Writing Prompt

Consider the following lyrics from the song Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve.

I'm a million different people from one day to the next.

Reflect on this idea for a few moments. Is this lyric true for you? Think about the different roles you play from one day to the next, or from one hour to the next. You might be a student, an employee, a parent, someone's "better half," a volunteer, a musician, etc. Are you a million different people from one day to the next? Write your thoughts out, explaining the "million" people you are.



Lyrics taken from: www.lyricsondemand.com/onehitwonders/bittersweetsymphonylyrics.html

Relevant to my readings and preparation for the up-coming seminar paper, I decided to share a writing prompt intended to get Basic Writing students to think about experience and identity shift.

Writing Prompt: Describe a recent experience that has profoundly changed your perspective on an issue of personal importance. In what way has this impacted your previous perspective? How might it change your approach to the issue in the future?

Blogging Matters

Essentially relevant to our class, I recently read Diane Penrod's Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy. While her book's contents focus on blogging protocol, her answers to the essential question why blog? interest me most, having never considered blogging itself as an approach to enhancing literacy. The idea is far from novel. We spend so much time at the computer, online, steadfast to fluid technology. Is it not costly that professors continue to question the practical blog in lieu of embrassing the favored technology? The blog's expansion seems inevitable to me; the blog has its rightfully-earned place in today's writing classroom. Penrod notes that the ability to write in online environments is part of being literate in the 21st century, a fact that resonates with college freshmen but may seem superficial to professors. She appreciates blogging for its teachability and importance in "mastering language use, writing, critical thinking and multimedia use," adding that "blogging requires students to be active learners."


I certainly would be interested in adding blogging to the Basic Writing course syllabus. The idea opens up a fresh take on the Basic Writing curriculum and I have little doubt that students would be adverse to it.









Penrod, Diane. "Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy." Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

"The Learning Curve"

Reflecting a bit about last week's discussion about on students' and teachers' expectations, I remembered David Sedaris' book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, wherein he tells us his about his one and only teaching experience. Midway through his lovely anecdote, entitled "The Learning Curve," Sedaris expresses his loathing of the writing workshop: "The perfect balance between sadism and masochism."


As an instructor, Mr. Sedaris' own expectations stare far away from realistic. He admitted that he had prepared no lessons, nothing, expecting that students would talk without provocation, "offering their thoughts and opinions on the issues of the day. I'd imagined myself sitting on the edge of the desk, overlooking a forest of raised hands." Wow. To expect that writing students--or any students--would talk without provocation is just callow. After several failed experimental assignments, he decided to show One Life to Live episodes coupled with "guessay" assignments: "brief predictions of what might take place the following day." He confessed to his anger when, after thinking that he had actually taught his students something, their predictions left his expectations utterly unsatisfied.

Sedaris' approach falls far short of his students' expectations, clearly. One student transferred to another class after Sedaris encouraged smoking in the classroom. Following his instruction to write a letter to their mothers in prison, a student revealed that both her father and uncle were serving time and called the assignment "really . . . depressing." A middle-aged, returning student, fed up with his course and his lousy feedback, asked him squarely "just who . . . in the stinking hell do you think . . . you are?" Talk about unmet expectations; can you imagine the layers of rankling disgruntlement that built up before such a question came out of her mouth?

Another example of unrealized expecations, Sedaris' experience with beginning writing students leaves me with no better an impression than Shaughnessy's. I could be overly optimistic and proclaim that if I hold students in high expectations, I will see them met. Still, I choose to stick to a simpler doctrine: don't expect.

Collecting Abstracts

The idea of reconciling cultural identities intrigues me. Initially, the idea of dealing with such reconciliation in the writing classroom seemed to me utterly purposeless, so I decided to read more about it. I'm compiling some readings on the matter, hopefully to stimulate a thesis. I plan on questioning the claim that a Basic Writing course can impact students' identities, if so, how. If identity is at all formed through the use of language, can a shift in language usage (by learning academic writing) effectively cause a shift in identity in some students? I will touch on these and other ideas as they come up.

Here are some abstracts:

Identity and discoursal elements: Three case studies of first-year writing students
by Hollander, Pamela Weisenberg, Ed.D., University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2005
Abstract (Summary)
This dissertation examines, from a poststructural perspective, the writing of three first-year college students enrolled in the researcher's basic writing course, which was taught from a social constructivist perspective. The goal of this research is to gain a better understanding of how the course may have impacted the students' writing and their multiple and changing identities. Building on the idea that identity is formed through the use of language, the focus of this study is the discourses, and subject positions made available through these discourses, in students' writing. Interviews were used to identify discourses and subject positions contributing to the autobiographical selves (Ivanic, 1998) that students brought with them to the course and Critical Discourse Analysis was used to discover what discourses and subject positions were drawn on in students' writing.
The degree to which the case study students' writing and identities were impacted by the social constructivist curriculum and course readings varied depending on how closely the discourses and subject positions they took up before the course matched those of the course. Specifically, Autoethnographic genre was found to encourage the use of Social Constructivist Discourse, raising the possibility that genre plays an important role in providing students with access to Social Constructivist Discourse and associated subject positions. Nonacademic discourses and subject positions were found in the students writing. Students' identities were found to be sites of competing, shifting discourses.
This study implies that poststructuralist ideas are useful for theorizing about writing. The fact that there were multiple, competing discourses found in students' writing has implications for conceptualizing the first-year writing course as "dialectical" (Wall & Coles, 1991). Students may find other discourses more appealing than Social Constructivist Discourse because of their offer of comfort and optimism. The finding that students drew on subject positions and discourses they found in the course readings has implications for seeing readings as "sponsors" (Goldblatt, 1995; Herrington & Curtis, 2000), which give students authority to draw on particular discourses and subject positions.

Academic writing and identity: An ethnographic study of a basic writing class
by Otto, Sheila, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, 2001
Abstract (Summary)
This dissertation reports findings from an ethnographic study of writing and identity in a basic writing class at a two-year college. Grounded in a theoretical frame where both identity and literacy are defined as socially constructed, the study examines the social construction of identity for basic writing students. Data collection, which occurred throughout the sixteen-week semester, consisted of participant observation, the recording of field notes, audio taping and videotaping of class sessions, interviews with participants, and the collection of artifacts. Selected classroom literacy events and the written texts of three students were analyzed using sociolinguistic and microethnographic methods. The analysis focused on (1) the moment-to-moment construction of identity as people interacted with one another during interactions in the classroom, and (2) the social positions created as a result of the linguistic choices students made in their written texts. Findings from this study indicate that the students positioned themselves very differently in their written texts than they did in their face-to-face interactions. During class discussions, specifically those conversations in which they discussed the subjects of their essays, students positioned themselves as engaged, knowledgeable, and interested participants. However, in their written texts, through the use of such linguistic techniques as nominalization, third person inanimate subjects, passive verb constructions, intransitive verbs, and low affinity modality, students positioned themselves as detached, unengaged authors, and they tended to position themselves and others as having little sense of agency. Students' written texts were weak, in part, because they attempted to distance themselves from the content of their essays. These findings suggest that issues of writing and identity should be discussed and examined by students and teachers in writing classrooms. By acknowledging that literacy is inextricably connected to issues of identity, teachers can begin to help students make choices about how they want to position themselves in their texts as well as in their interactions.

Redneck and Hillbilly Discourse in the Writing Classroom: Classifying Critical Pedagogies of Whiteness. Beech, Jennifer, Ph. D. University of Tennessee, Chattanooga.

Abstract: The article describes the class and race differences among middle and working class folks. Redneck is a polyvalent referent with multiple, shifting meanings across time and space. It notes how poor working class whites are despised and considered inferior to elite whites. Thus introducing the concept of white racism where poor whites are termed as hillbilly, redneck, white trash, and cracker, that in essence means that they are deviant, obsolescent and unsophisticated. In this process of discussing such issues students know their roles and prejudices while learning is enhanced by use of resources such as dictionary and websites.

Hollander, Pamela Weisenberg. "Identity and Discoursal Elements: Three Case Studies of First-year Writing Students." Diss. U of Massachusetts Amherst, 2005.


Otto, Sheila. "Academic Writing and Identity: An Ethnographic Study of a Basic Writing Class." Diss. Vanderbilt University, 2001.


Beech, Jennifer. "Redneck and Hillbilly Discourse in the Writing Classroom: Classifying Critical Pedagogies of Whiteness." College English 67.2 (2004): 172-186.

Basic Writing Instructors' Expectations

As a Basic Writing instructor, my initial expectation would be quite elementary: that students know their language. As I have come to understand from this course, such an expectation is already too much--most students in the Basic Writing classroom do not know their language. Understanding that, my first expectation is blown away. Second, I would expect that students who do not know their language (and who are there to learn it better), would be eager to learn! Again, from this course I have learned that such an expectation, that students be willing to learn and grow as writers, is over-shot. Perhaps third I would expect that students' writing abilities improve over the course of the semester; this, too, is expecting too much. Not all students will improve.

If I have learned anything about expectation from this course, it is simply not to expect. Or to expect the unexpected and that Basic Writers will be basic writers.

Basic Writers' Expectations

It is difficult to imagine the experience of a Basic Writing student. Myself, I feel a firm, content control over my language. Not to have such control, or to feel discontent in my control however it be, must be the experience of the Basic Writer.


Expectations of the Basic Writer? As a Basic Writer, I suppose I might go to the Basic Writing course expecting first that I would learn more about English and writing in English, that I would grow as a writer--that I would find the tools to help me become a better writer. I would expect to find an instructor who is willing to assist my growth. I would expect that it would take a lot of time and effort, practice. I would expect to gain--most importantly--more control over my langauge.

Hybrid Texts and Basic Writers

I may be confused. What is the point of the Basic Writing course after all? My belief is that the students who are placed in Basic Writing courses are there to prepare for more demanding English courses and to learn to write the sort of formal, academic writing which they must do in order to complete college successfully. Our Basic Writing students are in need of preparation, are they not?

Today, we discussed the opportunity for hybrid texts in Basic Writing to bridge students' cultural (and academic) contexts, and vernacular English usage in Basic Writing. If the point of Basic Writing is to teach students to write using formal, academic English, why encourage students to write using vernacular English? Is it not a disservice to Basic Writing students not only to encourage and advocate the use of informal, nonstandard English--the opposite of what academe anticipates--but to request it? The students may be confused.

Is English Beautiful?

Ask a Hungarian if he finds his language beautiful and he will laugh, telling you not to ask dumb questions. Ask an Italian to explain why he thinks that Italian is the most beautiful language and he will lecture you on the matter, hands waving proudly. You'll find the same with the Swedes and the Spaniards, the Basques... Something about their languages, their connections with them. A full-hearted understanding, a deep love for them. Ask an American if he thinks that English is beautiful...I'll just stop right there. Has it ever happened? Has there ever been a mechanic or housewife in this country who has considered English as something to be admired? Something beautiful? Is English beautiful?

Do you think that English is beautiful? How might the Basic Writer answer this question? I would expect some students to say that they find British English beautiful, or Scottish or Australian English maybe. But ours? Probably not. What does English lack? What do its speakers lack?

A website dedicated to the misuse of the apostrophe:

http://www.apostropheabuse.com

Adding to the Wikibook

Other than a brief, abridged explanation of common comma misuses, there is nothing in this text that explains or demonstrates the wonders of our puncuation system!


Most college students, I would bet, have little to no clue how to use even the comma properly, let alone such useful figures as the semicolon, the dash, or the ellipses, all of which certainly have their places in Basic Writing. Students should be made aware of the writing power that lies in knowing punctuation devices.


I would certainly be willing to add a "Basic Writer's Guide to Standard American English Punctuation" of sorts to the Wikibook, however brief or exhaustive we see fit. However, I am not sure if I could base a seminar paper on the subject. We'll see how it goes.

More on ESL Writers in the Basic Writing Course

In class, we were discussing the appropriateness of placing ESL students in Basic Writing courses. Of course, the situation of the ESL student is a difficult one, bound in culture and academic experiences, subjected to the placement system, and very delicate. However, in my opinion it's simply not that complicated. Many ESL students simply are not ready for a course that's made for native English speakers; some ESL students will never be ready for such a course, and if they're not ready, they're not ready. Certainly, there are some who are ready for Basic Writing and maybe even ENG 110, but we shouldn't forget that the Basic Writing course does not have the ESL student in mind. As we have read and discussed, the needs of the ESL student and those of the native English-speaking, Basic Writing student are different.

Looking from my experience with learning foreign languages and writing in them--I've studied six and taught EFL in France--I say without hesitation that a native speaker of any language, even a self-admitted bad writer of that language, has more power in that language than a non-native speaker. Nothing compares to native, intrinsic fluency, the comfort and ease of ones native language; it's something that a non-native speaker lacks and cannot make up for. I'm not saying, though, that non-native speakers cannot achieve great fluency. I have no doubt in my ability to communicate in, nor hindrance to create, fluent French, and I may write well in French, but my competence in French is limited because it isn't native. The grammar may be flawless, but it doesn't come naturally and I would not feel capable of taking a Basic Writing course in French that isn't designed to accommodate my non-native needs. Why should ESL students be expected to learn and grow as writers of English if the course isn't designed to suite their needs?

The Basic Writing Course and ESL Writers

The issue of the ESL students in Basic Writing courses brought up by Matsuda in his article interests me. First of all, it seems only natural that the field of basic writing focuses primarily on students who are native speakers of English. To me, it also seems natural that in today's Basic Writing course one will find many non-native English speakers. I think that the point Matsuda tries to make is that it shouldn't seem natural to find both students in the Basic Writing course; they are two different types of student, with different needs.

While the Basic Writing course focuses on the needs of native English speakers, this should not be a course inclusive to both types of students. Ideally, there would be two Basic Writing courses: one for the native English-speaking students and one for the non-native. As Matsuda points out, this is not always feasible in today's tightly budgeted system. The Basic Writing course for non-native English speakers would follow the TESOL model for composition.

In my opinion, allowing American, non-native English speakers a fair education would include the proper courses they need. Foreign students are invited to the States where ESL courses are tailor-made to suite their English language short-comings. If institutions can offer that kind of education to the foreign student, why can they not offer an additional Basic Writing course made for the non-native English speaking student who needs it?

Article Review Choices

For the Article Review Assignment, I have chosen two articles from the Journal of Basic Writing to consider. I have included their abstracts here.

Teaching Multilingual Learners Across the Curriculum: Beyond the ESOL Classroom and Back Again
Vivian Zamel and Ruth Spack


Abstract: Language and literacy are situated in specific classroom contexts and are acquired as students engage with the subject matter and tasks of these courses. Therefore, all faculty--not just those who teach courses devoted to teaching English to speakers of other languages (ESOL)--are responsible for contributing to multicultural students' acquisition of language and literacy. Drawing on qualitative research studies, including first-hand accounts of students and faculty who discuss their expectations and experiences in undergraduate courses across the curriculum, this article explores how faculty can facilitate the learning of multilingual students. Analyzing a variety of pedagogical strategies that faculty across disciplines have enacted in their own teaching, we find comfirmation for our theory that when writing is assigned for the purpose of fostering learning, and when instructors provide supportive feedback in response to what students have written, writing can serve as a powerful means for promoting language acquisition. Significantly, this across-the-curriculum research indicates that when faculty transform their pedagogy to meet the needs of ESOL students, all students benefit. This research also has critical implications for the philosophical and pedagogical perspectives that bear on ESOL teaching.






Building Academic Literacy from Student Strength: An Interdisciplinary Life History Project
Robin Murie, Molly Rojas Collins, and Daniel F. Detzner

Abstract: U.S. high school graduate students for whom the home language is not English run the risk of inadequate preparation for the rigors of higher education. Whether this poor preparation is the result of disruptions caused by the transition to a new country/language/culture, or of a watered-down high school curriculum that reacts to language error but does not always help the student develop a rich academic literacy, there is a need for courses and assignments that acknowledge the strengths of multilingual writers and that build fluency and academic literacy in ways that allow students to make meaningful connections with the college curriculum. This article describes a pilot ethnographic research course, Life History Project, designed in collaboration with a professor in Family Social Science and two ESL basic writing instructors.




Zamel, Vivian and Spack, Ruth. "Teaching Multilingual Learners Across the Curriculum: Beyond the ESOL Classroom and Back Again." Journal of Basic Writing (JBW) 2006 Fall; 25 (2): 126-152

Murie, Robin, Collins, Molly Rojas, and Detzner, Daniel F. "Building Academic Literacy from Student Strength: An Interdisciplinary Life History Project." Journal of Basic Writing (JBW) 2004; 23 (2): 70-91

Defining Literacy

While reading the first chapter of The Way Literacy Lives, a passage in the text reminded me of a similar situation which I once found myself in. Here, Carter tells of the parent who bemoans her daughter's reading: her daughter reads a lot, but nothing "worthwhile."

In 2006 I had the privilege of spending a semester in Switerland at the University of Bern. I chose to stay with a family whose four children I tutored in English. It seemed that the eldest son, Clemens, was having the roughest time finding his niche in reading in English. Knowing that I would tutor the children, I had brought a few books that I had liked at 14 with the boys in mind: The Giver; A Separate Peace; The Catcher in the Rye; etc. We started reading. Clemens had a knack for reading in English, though his mind always seemed to be somewhere else. I knew that he was bored, but what student isn't bored during tutoring? Despite Clemens' reading skills, he finally told me that he hated the books I chose to read. He told me this half-way through reading my beloved John Knowles. Dumbfounded, I tried to explain that his parents wanted us to read books, literature. He looked back at me heavily. Before our next lesson, I rethought Clemens. He was always reading comic books--thick, 200-pagers. To me, comic books seemed childish, far from the literature a 14 year-old should strive for. Nonetheless, I knew that I had to accomodate Clemens' literacy. I found an English bookstore where I bought the only graphic novel I knew: V for Vendetta. Clemens was thrilled to see that book and didn't want to wait until the next lesson to read on. From that point on--with graphic novels--reading sessions were much more enjoyable and I knew he was taking something from the experience.

Making a connection with Carter's lesson on Defining Literacy, I realize that by switching the readings to graphic novels I recognized Clemens' literate practices, which was needed. Before that, I was defining his literacy, as Carter would say, by my own associations--those which told me that comic books are childish and "worthless." I broke away from the content fetish and went to his level, allowing Clemens a better chance to enjoy reading in English.

Bartholomae article

Has anyone been able to find a copy of the Bartholomae article? I've searched google with no luck. The library does not have the Journal of Basic Writing before 2001.

Defining Basic Writing

Basic Writing is something that I am going to define loosely this evening. In my mind, there are two ways to define Basic Writing. One is the way the student would define it; the other the way the instructor would. Since I am currently neither the student nor the instructor, I'll be the fence-straddler and look into both sides.

As a student, I didn't have a problem with the English 101 course; I took it as a high school junior. I saw my sister struggle through the course and tried to help her, though her formal writing style seemed so different from my own that I soon thought it pointless to offer pointers. She, as so many students I would imagine, just doesn't like to write papers. It's that simple. They might define Basic Writing as a must-take course in which they take no pleasure. They might find it purposeless, a waste.

As I mentioned in the previous post, some of my instructor's experience was in France, teaching English comp. and lit. courses to BACC-bound high school students. From that grand experience, I saw Basic Writing in English more as a battle to be fought than a course to be taught. As an instructor there, I had to fight for the right of my language to be forced upon French youth. I gave that battle up quickly.

For the sake of my continuing education, I'm going to say that I would like to find a new definition of Basic Writing.

Professor X

Has no one understood Professor X's person? He is ADJUNCT! Underpaid; burnt-out. He has taken on a second job and feels this defeat. He is frustrated with the system.

Ms. L was a force in his plight. Reread the passages about his situation with that student. She never showed a sign of steadfast effort. She changed her ideas and topic constantly even after asking the instructor's advice, which he gave consistantly. Granted, their hap about the computer could have been dealt better with. However, I can understand his loss of patience. Let's not forget that the purpose of a basic writing course is to prepare students for writing papers in college, something that is not done today without computers. It isn't the instructor's problem if a student knows nothing about computers. This instructor did his job simply by pointing her towards sources which could help her with her problem. He did his job; full stop.

Looking back on my experience with teaching BACC-preparatory English comp. and lit. in France to high school seniors, I understand Professor X's troubles. Those were students who had no choice in their learning a foreign language and being expected to churn out explications of texts in that language. Their entire entry into university depended on their BACC scores. Not only did they have to master writing in their own language but they had to do it in a second, as well. I have little sympathy for American students in regards to the academic demands placed upon them. I do, however, commiserate deeply with the adjunct —underpaid, burnt-out, frustrated.

12. January, 2009. The Semester's Beginning; Thoughts on a Blogtitle.

As you'll soon understand, I have never kept a blog before. Please keep in mind that patience is a virtue.


For classmates struck addled by my blog's title, I will explain.

I have a deep love, as many of us probably have, for our English language. Its fullness; its rhythm; its beautiful comfort. What I love more than today's Modern English, that is, where English has ended up, is where English began: Old English. It is bewitchingly real to me; so much stonger than Modern English which hardly looks like its forebearer. I find it a great shame that we have lost English so much of its hearty, meaningful Germanic stock only in favor of weaker Romance loanwords. Old English has so much wealth, much of which we have forgone, but it's still wholly ours.

The blogtitle is easy. You may have guessed that Michaeles means Michael's. The second word is slightly trickier, and rightly so —it shows off the ever-useful, Germanic word-building tool: compounding. Ymbe is a preposition meaning here something close to about or along. þanc means a thought; put the two together and we have the notion of a serious thought about something -or the loanword reflection. Ærn is a space; any space. Altogether, we have an "about-thought-space." Beautiful.