Basic Writing Pedagogy - Deborah Mutnick

Do the keys to the world await those who successfully maneuver a way through their freshman composition course. By proving their grasp of language (reading, thinking and writing), and their abilities toward academic writing in the freshman composition course, they are free to pass through the gate to other academic endeavors. But, what about the student who can’t “untangle the syntactic and grammatical knots made in the effort to write correctly? (186). Are the writing problems these students bring with them to the university so great that success in the university is beyond their grasp? Does the university turn them away or provide resources that prepare them to succeed?

Deborah Mutnick’s essay provides a glimpse of the work that is being done by universities to address the needs of “basic writers”. She begins with a history of basic writing pedagogy, its theorists and theories, why it must be included in the university’s curriculum, and a context for its spin into the political realm—into the hands of policy makers and bean counters.

Mutnick explores Mina Shaughnessy’s work. Shaughnessy believed that enrollment in basic writing courses would alter the students that enrolled in them as well as the institution offering the courses. Shaughnessey was committed to looking at social, historical and political causes for student under-preparedness. She believed the university had a responsibility in undertaking the education of under-prepared student’s. She also believed in the democratic values represented by open admissions and believed that basic writers were educable. She saw error in writing as following a logical pattern. She refused to accept theories of developmental models that basic writers were cognitively deficient or immature. Also among Shaughnessy’s contributions is a development scale, not only for students but for teachers themselves.

By the late 1970’s, research began focusing on composing. Sondra Perl studied unskilled writers and suggests that over-attentiveness to errors errors undermined writing fluidity. While David Bartholomae acknowledges his debt to Shaughnessy, he helped shift the emphasis of instruction from grammatical to rhetorical concerns. This shift moved the focus from surface error to semantic and critical content.

Starting in the 1980’s, a “social turn” in composition theory emerged that looked at social and cultural differences of students. Pat Bizzell’s research suggested that basic writers must adopt academic culture and its discourse over their own culture and language. David Bartholomae suggested that basic writing is used to introduce students to academic discourse.

On the political side, a great effort is being made to mainstream basic writing instruction in the face of institutional decisions about the fate of basic writing instruction in universities. Recent trends toward this effort include the Studio Model, where groups of students and a teacher meet once a week to discuss assignments; Mainstreaming, which focuses on socio-cultural and language diversity to teach writing; and the Yogurt Model that allows students to participate in a writing studio for as long as they need to in order to complete assignments.