​I assured him that my first drafts are usually more sloppy records of fleeting thoughts than they are refined ideas committed to text. I told him that the beauty of today's technology of word processing is in the ability to change and develop and create without being tethered to prior drafts. He was able to see how low stakes those first attempts would be. He was able to begin writing, when before, he was frozen at the starting line.

 

Through my graduate education and classroom teaching experience, I am firmly determined that the teaching of basic writing should not be taken on as merely the transfer of a watered down version of college level learning. It is not the teaching of simple students. It is not the patching of gaps. I believe it is the ideal opportunity to give a dedicated time and place to equip and practice for a journey into a new, somewhat foreign and, at times, hostile city—academia.

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For many students who end up placed in the basic writing classroom, schooling has been an unwelcoming and unforgiving experience. For those who have passed over the hurdles to make it to the gates of college, with a desire for an advanced degree intact, I hope to help them learn how to communicate in this new city. Truly communicate—not just throw at them a dictionary and grammar manual.

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What I have learned since the beginning of my graduate education is that I need to see these sometimes nontraditional students within their context, of their history and the future they are pursuing. They are not incomplete human beings—they are just inexperienced students. In our country, we take for granted that education is a right to which all people have fair access. Yes, compulsory education was granted, but would it provide fairness in education between upper middle class students growing up in the suburbs, as it would for the poor urban student in the deep cities?

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Where does that leave us? Well, this just means that as the instructor, I hope to continue acknowledging through my interactions with my students that they are adults, with life experiences outside of my classroom that have shaped them as people and as students thus far. My role is to equip them with the writing skills necessary to survive and thrive within this new environment through many and varied writing opportunities that challenge and frustrate, tempered by my commitment to their success and encouragement to fail and rebound. My job is not to fix what is broken, but support growth with esteem and confidence, while providing them ample opportunities to write from a position of confidence and expertise.

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What might be striking in my basic writing course plans is an obvious commitment to writing. Readings assignments and the use of technology find its role in my class as tools for the fostering of writing skills. As time is scarce and the list of objectives is dauntingly long, I believe that writing should be the undeniable focus--the practice of writing often and in multiple modes and for audiences.

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The skills needed to survive in the academic setting (and today's workplace) also include an aptitude and ease with digital technologies. The ability to write well, whether it is a research paper or poetry, will be stifled to an extent by the inability to navigate the modes of rhetorical production required in the 21st century (Jenny Rice).   While challenging, I believe that becoming well versed in various modes of "rhetoric's mechanics" will be rewarding and necessary. I don’t believe that over simplifying and dumbing down material will help the basic writer in any way to eventually succeed in the university setting. Basic writing is part of the initiation process for most students into the college environment, and that experience will play a critical role in making that cross over the gate seem feasible or forever unattainable. The building of false confidence through watered down assignments is not the answer. That only wastes time, energy and resources. The goal is to present a challenge, acknowledge it as a challenge (across skills in research, grammar and technology) with a promise to guide to the other side.



As Bartholomae stated in “The Tidy House,” he wanted to keep Sartre as part of his basic writing course readings. He states that he “wanted to think about ways of preparing unprepared students to work with the kinds of materials that I (and the profession) would say were ours, not theirs, materials that were inappropriate, too advanced.”  They should be given the chance to experience higher education from the get go, not let it be used as a carrot to be dangled in front of them until they are deemed good enough, smart enough or capable enough. In these difficult things, what they do need is the additional guidance and time they will get in the basic writing class to experience these “inappropriate” and “too advanced” material in a safe environment.


I had a student once who told me that she used to write poetry when she was a girl. Now, she was a 30 year old single mother to four kids trying to go to college. Now, she doesn't have much opportunity or desire to write any more than she had to. Her jaw dropped the first day when I discussed the ten page research paper with which the semester will culminate. In that semester, I was able to see her frustrated and overwhelmed and then triumphant and proud. All throughout, I challenged her to what was difficult while declaring my confidence in her. I encouraged her to fight against the difficulties of writing in Microsoft Word when pen and paper seemed easier and more familiar to her. I pushed her to think from her lived experiences to find a paper topic that impassioned and engaged her. She navigated the world of technology, like learning to email herself drafts as she worked, and the world of multiple voices and audience that are found within grey issues. At the end, she wrote a paper on the deep implications of class/poverty on academic success. She persistently sought my time outside of class in response to many invitations, submitted more drafts than required (as she saw the benefit of talking through her thoughts and defending her choices) and finished the semester with ten pages of polished writing. She told me at the end of that semester that she was in fact, again, a writer. She finished the semester absolutely astounded by what she had accomplished. To her utter surprise, she had successfully tackled an assignment she thought was "inappropriate" and "too advanced" for her.


At the onset of my own education, behind the blind spot of my own inexperience, I bought into the notion that grammar and usage, the tools and language of the university had to first be grasped and wielded well before full acceptance into the university could be granted. After wrestling with the varied ideas of the teaching of writing in the Approaches to Teaching and Rhetoric/Composition Pedagogy courses I took at Georgetown and working with capable and intelligent nontraditional students in my classroom, who have overcome challenges that pale in comparison to any that present themselves in a classroom, I realize that attaining those tools is just a minor hurdle in the process of opening the way for these students to become true members of the college.

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Part of helping my students become members of the college environment involves a responsibility to show them their own growth as students when it may be hard to see for themselves. A way of giving them a way to reflect on their challenges and growth is through the teaching of writing as a process and the use of writing technologies like a class blog. Not only will these tools serve to show the value of process and reflection in their writing, it will also give them the confidence to try and use technology in a way that they will certainly need as they push further into their academic careers. The use of an online learning platform will hopefully take the focus off of individual grades (and fear of failure), and put the emphasis on seeing themselves as real writers who write just as much, if not more, for themselves, than they do for me. Perhaps then, they will see that the writing process is indeed a difficult but rewarding process for everyone, regardless of where they begin the journey as writers.