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.