Basic Writing. George Otte
Teaching Complication 2: The Need for Tolerance
Teaching Complication 3: The Need (Still) for Correctness
Teaching Complication 4: The Need for Process Analysis
Teaching Complication 5: The Need for Interpretation
Teaching Complication 6: The Need for Negotiation
Teaching Complication 7: The Need for (and Lack of) Consensus
Assessment
Teaching to the Test
Teacher Resistance to Institutionally Imposed Testing
State-Mandated Testing
Teaching
The Importance of Process
Cognitive Schemes and Their Limitations
A Grab Bag of Instructional Strategies
Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts: A Redefined Teaching Project
The Politics of Identity
Literacy as a Social Practice
Experiments in Mainstreaming
The Fragmentation of the Teaching Enterprise
Error
Insights from Linguistics
Error Analysis
Upholding the Standard
Changing Attitudes toward Error
Error Recognition
Assessment
Foundational Work in Mass Testing
Disillusionment with Holistic Assessment
Not How to Test, But Whether
Alternatives to Established Assessments
High Schools as Gatekeepers
Process
Writing Process(es)
Thinking Process(es)
Cognition or Discourse Conventions?
Academic Literacy
Attitudes and Identities
The Conflict Within, the Conflict Without
Case Studies of Conflict and Struggle
Political Portents
Questioning the Value of Remediation
Real-World Repercussions
Basic Writing Under Siege from Within
Arguing for Abolition
The Great Unraveling
Basic Writing Revised
Public Policy and Basic Writing
Alternative Program Structures
Basic Writing for the Twenty-First Century
Anticipating the Need
Examining Costs and Benefits
Appendix: Basic Writing Resources
Bedford Bibliographies for Teachers of Writing
CompPile
Conference on Basic Writing
Basic Writing e-Journal
CBW Facebook Page
CBW-L
CBW SIG at CCCC
CBW Workshop on Basic Writing
National Survey of Basic Writing Programs
Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)
Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA)
International Writing Centers Association
Journal of Basic Writing (JBW)
Journal of Developmental Education
National Association for Developmental Education (NADE)
Teaching Basic Writing
Teaching Developmental Writing: Background Readings
The WAC Clearinghouse
Acknowledgments
Like all books, this one owes much to many not named on the cover. We invoke the indulgence shown authors on acknowledgment pages to give the chief among those many their due. We would like to thank our families for their patience, love, and support during the writing and revising of this book. George is especially grateful to wife Dee, who, as always, assessed much and censured little, but always resisted when it counts; he would also like to note daughter Amanda’s review of parts of this text as she finished her college career and emerged a teacher with a special interest in educational policy. Rebecca wishes to thank her husband Frank for his steadfast support of many writing projects over the years, this one most recently; she is grateful as well to those who encouraged her with their enthusiasm and offered important insights during the final phases of revision—daughter Susanna, sister Carol, and the members of her writing group, Pat Juell, Susan Babinski, and Jane Isenberg. We would also like to thank each other: co-authorship is in many ways more challenging than single authorship, but our work together has also made it more rewarding, and the book better for it.
We owe a special debt of gratitude to Charles Bazerman, the series editor for the Reference Guides to Rhetoric and Composition. This book has benefited greatly from his astute guidance. We offer thanks to David Blakesley, editor of Parlor Press, and Mike Palmquist, editor of the WAC Clearinghouse, for their support and expertise as the book moved into production—on schedule. Their responsiveness and professionalism are much appreciated. Jessica Williams, a doctoral student at Purdue University, copyedited the manuscript with care and attention to detail, for which we thank her.
We are deeply grateful to the basic writing scholars whose work is cited in this book, many of whom we came to know before and during our work as editors of the Journal of Basic Writing. It has been a privilege to work alongside such humane and dedicated colleagues. They have taught us the tensions that animate so much of this book.
Finally, we acknowledge the many inspiring students, teachers, and administrators we have worked with during our long careers at the City University of New York. Collaborating with those who daily demonstrate the importance of open access to higher education has fueled our continuing commitment, while walking with them on the many paths