April 1993, pp. 235-61.

Tinberg, Howard, and Jean-Paul Nadeau. The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations. Southern Illinois University Press, 2010.

Reading Response 4: Reflecting on Reflection

Reflection is an essential part of any learning process. It is the point where one can stop and look back to see the path one walked and determine how far there may still be to go. This applies to life as well–though for those of us with depression or anxiety, reflection can often make it worse before it gets better. As cliched as it is by now, there’s a reason Socrates declared the unexamined life not worth living.

Ann M. Amicucci describes in “Using Reflection to Promote Students’ Writing Process Awareness” how weaving reflection assignments into her freshman composition class helped create a sense of ownership and critical self-examination among the students. Freshmen often come to a writing class expecting to spew out standardized work that has been drilled into them in high school (low teacher pay, ridiculous bureaucratic regulations, outdated textbooks, ignorant administration, and many other factors contribute to this). It’s not easy to unpack and remove almost two decades of learning experience in a semester. But Amicucci guided students in their own unpacking, by asking them to reflect on what a writing process is and how they go about it (42). Students rattled off the conventions and then focused on how they missed the mark at times. They were knew their own process well. The recurring reflection assignments throughout Amicucci’s class pushed the students to continually reassess themselves. They could consider if they had adjusted certain writing practices they had or whether they still stuck to the same process.

There was no clear statement by Amiccuci on whether the students’ writing improved, but the overwhelming response was a better understanding of themselves as writers. This is key to a student’s growth as a writer, which may take years. But first, a writer needs to  own their own writing, and understand their process as their own habits and outpouring of ideas.

At my job as an educational director at a learning center, I read incoming students’ self-assessments before meeting with parents. The students who can state their weaknesses on that initial assessment are usually correct (when compared to their test scores) and are often more likely to improve in their tutoring sessions. Understanding of self is critical to success.

I would utilize reflection in a writing class, but would make it low-stakes enough for students to not stress over it, while making it worth the effort. However, some students will always feel anxious over any assignment, so a rubric and very clear expectations must be given. I would structure it in small chunks prior to or directly after major assignments, as Amicucci did. This helps prepare students for some assignments and helps them reconsider their own completed work in order to do better later on. Additionally, students’ reflections can help an instructor form a better understanding of students and be able to assess their work more fairly.

Analysis of Amicucci’s Writing Prompts (Assignment Post 3)

In her CEA Paper on the pedagogical value of reflection in writing courses, Amicucci shared some of the assignments she gave to her students. Without context of the lessons themselves, it can be difficult to discern the effectiveness of these, but free of context, it is also easier to imagine repurposing these in all kinds of classes.

Amicucci’s Week 1 assignment is partly an ice-breaker and a way for the instructor to know the class. Currently, I am putting together a curriculum for a class on independent living skills for adults with intellectual disabilities, so I have been considering the need to set aside time in a first class to know who your students are. This can help the instructor better adapt the curriculum to the needs of the students. I liked the question about the student’s “relationship with writing”–it’s not focusing so much on the student’s writing skills but on their perceptions of themselves and writing itself. It can open up a lot to be addressed later in the class. The question regarding “critical thinking” not only pushes the student to explain what they view as critical thinking, but also to reflect on how often they use that skill. People tend to use critical thinking more often than they think, even if it’s when watching episodes of a reality TV show or reading a BuzzFeed article, so to open up the discussion on a simple usage of the skill is helpful.

I do think the Week 1 prompt has too many questions, especially for a starting prompt. They would have been overwhelming to me as a student. I still have a hard time with a paragraph of questions, even when I know I don’t need to answer all of them. Breaking these into bullet points and combining similar questions would be helpful here and could avoid unnecessary confusion. As an instructor, I have always found that to be most effective in getting information across to students. It makes an assignment seem simpler when a student can see it split up into manageable chunks.

I have mixed feelings about the Week 6 prompt. First of all, it should be broken up into bullet points for clarity. As for the prompt itwelfth, what I like about it is exactly what I dislike about it: the two seemingly disparate options. Option 1 is creative (“a fictional story or poem that metaphorically depicts your inquiry process”) and Option 2 is more traditionally academic (“an explicit version of the…inquiry process”). Amicucci’s states she created these options because of ongoing anonymous class evaluations (great idea!) that asked for more creative assignments. Personally, despite my love for creative writing, I dislike Option 1, as it seems forced and actually boring, like it is trying too hard to be fun. As a student, I would prefer the straightforward Option 2, which also seems more useful. But I recognize that all students are different and I have worked with students who would prefer any creative option, as they have trouble with and/or are easily bored with academic responses.

I would not assign Option 1 unless I was certain students understood what a metaphorical depiction in a story looks like. I would perhaps have given samples previously, so they don’t feel like they’re going in blind. Giving samples can be really helpful to students, especially for journal/blog assignments, which can vary in formality requirements depending on the  instructor. As an adolescent education major, modeling and scaffolding were always on my mind–they pushed us to consider how we would model what we wanted from students and how we would scaffold the students to get them there. This is not always emphasized in adult education, which is unfortunate. Learners of all ages benefit from these techniques.

Overall, these prompts encouraged critical thinking and self-reflection, skills which are useful to students in any major or career.  A biology major would benefit from thoughtfully examining what they read and considering their own methods. Too often composition courses privilege English majors and humanities students in general, but English instructors must consider the value and direct use of their lessons to those in other fields. Pushing students to be more observant and self-aware is a step in the right direction.

Reading Response 3: On Developmental Education Reforms

When discussing outcomes and curricula at community colleges, it is important to ask first what their purpose is. Are they mainly transitional places for students to get into a four-year school? Are they transitional places to prepare students for specific workplaces, i.e. vocational schools?

Students’ choice to attend a community college is often locational or financial, or skills-based (meaning they lacked scores to be accepted into a four-year college), and may even be a combination of the three, as they can all affect each other. Community college students are a variety of ages. They may be recent high school graduates or drop-outs, or they may be parents or military veterans returning to school after a lengthy interim. They are not often there to have the traditional college experience, the kind on TV, espoused by our culture, which values finding oneself over education. Students who choose to go to community college typically have a reason for going to school as opposed to working. Every community college must consider the variance on needs and desires among the student body.

According to the Community College Research Center (CCRC), only a third of community college students complete the program within six years. Again, there are certainly a multitude of reasons why this is the case, being that the student body is diverse, but the number is still disgracefully low and calls into question what the goals these community colleges attain to. The 2015 TYCA “White Paper on Educational Reform” references Sullivan’s call for two-year colleges to re-examine how they define success–for students and the institution. For the insititution that may be broader recognition, which requires favorable statistics. But students do not see themselves as statistics. Their success is defined by their own personal goals, which may change, but always remain personal, for their own benefit.

“Acceleration” is a word used throughout the 2015 TYCA White Paper, and it is supposed to benefit students by allowing them to save time and money. But is acceleration always about students? Or is it about institutions trying to adjust statistics to show quantitative success?

Within the Florida case study TYCA discusses, they went over six different models two-year colleges use for getting below-level students on track: 1) Mainstreaming, which allows for below-level students to attend regular composition classes with on-level students, while also attending a special lab with the same composition instructor; 2) Studio courses, which allow for students to sign up, based on in-class diagnostics, for studio writing support courses; 3) Compression, in which students take traditionally lengthier courses crammed into a  shorter period of time in order to move through school at a rate similar to their on-level peers; 4) Integration or Contextualization, which gives students composition courses in conjunction with other vocational courses, so as to provide a context for their writing skills; 5) Stretch courses, which break up a first-semester composition course into two semesters (ideally with the same professor) so as to better identify and support student needs; 6) Module courses, which allows students to break up courses based on particular needs or weaknesses, so as not to leave them to a one-size-fits-all basic writing course.

All have shown some measure of success in terms of student retention and growth, but there is no research that shows which one is superior across the board. As long as there are failing students, two-year colleges are obligated to continue experimenting with curricula and pedagogy.

 

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The National Council of Teachers of English. “TYCA White Paper on Educational Reforms.” 2015.

Reading Response 2: Analyzing CCNY Mid-90s Pilot Writing Program for Incoming Freshmen

The main objective in Barbara Gleason and Mary Soliday’s pilot writing project for incoming freshmen at CCNY in the mid-90s appeared to be crafting a program that would support the needs of a diverse student body. That diversity would be cultural, but as they were not able to directly survey students on cultural background and mainly relied on transcripts and students’ class output, they could only analyze the diversity of students’ abilities and preparation levels. After criticism that CCNY was declining in quality due to open admissions and not enough distinction between remedial writing and mainstream writing courses, this project was meant to show that groups in both could produce quality work. Overall, the results demonstrated a similarity between the average passing scores of remedial and mainstream students (Gleason 579). All those scores averaged out to 70-80s (Cs and Bs). Proponent of open admissions saw this as evidence that the standardized writing tests that divide these groups were ineffectual at proving work quality. Opponents of open admissions saw this as further proof of a decline: if remedial students could pass so easily, there’s a problem; if mainstream students are just getting by with passing grades, there’s an even bigger problem.

Though the project would not change the minds of its opposition, it did give a lot of insight into what worked well and what did not.

The standardization of the CUNY Writing Assessment Test, which placed students into remedial or mainstream freshman English, is looked down upon by Gleason. It has to be used, because that is how the CUNY application process is set up, but Gleason continually draws attention to the fact that it does not clearly predict the future success of students. She references a 1885-1990 study by Alexander Astin that showed high school grades and SAT verbal scores as more accurate predictors of students’ college success. Those too have issues, such as the variables of sociopolitical situations, but Gleason doesn’t enter into that complication.

Despite her stance against standardization, the writing program requires standardization on some level. This is for ease of grading and for later data review, but also for the professors and students, who when surveyed after the first semester wanted more standardized expectations. A student portfolio which originally included five components was narrowed down to three by the second semester, limiting students’ chances to demonstrate their skill in a wider variety of assignments. There were not much uniformity in the classes themselves, as freedom had been given to instructors. Later, in teacher interviews, they were asking for more clarity on expectations and purpose to the courses overall.

In my own teaching experience in NYC public schools as a first-time student teacher in 2012, I wanted to avoid standardization, as I felt it excluded students by not taking other qualities into account. I didn’t even want a rubric, especially as I felt like there was more to writing quality than checking off items on a list. Reality hit me, however, when I had so many essays to grade and had to assess each one individually. They were all on similar topics, so they began to all sound somewhat the same. I did end up creating a rubric, learning by practice something I had before only worked with in pedagogical theory courses. I still don’t believe in strict rubrics, as no rubric can really create a consensus on the uniqueness of a student’s voice or style, but I know that some bar must be met in certain categories (understanding of prompt, basic grammar/spelling correctness, structural clarity, etc.). Even with the rubric, I had problems. I was teaching U.S. government for high school seniors, and they hated writing, even one-page essays. I ended up lowering my standards to reward those who even attempted to write something coherent or longer than five sentences. The ESL student whose writing was a mess grammatically, but factually correct and deeply earnest in its thoughts–not to mention two pages long–received high marks. I couldn’t separate the rubric from my own emotions at times, showing its–and my–fallibility and inevitable inconsistency.

There is no perfect way to judge student output and the overall success of a course. There are too many variables, as you are dealing with people. In addition, you are not asking them to find a number by running it through an equation, but expecting them to pull original words out of their minds and place them onto paper. Any study, no matter the funding or support it receives, will likely raise more questions than provide answers. Studies will also show us more problems in our educational system than provide solutions.

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Gleason, Barbara. “Evaluating Writing Programs in Real Time: The Politics of Remediation.” College Composition and Communication 51.4 (June 2009): 560-588.

Discussion Flyer on Paulo Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education”

Freire, Paulo. “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education.” Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. 8th edition. St. Martin’s Press, 2008. 242-255. Print.

SUMMARY:

In “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education”, Paulo Freire critiques the traditional educational model where the teacher is one who imparts knowledge to students who simply receive knowledge. Freire calls this “the banking concept”, as it assumes students are empty receptacles who need to be filled and the teacher is a “bank clerk” making deposits of information. The teacher is active and students are passive; the teacher is the narrator and subjects while students are reduced to objects. Freire considers this form of pedagogy a type of oppression, which keeps the masses subject to the dominating class while pretending to give them the tools to be included in society. In contrast, Freire proposes the “problem-posing” education method, which creates a dialogue in the classroom where the teacher is also a student and the students are also teachers. This method, Freire argues, will not serve the purposes of the oppressors, as it will encourage inquiry and bring about revolutionary change.

QUOTES:

Yet only through communication can human life hold meaning. The teacher’s thinking is authenticated only by authenticity of the students’ thinking. The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thoughts in them. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible (p. 247).

Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with student-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach (p. 249).

Banking education resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality. Banking education treats students as objects of assistance; problem-posing education makes them critical thinkers… Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality; thereby responding to the vocation of persons as beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation (p. 252).

FOR DISCUSSION:

• How is the banking concept of education manifested in basic writing instruction?
  
• As an alternative to the banking concept, Freire proposes a “problem-posing” model of teaching. What implications does this have for curricula and methodology in basic writing instruction?
• When limited by a class with a short-term goal, such as a remedial writing course that students are required pass in order to proceed into the rest of their education, how can an instructor leave room for that joint dialogue?
• Across disciplines, are there places where the instructor is the final authority? For example, in mathematics, or even science and history? How open should the instructor be to detours and challenges from students?

 

[composed by Brittany Zayas and Michael Rymer]

 

Goals for Teaching Basic Writing (Informal Blog Post 1)

When teaching something as ambiguous but expansive as basic writing, an instructor must first establish their goals. They should also attempt to ascertain the goals of students. Ideally, these goals should meet, even if they differ slightly. The basic writing instructor’s goal is a stop, after all, on the student’s path, not the destination, but for the stop to be helpful in any way, the end-goal ought to be known.

With the spread of open admissions colleges in the 1960s-1970s, the goals of students were going to inevitably shift, and they continue to develop today. Mina Shaughnessy, in the introduction of her book, Errors and Expectations, gives a visualization of that initial shift in student body: “academic winners and losers from the best and worst high schools, the children of the lettered and the illiterate…some who could barely afford the subway fare to school and a few who came in the new cars their parents had given them as rewards for staying in New York to go to college” (2). Colleges, especially CUNY, still have that range of students, which has perhaps diversified further, even as tuition fees go up.

Probably partly thanks to open admissions and the push of the non-elite to higher education, college has become expected for anyone who wants to make it in this world. Not everyone can be Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg and become t-shirt-wearing billionaires without a degree. Even administrative assistants are expected to have degrees nowadays. A recurring theme even in Shaughnessy’s excerpts of student work in basic writing courses is the importance of gaining knowledge and experience, and the need for college if you want a good job.