Basic Writing e-Journal
Marilyn S. Sternglass
THE CHANGING PERCEPTION OF
THE ROLE OF WRITING:
FROM BASIC WRITING TO DISCIPLINE
COURSES
Mary P. Deming
READING AND WRITING:
MAKING THE CONNECTION FOR BASIC
WRITERS
Dan J. Royer and Roger
Gillis
BASIC WRITING
AND DIRECTED SELF-PLACEMENT
This issue of BWe marks the
midpoint of our second volume. Our first year of publication was
wildly successful. We received top-notch submissions from contributors
who have benefitted from the smart feedback provided by reviewers; helpful
comments from readers; wise guidance from our editorial board. To
all of you, our most sincere thanks.
This issue features article
versions of all but one of the presentations at this year's CBW CCCC Pre-Conference
Workshop. Marilyn Sternglass's "The Changing Perception of the Role
of Writing: From Basic Writing to Discipline Courses" is based on some
of the research included in her award-winning book, Time to Know Them.
The article (and presentation) raise thoughtful questions about the ways
that students use reading and writing in different ways through their academic
work.
Mary Deming's "Reading and
Writing: Making the Connection for Basic Writers" expanded on a theme initiated
with Marcia Dickson's presentation at the 1998 Pre-Conference Workshop,
working with reading. The article (and the presentation) provide
enormously helpful hands-on strategies for thinking about and working with
reading issues in the classroom.
In their essay, "Directed
Self-Placement for Basic Writers," Dan Royer and Roger Gilles describe
the process of directed self-placement that they've developed at Grand
Valley State University.
(The fourth presentation,
Michael Williamson's "Assessng Students, Assessing Ourselves" will be included
in the November issue of BWe.)
Finally, we'd like to thank
members of the Editorial Board for their support and assistance with reviewing
articles during the last year. They are:
Marilyn
S. Sternglass
City College of New York - CUNY
THE CHANGING PERCEPTION OF THE
ROLE OF WRITING:
FROM BASIC WRITING TO DISCIPLINE
COURSES
Introduction
As students move from basic writing and regular composition courses to a variety of discipline courses, they see the potential role of writing in a changing way. Students find it very productive to use writing as a basis for learning. The relationship between writing and learning has been described as having several stages, although they are not found to be practiced in a neat, linear way. Three stages of examining the relationship between writing and learning are:
1) as recall, primarily of facts
2) as the ability to organize information
in an analytic way that leads
to synthesis
3) as the ability to apply information to
the creation of new knowledge,
knowledge that is new to the learner if not to the field.
Students who were followed
in a six-year longitudinal study at an urban college on the relationship
between writing and learning described their perception of how writing
helped them understand the materials in their courses, revealing that course
demands frequently influenced the approach they took to responding to writing
tasks. I would like to provide some examples of two students' comments
and writing in response to these different demands in their work.
Both students started at the second level of basic writing. The first
is an African-American woman I call Joan and the second is a Latina woman
I call Delores.
When regurgitation of facts
was acceptable, they spoke of writing as helping them to remember information.
For example, Joan's mode of writing was to supply definitions in response
to examination questions, carefully using the language of instructors or
textbooks. In a paper for a sociology course during her second year
at the college, Joan wrote: "Sociology is referred to as the systematic
and objective (scientific) study of human society and social interaction.
Sociology is more or less the study of interaction within groups in society.
A sociologist never studies an individual. He or she may observe
or study an individual's interaction within a group or groups" (Sternglass
33). As has been noted in Women's Ways of Knowing (1986),
Joan was relying on "received knowledge," with authoritative definitions
her basis for response. Writing helped her remember these definitions,
but she was not yet ready to go beyond them in a setting where this was
what was required in examinations and papers.
In a paper for an introductory
philosophy course in her second semester, Delores similarly relied on academic
language to explain some ideas of William James: "In his piece
'Pragmatism,' William James discusses the truth of ideas. In his
work, James made a mere distinction between pragmatists and intellectualists
view about the truth of an idea. For intellectualists, as James describes,
the truth of an idea is an inert and the same time stationary property
of an idea. Intellectualists supposition is that once an individual
has reached the truth of anything the process of searching for the truth
is discontinued" (Sternglass 44). It seems likely that Delores' unfamiliarity
with the concepts of the philosophy course motivated her to protect herself
by incorporating the text-jargon in her paper.
When demands for more complex
reasoning were asked for, these students spoke of how writing helped them
critique ideas, see both sides of issues, and to analyze more deeply the
causes and effects of issues. A striking example of how course demands
can affect the complexity of the writing can be seen in a paper that Delores
wrote in her freshman composition course the same semester that she was
taking the philosophy course. In a paper on Orwell's "Shooting an
Elephant," Delores offered her own interpretation of the effects of subjugating
others on the "tyrant" himself. She wrote:
"Orwell says, 'A tyrant needs to wear a mask.' Orwell in his essay 'Shooting
an Elephant,' is referring to the kind of behavior that the tyrant must display in front of the
people they oppress. Even thought they might as well behave differently following their own
feelings, they have to behave as expected by the people. Even though tyrants subjugate the
people, in some way or another they are also subjugating themselves by have to let feeling [be]
suppress. And at the same time robbing themselves" (Sternglass 44-45).
While clearly hostile
to the behavior of the tyrants she described, Delores also revealed a compassionate
sense of understanding the impact of such behaviors on the individuals
involved in such acts. Although not yet deeply involved in her major,
psychology, she possessed a sense of empathy that would assist her in her
future studies. And, in a composition setting in which the primary
readings were literary ones, critical interpretations of such texts were
highly valued. By the beginning of her sixth year, close to completing
her undergraduate degree in psychology, Joan explained how she had come
to understand the difference between dependence on textbook language and
the importance of putting ideas into her own words. She said:
"Writing helps me 'regurgitate' back what I learned, not to mimic back to the professor but to
apply what you learned from readings...Writing helps me remember things because I have to
apply concepts." No clearer explanation from a student could be imagined.
As students became more
knowledgeable in their major areas, and where risk-taking was encouraged,
they proposed new relationships among existing ideas, recommended alteration
in the way images and stereotypes were presented to the public, and prepared
research projects to investigate questions not previously researched.
Constructing knowledge took different forms with different students. For
Joan, in her fourth year at the college, constructing knowledge manifested
itself through the integration of her studies in one discipline with those
of another. As a psychology major, Joan had learned many terms that
she had used in the analyses of psychological cases. Now, in her
world humanities course, she brought in a psychological concept in
the analysis of Candide's optimism. Joan wrote, "Pangloss inspired
Candide's Optimism because he attributed what we would call in Psychology,
a Halo-effect to every experience in life, meaning, there is good in everything
and everyone" (Sternglass 54).
Applying a psychological
concept was a far cry from her regurgitating the terms in her earlier work
in sociology. Delores was able to go further than Joan was in proposing
new research in her field to investigate issues that others had not examined.
Delores' absorption with the relationships between race and gender led
to her to undertake a study on the relationship between skin-color and
self-esteem in a special enrichment program available to her at Lehman
College of the City University of New York. Her study was titled
"Skin Color and Its Impact on Self-Esteem of Latino College Students--Dominicans
and Puerto Ricans." She described how writing this report made her
feel: "I create it. It's my paper--my ideas, like a birth.
There wasn't anything like that before" (Sternglass 57). Her evident pride
in her originality and the opportunity to make a contribution to her field
is evidence of the potential waiting to be realized by students who begin
at basic writing levels. In the six years that it took Joan to earn
a Bachelor's Degree, Delores earned both a Bachelor's and Masters Degree.
One of
the important ideas to be considered here is that the ability to analyze
materials thoughtfully is one that grows gradually over time. In
basic writing and regular composition courses we have the opportunity to
give students assignments that will begin this process, allowing them to
practice the more complex reasoning tasks they will be expected to be able
to handle in their upper division courses. A few examples of how
this process began for students within basic writing levels will illustrate
how this can happen:
In a paper, Ricardo, a Latino
student enrolled in the second level of basic writing, demonstrated the
activist part of his nature. In discussing Maya Angelou's I Know
Why the Caged Bird Sings, Ricardo concluded his discussion by examining
the larger issue of racism that was considered in Angelou's autobiography:
Due to Maya Angelou determination, sense of pride and activism she was able
to break new grounds not only in the streetcar system in San Francisco [as
the first female operator] but on the struggle to maintain her identity and
self respect as a black person. This story could had happen in any period of
time from the 1930's to the late 1980's. But no matter what period of time
it take place, we have to take charge and be active in order to produce
changes that would eliminate the bias and racism forever (Sternglass 79).
Unlike some other students
who saw stereotyping and racist comments as harmless because they assumed
they could not apply to them, Ricardo not only felt the impact of racist
behavior toward himself personally, but he was able to see beyond his own
situation to how the larger society would be impacted by such attitudes
and behaviors. Even at this early point in his academic career, Ricardo
always had a mission to help others.
Also, during her first semester
at the college, Chandra, an African-American student enrolled in the second
level of basic writing, tellingly pictured her recognition of her complex
identity in a paper she wrote in response to reading an essay by Richard
Rodriguez:
Similar to Rodriguez, I felt that when I became a student I was "remade."
The language I was used to speaking was based upon slang terms. All of the
schools I attended allowed me to speak and write with incorrect English. I
learned the correct pronunciation of words in drama class. Recently here at
City College, I have gained a new identity which I feel that I don't identify
with. I am referred to as an African-American. Similar to Rodriguez
experiences, I've never connected myself to this racial minority so I feel
guilty representing a culture I knew nothing about. I spent all of my life
trying to overcome my race and color in order to produce as a part of the
American society. But I have realized, one cannot move forward unless they
know where they have been. Now, I feel like I've missed out on something
since I don't know anything about African history or African culture. My
peers always viewed me as a "wanna be" white girl because I tried correcting
my speech and speak intelligently. When I tried to imitate the slang later
in my teens, everyone could always tell I did not belong. I always believed that I had
to give up my culture to be taken seriously as an intellectual. I later realized that I didn't.
(Sternglass 68-69)
For both Ricardo and
Chandra, readings that presented issues that the students had had experience
with stimulated their reflection and encouraged them to offer responses
that were simultaneously analytical and personal. Because these examples
address issues of race and culture, it is too easy to insist that only
multi-cultural readings can stimulate such reflection on the
part of students. However, other issues such as social,
economic, political, or environmental ones, to name just a few, could be
addressed in readings to foster such reflection and encourage students
to take critical stances.
One question that is frequently
raised is, when is it appropriate to ask students to begin analytic tasks?
My response would be from the very first writing task and the very first
course the student is enrolled in. Of course, the other issues of
basic writing need to be addressed, but, in my opinion, they should be
addressed within the context of serious, thoughtful writing tasks that
challenge the students conceptually as well as linguistically. That
leads me to my workshop activity:
Workshop activity
Handout:
Reading __________________________________________________________________
Assignment # 1 based on recall of facts:
Assignment # 2 asking for analysis:
Assignment # 3 asking for ideas or implications that go beyond the reading
itself:
Discussion and conclusion
Works Cited
Belenky M. E., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule. J. M.
Women's ways of
knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind. New
York: Basic Books, 1986.
Sternglass, M. S. Time to know them: A longitudinal study of writing
and learning at the college
level. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Publishers,
1997.
Mary
P. Deming
Georgia State University, Decatur
READING AND WRITING:
MAKING THE CONNECTION FOR BASIC
WRITERS
Introduction
In this era of criticizing
education, in particular college developmental education, many people debate
the appropriateness of reading instruction in the college classroom. After
all, should not students be able to read (or write, or calculate) by the
time they reach college? Many think so, but in reality, a great number
of students when asked to read out loud have trouble decoding, much less
understanding the words they are asked to read. In addition, many college
instructors have had students enrolled in their classes who have had difficulty
comprehending lengthy, complicated college content reading materials.
Marcia Dickson writes:
They [basic writers] don't know how to read the non-fiction articles and books assigned in
colleges and universities, and they don't know the differences between major and
minor points or, in some cases, how to distinguish between the views of authors
and sources they quote. The gap in the basic writer's knowledge makes it difficult
for them to be successful in college or in any field where critical thinking and
applied knowledge is a prerequisite. (14)
In spite of the decreasing
numbers of developmental departments around the country, many programs
still exist and offer reading courses of one kind or another. Some programs
schedule separate reading courses, while others offer paired reading courses
with content level courses. Still other schools house learning labs that
provide tutoring in reading along with support for other basic level courses.
Other schools, although fewer in number, combine reading and writing classes.
College students themselves learn very early that the literacy demands
in college are quite complex. Research has documented this phenomenon.
Nancy Chase, Sandra Gibson, and Joan Carson examined the literacy demands
of core curriculum courses at a large southeastern urban university. They
collected data from introductory biology, freshman English composition,
world history, and political science courses. Their research revealed that
these courses, with the exception of composition, required extensive, cognitively
demanding reading assignments. In particular, freshmen were required to
read approximately 45 pages a week for biology, 23 pages a week for history,
and 34 pages a week for political science. Moreover, students were expected
to use writing as a means of learning, to take clear, cogent notes and
to compose exam essays and to write term papers, all skills that are normally
taught in a college reading course (10-16).
Cathrine Wambach and colleagues
surveyed 132 faculty members teaching beginning courses in science, humanities,
social science, and mathematics at a large midwestern urban university
about the literacy requirements in their courses, including the reading
and writing, and prerequisite skills. They also asked instructors
about their grading practices and other pedagogical concerns. Concerning
reading, the majority of instructors stated that critical reading was the
most important skill that their students needed to be successful in their
courses. Instructors also reported the importance of students' knowing
how to write essay answers to exams and how to analyze and synthesize information
for essays and reports (22-26).
The Reading Process
The teaching of reading in
general has been quite controversial over the last few years with great
debate over the best method of instruction for students, in particular
for younger students. Research from a variety of fields such as cognitive
psychology, literary studies, and education has contributed to the body
of knowledge concerning reading instruction. One leading reading
researcher, Ken Goodman, like a number of other researchers, believes that
readers transact with a text and construct meaning as they read.
"Reading and writing are both dynamic, constructive processes" (Reading
2). In other words, reading is much more than just calling out letters
and words. Rather, "reading is a process of making sense from print" (3).
Goodman has coined the reading process as a "psycholinguistic guessing
game" ("Guessing Game" 126) in which readers use cueing systems to make
predictions. In particular, efficient readers use graphophonic (sound system,
spelling, punctuation), syntactic (grammatical structures), semantic (meaning),
and pragmatic (context) cues. Good readers are active, strategic
thinkers.
Goodman also believes that
"efficient reading uses the least amount of visual information necessary
to get to the sense of the text "(Reading 95) and that "predicting
what we will see makes immediate perception possible" (Reading 95).
He uses the following exercise to illustrate the relationship between
"seeing" and "perceiving."
DIRECTIONS:
Most readers will perceive
the meaning of this text in spite of its many errors (six to be exact:
the repetition of the word "the" in lines two and three; the substitution
of "boot" for "boat" in line three; the substitution of the word "though"
for "through" in line four; the substitution of the pronoun "he" for "she"
in line four; the misspelling of the word "apart" in line five; and the
misuse of "should of " instead of "should have" in the last line of the
passage (38-41).
Another important aspect
of reading is the relationship between what readers already know about
a subject and what they are going to read. The readers' background
knowledge and experience with various terms and concepts will help them
to connect more closely with a text. Goodman uses the following exercise
to demonstrate the importance of this concept:
DIRECTIONS:
A Mardsan Giberter for FarfieGils was very fraper. She had denarpen Farfie's mardsan. She didn't talp a giberter for him. So she conlanted to plimp a mardsan binky for him. She had just sparved the binky when he jibbled in the gorger.
"Clorsty mardsan!" she boffed.
"That's a crouistish mardsan binky," boffed Farfie, "but my mardsan is on Stansan. Agsan is Kelsan."
"In that ruspen," boffed Gils, "I won't whank you your giberter until Stansan."
1. Why was Gils fraper?
(She had denarpen Farfie's mardsan.)
2. What did Gils plimp?
(She plimped a mardsan binky for Farfie.)
3. Who jibbled in the gorger when Gils sparved the binky?
(Farfie)
4. What did Farfie bof about the mardsan binky?
("That's a crouistish mardsan binky.")
5. Why didn't Gils whank Farfie his giberter?
("She didn't talp a giberter for Farfie" or "She didn't whank
Farfie his Giberter because his mardsan isn't until Stansan").
One needs to infer or read between the lines to get the correct answer here. In order to begin to understand this passage, effective readers use their knowledge of syntax, spelling, and other language cues to bring meaning to this seemingly nonsensensical passage. This passage will also make more sense if readers heed Goodman's hint: "Happy Birthday!" (Reading 42-46).
The Reading-Writing Connection
Within the field of reading research, the relationships between reading and writing have been examined extensively over the past twenty years. With the emphasis on literacy processes over literacy products, the advent of social constructionism, the insight of reader-response theory, and the increase in reading research in general, scholars have examined whether or not instruction in reading or writing will enhance or replace instruction in one area or the other. Reading researchers believe that reading and writing are both about creating or generating meaning. Research has further revealed that:
The Composing Model of Reading
Two early reading researchers, Robert Tierney and P. David Pearson asserted that both reading and writing are comprised of similar processes for composing meaning. They argue that both readers and writers go through the following stages to construct meaning: planning, drafting, aligning, revising, and monitoring. Consequently, Tierney and Pearson's article, "Toward a Composing Model of Reading," provides a framework on which to support various strategies and activities that might be incorporated into a Basic Writing classroom to help students make connections between reading and writing (568-580).
Planning
According to Tierney and
Pearson both readers and writers plan, and planning involves two subprocesses:
setting goals and using prior knowledge based on a person's background
and experiences. Readers and writers develop goals and establish purposes
for reading and writing. Tierney and Pearson suggest that readers,
like writers, set procedural, substantive, and intentional goals (569-571).
A hypothetical goal for a reader might be "How can I best comprehend this
subject?"; a substantive goal might be "How can I make a connection between
what I know and what I still need to learn?"; and an intentional
goal might be "What is the author's purpose here?" (Gold and Deming
2000). Hence, basic writing instructors might design a variety of
activities to help students set goals for reading and to encourage students
also to make connections between what they read and what they already know.
During the planning stage,
usually occurring before reading, students can engage in a number of activities
that can help them to prepare for comprehending the reading material assigned
in a basic writing class. For example, students can be asked to do a focused
freewriting about the topic they are going to read or study and then compare
what they know about a subject with what other class members know or believe.
Teachers can also show students how to preview texts in order to make predictions
about what they might read. Students can learn to scan each page,
noting illustrations, graphs, and bold headings. Teacher modeling of her
scanning and prediction processes is an effective way to begin a lesson
on previewing. Particular attention might also be given to unfamiliar vocabulary
words students might encounter in their reading. Vocabulary understanding
is essential to comprehending a text. Maria Valeri-Gold and Frank
Pintzozzi in their recent textbook, Taking Charge of Your Reading,
offer a number of effective strategies for helping students improve their
vocabulary skills.
Donna Ogle has designed
a simple and yet effective pre-reading strategy known as K-W-L that can
be used to help students in the planning stage of their reading process.
With this strategy students use three columns to identify what the know
(K) about a topic, what they want (W) to learn about a topic, and what
they have learned (L) about a topic after reading material on the subject
(564-570). Donna Alvermann and Stephen Phelps have provided a sample
K-W-L on the United States Constitution in their most recent textbook (72).
Writing the Constitution
K (Know)
W (What I want to know) L (What
I Learned)
It was an important paper.
How many people wrote it? 55
men wrote it --
It had to do with freedom.
When was it written?
(farmers, merchants,
A lot of people involved
Who wrote it?
lawyers, farmers).
(John Hancock, George
Why was it written?
Nation needed a better gov't
Washington, Ben Franklin)
How long did it take to write? summer 1787
Had to do with Boston Tea Party. Where was
it written?
Written in Philadelphia
Categories for further study:
Were there any women in on it?
What's it all about?
How long was it?
When?
Why was it kept a secret?
Kept secret so framers could
Who?
speak freely
When?
How?
6 ideas:
1. Protect the rights of people.
2. Powers
controlled by law.
3. Power is from people voting.
4. Power of government
divided into 3 branches.
5. Checks and balances.
6. Federalism
Another planning strategy that students might use to link what they already know about a subject with what they will be reading is titled an Anticipation Guide. Anticipation guides, statements about the theme and/or subject of the readings, can also help students moderate the accuracy of their perceptions about a particular topic (Alvermann and Phelps 177). The following Anticipation Guide is an adaptation of one published by Richard Vacca and JoAnne Vacca (376).
Anticipation Guide
Directions: We have already read several poems by Richard Brautigan. Before reading "It's Raining in Love," place a check in the "You" column next to each statement that you think expresses a feeling the poet will deal with in the poem. Discuss your choices in small groups and explain why you checked the statements you did. Then read the poem. After reading the poem, check the statements in the "Poet" column that express the feelings that the poet did deal with in his poem.
YOU POET
_____ _____ Being
in love is a painful experience.
_____ _____ Men
can be just as nervous as women can when they like a member of the
opposite sex.
_____ _____ It
is O.K. for a woman to call a man and ask him out.
_____ _____ It
is better to be friends with members of the opposite sex than to be in
love
with them.
_____ _____ Poetry
about love must be sentimental to be effective.
_____ _____ Once
a person has been in love, she (or he) is more sensitive to another
person's feelings when she (or he) finds out that person likes her.
Drafting
Tierney and Pearson define drafting, the second stage of the "Composing Model of Reading," as the "refinement of meaning which occurs as readers and writers deal directly with print on a page" (571). During this stage, readers and writers desire to make sense of what is happening in the text. Writers decide what information to include and what information to withhold, while readers fill in the gaps of meaning and make connections. Students need to be shown how to learn from a text through teacher modeling and instruction in reading comprehension. A number of drafting activities can be taught students to help them to make sense of what they are reading. In particular, students can be encouraged to compose maps and outlines while they read. Particularly helpful are graphic organizers which can be used during all stages of the reading process. "When a teacher and students diagram their labeled group of ideas, they are in effect creating.a graphic organizer, or structured overview "(Alvermann and Phelps 171). Graphic organizers can be used for both reading and writing . The following example illustrates the use of a graphic organizer to teach text structure.
Graphic Organizer for Comparison/Contrast
Living in the City versus Living in the County
LIKENESSES:
BOTH HAVE:
Homes
Schools
Churches
Jobs
Restaurants
Doctors
Entertainment
Quality of Life
Various text structures, besides comparison and contrast, can be analyzed using pattern guides. For example, students can use timelines to study historical works, can chart causes and effects, can write and follow directions, and can create other text structure guides. Jean Gillet and Charles Temple provide a sample timeline activity in which students can trace their own histories. This activity also works well when asking students to research and write their own literacy histories.
Timeline: My Life-Past, Present, and Future.
1. Look at sample timelines in class.
2. Think about your life since you have been born.
A. What has happened in your world, your family,
at school, and within your peer group to affect
your life?
B. Think about your future-what will you do this
summer? What will you do when you finish
school? What must you do
to accomplish these goals?
3. Make notes of these events-one per line. Include dates or your age.
5. Write the first draft of your timeline.
6. Conference with a peer or your teacher. Edit and write your first draft (304-318).
During the drafting stage, students can also be encouraged to ask questions
related to what they are reading and can be taught different types of questions
with answers coming from three sources. The answers to questions might
be textually explicit-answers found literally in a text; textually implicit-answers
implied in a text; or, scriptally implicit-answers based on readers' prior
knowledge outside of the text. (Alvermann and Phelps 198).
Taffy Raphael investigated
the use of question-answer relationships (QARs) in a number of research
studies. She labeled textually explicit questions, Right There,
textually implicit questions; Putting It Together, scriptally implicit
questions that require both the readers' prior knowledge and information
from the text; Author and You, and questions that require the readers
to answer from their own knowledge base, On Your Own (516-522).
Comprehension guides can
also help students construct meaning at three different levels: the literal
level, the interpretive level, and the applied level (Herber). The literal
level consists of specific facts, themes, and concepts; the interpretive
level refers to drawing inferences; and, the applied level requires readers
to apply information from the text (Alvermann and Phelps 205).
Richard Vacca and JoAnne
Vacca provide a three level guide for Romeo and Juliet (444-445):
I. Literal level: Check the items that explicitly represent some
of the important details and actions in the last part of the play.
______1. The reason Friar Laurence marries Romeo and Juliet is to bring
the families of Montague
and Capulet together.
______2. Juliet gives the ring to the Nurse to give to Romeo as a sign
of her love.
______3. Paris goes to Juliet's grave nightly to place flowers.
II. Interpretive level: Several statements are listed below that
may represent what the playwright means. If you think any of the statements
are reasonable inferences and conclusions, put a check on the line provided.
Be prepared to support your answers by citing parts of the play.
______1. Romeo would be alive today if the apothecary had obeyed the
law.
______2. Lord and Lady Capulet are to blame for Juliet's death because
they forced her into
marriage.
______3. If Prince Escalus had punished the Montagues and Capulets
earlier, the entire tragedy
would not have happened.
III. Applied level: To apply what you read means to take information
from what you have read and connect it to what you already know. If you
think the statements below are supported by statements in Section II and
by your own previous experience or study, place a check in the blank provided.
Be sure you have good reasons to justify your answers.
_____1. People in positions of power must take responsibility for the
actions of those under them.
_____2. Our own personalities shape our lives, and we can shape our
personalities by the choices
we make.
_____3. No person has the right to take his or her own life.
Aligning
Tierney and Pearson, in examining
the next stage of the composing process of reading and writing, suggest
that alignment has two parts: the readers and writers' stance in collaboration
with their author or audience and the roles that readers and writers
assume as they work with a subject. "A reader can adopt a stance
toward the writer which is sympathetic, critical or passive. And, within
the context of these collaborations, he can immerse himself in the
text as an observer or eyewitness, participant, or character" (572).
Consequently, college instructors might encourage their students to visualize
what they are reading or writing, engage in role playing, write from varying
points of view, and reread texts from different stances (Tierney
and Pearson 572-576). In addition, students can participate in reading
and writing workshops in order to experience the stance of an author (Atwell;
Henry) and can be encouraged to experiment with a variety of journals:
dialogue journals, learning logs, peer journals, e-mail journals, double-entry
journals, reading response journals.
In particular, with double-entry
reading journals, students divide their journal pages into two columns.
In one column students record passages that interest them, puzzle them,
or surprise them. In the second column, students write their reactions
to the selected passage that they had recorded in the first column.
They then can go back and reread the passages in the text for further
clarification or enjoyment (Alvermann and Phelps).
Revising and Monitoring
Although revising is most often associated with writers, good readers revise as well. Writers reread, reexamine, revise, and reflect on their texts by carefully selecting words that convey their meaning. So too, readers develop an understanding of the author's stance and text by pausing and reflecting on what they have read. Research has shown, however, that many students do little rereading when it comes to complicated texts, nor do they stop to gauge their comprehension of texts. Monitoring is the ability of readers to separate themselves from texts, either those that they are writing or they are reading, in order to evaluate their composing processes (Tierney and Pearson 576-577). Students can engage in a number of activities to improve their revising and monitoring skills during reading. Obviously, students must reread texts, ask questions, and participate in discussions. In addition, they can return to their prereading anticipation guides and K-W-L activities to confirm or to correct their predications. Summary writing is an excellent activity to encourage students to revise and monitor their reading. With summary writing, students learn how to condense large amounts of information into a few main points by separating main ideas from minor details and substituting general terms for specific details (Alvermann and Phelps; Gold and Pintozzi).
Programs and Practices
Gold and Deming in their chapter, "Reading and Writing, and the College Developmental Student," reviewed a number of Basic Writing programs that utilized practices to foster the reading-writing connection. Two-year colleges like the Community College of Allegheny, the Community of College of Philadelphia, Foothill Community College, and Long Beach Community College included activities to encourage students' metacognitive awareness, to strengthen their ability to access their prior knowledge, and to use reading as a source for writing. Four year colleges and universities including the University of Pittsburgh, San Jose State University, Georgia State University, and San Franciso State University have designed linked reading and writing classes, paired reading-writing-content level courses, and scheduled team-taught reading/writing courses. . Many colleges have used summary writing, reader response and a host of other activities to move students through the stages of composing. (149-173). Donald Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky's Facts, Artifacts, and Counterfacts: Theory and Method for a Reading and Writing Course, a germinal text exploring the use of reading and writing in the college basic writing class, describes the program at the University of Pittsburgh. This program incorporated linked, sequential assignments, used student and professional writing, and the created a positive atmosphere for students to experience their expertise as readers and writers.
Conclusion
Both reading and writing
have a place in the basic writing classroom for one process informs and
complements the other. Research and experience attest that both reading
and writing involve planning drafting, aligning, revising, and monitoring
and that instruction in each of these stages should improve competence
in both reading and writing. Furthermore, this instruction when made
explicit will help students to view themselves as creators of meaning both
of what they read and of what they write.
Nancy Morrow reminds us
that reading and writing are "ways of knowing the world" (466), and she
encourages instructors and students to consider the various
uses of reading. Students should be supported in their pursuit of these
uses: "Reading to build an intellectual repertoire.reading for ambiguity.reading
for the unexpected.. Reading for the play of language.reading for strategies
of persuasion.reading for genre conventions." (467-469). Eliminating
the teaching of reading on the college level or even limiting instruction
to solitary college reading classes might thwart students' attempt to integrate
authentic literacy practices into their academic and personal lives. Instead
of limiting, we should expand our programs and practices to include both
disciplines.
Works Cited
Alvermann, Donna, and Stephen Phelps. Content Reading and Literacy:
Succeeding in Today's
Diverse Classrooms.
Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1998.
Atwell, Nancie. In the Middle: New Understandings about Writing,
Reading, and Learning.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann,
1998.
Bartholomae, Donald, and Anthony Petrosky. Facts, Artifacts, and
Counterfacts: Theory and
Method for a Reading
and Writing Course. Upper Montclair, N.J. Boynton, 1986.
Chase, Nancy, Sandra Gibson, and Joan Carson. "An Examination
of Reading Demands across
Four College Courses." Journal
of Developmental Education 18.1 (1994): 10-16.
Dickson, Marcia. "Learning to Read/Learning to Write." BWe: Basic
Writing e-Journal 1.1
(1999). <http:www.asu.edu/clas/english/composition/cbw_summer1999.htm.
Gillet, Jean, and Charles Temple. Understanding Reading Problems:
Assessment and
Instruction.
New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Gold, Maria, and Mary Deming. "Reading, Writing, and the College Developmental
Student." Handbook of
College Reading and Study Strategy Research. Eds. Rona. Flippo
and David Caverly. Mahwah,
New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000. 149-173.
Gold, Maria, and Frank Pintozzi. Taking Charge of Your Reading. Reading
and Study
Strategies for College
Success. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 2000.
Goodman, Ken. On Reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996.
Graham, Malinda. "Reading Strategies for the Secondary Level."
Georgia Council of Teachers of
English Annual Conference,
Callaway Gardens, GA. 26 Feb. 2000.
Herber, Harold. Teaching Reading in the Content Areas 2nd edition.
New York: Prentice Hall,
1978.
Henry, Jeanne. If Not Now: Developmental Readers in the College
Classroom. Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann, 1995.
Morrow, Nancy. "The Role of Reading in the Composition Classroom."
Journal
of Advanced
Composition 17 (1997):
453-472.
Ogle, Donna. "K-W-L: A Teaching Model that Develops Active Reading of
Expository Text."
The Reading Teacher 39
(1986): 564-570.
Raphael, Taffy. "Teaching Question-Answer Relationships, Revisited."
The
Reading Teacher
39 (1986): 516-522.
Shanahan, Timothy. "The Reading-Writing Relationship: Seven Instructional
Principles."
The Reading Teacher
41 (1988): 636-647.
Shanahan, Timothy. "Reading-Writing Relationships, Thematic Units, Inquiry
Learning . . .In Pursuit
of Effective Integrated
Literacy Instruction." The Reading Teacher 51.1 (1997): 12-19.
Tierney, Robert, and P. David Pearson "Toward a Composing Model of Reading."
Language Arts 60
(1983): 568-580.
Vacca, Richard, and JoAnne Vacca. Content Area Reading. New York: Longman, 1999.
Wambach, Catherine. "Reading and Writing Expectations at a Research
University."
Journal of Developmental
Education, 22.2 (1998): 22-26.
BASIC WRITING AND DIRECTED SELF-PLACEMENT
Directed
self-placement (DSP) is different from other placement methods-from the
most simplistic use of standardized test scores to the most localized and
sophisticated use of writing portfolios-in the way it fosters student agency,
particularly for basic writers who have historically been given very little
control over the shape and focus of their early college careers.
Assessment
experts such as Brian Huot and Kathleen Blake Yancey have urged those of
us involved in writing-program administration to create forms of assessment
that "look beyond the assessment measures themselves . and have positive
impact and consequences for the teaching and learning of writing" (Huot
551). Yancey focuses particularly on the consequences assessments have
on students' larger personal and educational lives by asking us to consider,
"which self does an assessment construct?" (484). Indeed, which self
do most placement methods construct for basic writers? What personal and
educational consequences do conventional placement methods have for basic
writers?
The
initial consequence of all conventional placement methods is that students
are told where to go; they are told what course to take. Even the
term, "placement," reveals the long-accepted systemic relationship implied
by the placement procedure: Teachers and administrators, as agents of the
university, "place" students where the students belong. Teachers
are active, students are passive. Teachers know, students do not.
So no matter how "accurate" the placement-and no matter how well the students
end up doing in their first and subsequent courses-the first consequence
of placement is always the same: student agency is denied. And this
at the very doorstep of the college or university, typically during summer
orientation or the first day of class. Some recent portfolio placement
systems may ask students to reflect on their own writing, and even to suggest
a placement, but the placement decision itself is still firmly in the hands
of the faculty and administrators. As an introduction to college
life, traditional course placement thus sends a message oddly discordant
with the basic educational values of agency, choice, and self-determination.
But
of course the consequences of any placement method go beyond the initial
moment of decision-making. Here we would like to take a look at how
DSP creates positive consequences for basic writers at three crucial "moments"
in their first-year college experience. The principles we see at
work might be traced back through liberatory pedagogies and other educational
movements that have been willing to trust and empower students. For
us, however, the richest sources are in classical pragmatist philosophy
and Deweyian educational thought, primarily because of Dewey's location
of agency within both students (as inquirers) and teachers (as experts).
But first things first: before detailing these "transformed moments" and
explaining the importance of the pragmatist conceptual framework, we should
overview the practice of DSP and note its potential impact on the basic
writing classroom.
The
basic principles and practices of DSP are described in "Directed Self-Placement:
An Attitude of Orientation." In that article we describe in some
detail the idea of explaining to all new students during summer orientation
the nature of a choice they need to make as they begin their educational
lives at our school, Grand Valley State University. In brief, we
explain to students that they may begin with our regular first-year writing
course or they may begin with a basic writing course designed to build
their confidence and get them ready to do well in the regular first-year
course. Either way, the must pass the regular required course, though
some students choose to do so in two semesters and others in just one.
That
article also explains how we developed a series of informative guides that
are presented to the students in stages. Several months prior to
orientation, each student receives a letter explaining the importance of
the choice and a brochure that gives details about the two courses and
a checklist that helps to guide them in their decision. At the orientation
itself, the students find a summary of the brochure on a "choice card"
in their orientation packet. Finally, an advisor speaks to each group
of students before enrollment, explaining, once again, the importance of
making a wise choice and then answering any questions students might have
about the two courses.
After
several years now we have seen students choose the basic writing course
as a way to get themselves ready for the required course at a rate of about
20%. Students are choosing this course, knowing that their credits
for the course do not count towards those needed for graduation.
They understand that the course is not required, that it is for those students
who acknowledge through their own honest self-assessment that they are
not quite ready to begin the regular college-level writing course, and
they enroll after hearing us remind them that most of the 80% who choose
to jump right in and begin with the regular course do just fine.
A
unique feature of directed self-placement is that it permits the construction
of a self that we believe all educators would applaud. American pragmatism
has charted much of this territory in books and essays on education, thinking,
learning, and psychology. From Charles Sanders Peirce's "The Fixation
of Belief" to Dewey's How we Think, Democracy and Education, and
many essays on the nature of learning and inquiry, these thinkers have
sought to make room for the living self that is too often eclipsed by positivistic
assumptions or stubborn commitments to received traditions.
Transformed Moments: Three Consequences of Directed Self-Placement
If the college experience can be viewed as a connected series of educational moments that begin with the student's first look at the school's admissions brochure, or first visit to the school website or campus, then to assess the impact of DSP we might consider the potential it has to transform several well-known moments in the lives of those involved with first-year composition. Here we focus on three such moments. We would like to highlight the way these moments broaden rather than narrow what counts as "evidence" of proper placement for basic writers, and we would also like to emphasize that in good pragmatist fashion, writing placement can become an integral part of the educational process: students can be woven into the educational fabric, committed to the educational decision at hand, no longer an alien object in our placement procedures.
Summer Orientation
The
role of writing faculty at summer orientation has for the past several
decades been an odd one. In the midst of welcoming speeches by deans of
students and coordinators of academic services, the writing faculty show
up-usually through a back door-to administer and evaluate the dreaded placement
test. Students in sandals move from a cheerful campus tour to a crowded
lecture hall with cramped writing trays to write cramped essays in crowded
blue books. Then they're released for lunch, and two hours later
they receive a slip of paper or a hushed report from an orientation group-leader:
"You've been placed in ENG 101"-or 100, as the case may be. Or, more recently,
students are spared the timed-writing exercise because they've already
submitted a portfolio of their high-school writing, so after lunch the
portfolios appear with a slip of paper inside: "You've been placed in ENG
100." That old high-school question-"What'd you get?"-works through
the room. New friends compare slips and rejoice or commiserate, as the
case may be. The sorting has begun.
Before
DSP, then, orientation day was a testing day, a sorting day. Students started
the day with a question-"Which class should I take?"-and they left with
an answer. It was the banking concept of first-year composition.
Advisors like tellers read test scores or placement results off computer
screens angled for privacy. Students asked, faculty answered. Student
uncertainty was met with faculty certainty: "We know where you belong."
But
with DSP, orientation day is a problem-posing day, a day for faculty to
answer a question with a question: "Given what you now know about the year-end
expectations of the academic writing community you've decided to join,
with which course would you like to begin?" Faculty are still knowers,
of course, but what they know is their own program-the courses and the
community standards for success in those courses. But now, the students
are knowers as well. They know their own histories and their experiences
with writing. They know their own abilities, and their own needs.
What we can offer them is what Dewey pressed for in Democracy and Education:
direction and guidance. There is often an unconscious assumption that students
act only from individualistic or selfish motives. "But," Dewey notes,
"they are also interested, and chiefly interested upon the whole, in entering
into the activities of others and taking part in conjoint and cooperative
doings. Otherwise, no such thing as a community would be possible" (29).
What Dewey describes as the "environment as directive" gives us alternatives
to external modes of controlling students. By establishing a common understanding
with students, DSP makes possible the kind of educational activity that
Dewey describes as "intrinsic to the disposition of the person, not external
and coercive." Moreover, he adds, "to achieve this internal control through
identity of interest and understanding is the business of education" (47).
So
while faculty still play an important role as guiding experts, students
are given full control over this crucial first-year decision. We
think this is particularly important for basic writers. Just because
they may struggle with certain aspects of writing, we need not assume that
they cannot be thoughtful about their own experiences and abilities and
act responsibly in their own best interests. In fact, Erica Reynolds'
research, "Self-Efficacy and Directed Self-Placement: Apprehension, Confidence,
and Gender Components," surveys a range of studies that indicate that self-efficacy,
which is expressed as a situation- and subject-specific personal confidence
in one's ability to successfully perform tasks at a given level, is a strong
predictor of actual ability. And might skewed self-confidence (low
or high) be a particular stumbling block for basic writers? Reynolds
further points out:
Research, by Daly and Wilson (1983) and others, suggests that no correlation
exists between writing self-efficacy and general self-confidence. Self-efficacy
is subject- and situation-specific and general self-confidence has not
been shown to generalize across personality or academic domains.
Dale Schunk (1991) explains that even "within an academic area, a high
self-concept does not imply that students feel highly confident in all academic areas."
For instance, "students might judge their competence high in science and
mathematics, moderate in English and social studies, and low in French and
Latin" and within mathematics, "students might feel efficacious about algebra
but not geometry." (7)
Students who choose to begin with the basic writing course signal to us
a desire to take things slowly, to test the waters of college writing before
jumping into the standard course. Students who choose to begin with
the standard course-including those who might previously have been labeled
basic writers-signal to us a desire to dive right in. This eagerness, we
believe, can go a long way in helping a basic writer to make great strides
in the standard writing course. If all of our students begin their
first writing course thinking, "This is the course I want," we feel we
are in an ideal educational position.
The Placement Complaint
Before
DSP, if writing program administrators talked to students about placement
at all, we might have said something like this: "If you have any questions
about your placement, please come see me in my office." And students
did come-though rarely with questions. Rather, they took the "certainty"
we'd handed them at orientation and challenged it, and we usually argued
back. Our message was, "You may think you know, but we know best."
We defended our placement methods as reliable and valid, even when we had
suspicions ourselves. We agreed to look again at the placement essay
or portfolio, and as we scanned the pages we searched for weaknesses
-anything that would justify the placement that
had already been so confidently handed down. Sometimes, even as we said
"I can see why you weren't placed in 101," we wondered to ourselves who
among the faculty could possibly have scored the essay so low!
If
we were stubborn, the students would finally leave, still angry but perhaps
a bit less confident about the grounds for their resistance. At best,
the students would see that not just two, but now three writing faculty
thought they were "basic" or "developmental" or "remedial" writers.
At worst, they would seethe with the conviction that they'd been misunderstood,
overlooked, ignored.
On
the other hand, if we were honest with ourselves and admitted on occasion
that the placement method wasn't perfect, that we did indeed make mistakes,
then the students would leave knowing that the "certainty" they'd been
handed hadn't been certain after all-that when faculty first say "We know
best," they sometimes mean "We think we know best." Educationally,
what is at stake is nothing less than the status of knowledge itself.
Because of our hastily made claims of certainty-which are later challenged
and occasionally shown to be false-we call into question our ability to
make any claims at all. We create skeptical students, which ultimately
is not a bad thing, but we portray ourselves as simple believers in truths
that we cannot always support. The students earn their skepticism
at our expense.
With
DSP, placement complaints simply don't happen. Since the placement
decision is the students' own, they have no one to complain to. WPAs
might, however, still invite students to visit the office if they have
questions. But now we really mean it: come see us if you have questions.
During their visits, students may express their own uncertainty about the
course that is right for them-and our role is to help them work toward
a more certain position. First of all, then, we are guides, not judges,
which is consistent with the kind of pedagogical stance most of us have
been trying to take in the classroom these past few decades. But
also, we model in these discussions a far better educational practice than
we had before: without certain knowledge, the students and faculty work
together to explore the variables and reach a satisfactory, though still
tentative, conclusion. In the end, we protect the students' agency,
but we show the students that good decisions must be made in a rich context
of knowledge and understanding. Michael Williamson says, "Tests don't
have validity; decisions have validity." We are helping the students
reach a valid decision.
Regardless
of the students' final decision, however, we never have to leave the uncomfortably
productive realm of uncertainty. The best the student can say is,
"I think I now know the best course for me." This is a solid educational
goal, to help students generate hypotheses and then to test them-for Dewey,
this is the fundamental pattern of educative inquiry. We'd prefer
to have our entering students thinking rather than knowing, testing their
uncertainties rather than challenging our certainties. In the past,
it was only after crisis and argument that uncertainty was allowed to creep
in. The pose was certainty, but the reality was uncertainty. Now the reality
from beginning to end is uncertainty. There is no "true" placement to haggle
over, only better and worse decisions to make.
In
our embracing of uncertainty, however, we do not disavow knowledge about
writing. We know our own program, and the kinds of writing that succeed
in that program. After a semester of work and interaction with particular
students, we know the difference between an "A" and a "C" course portfolio.
We know a lot about writing. What we don't know is the entering students'
writing-which has, after all, been produced outside the context of our
program and institution. The key is that we don't pretend to know
what we cannot know. By doing this, we affirm our ability to make
knowledgeable claims about student writing-but only when the time comes.
We affirm that the time for faculty to make knowledgeable claims about
student writing is at the end of a course or sequence of courses, not at
the beginning.
At
the same time, we affirm the value of our students' past experiences as
writers. Students do not come to us from a vacuum. They come
to us from high schools and high-school teachers, from reading and writing
lives that deserve to be taken seriously. The implication of a one-shot
placement mechanism is that we, the college faculty, can learn more about
the students as writers in a single day than the students (and their teachers)
have managed to learn in twelve or thirteen years of writing in school.
Assessing their "place" within our own program does make sense, of course,
but we believe it makes more sense to add in a one-shot fashion information
about our program to the students' extensive knowledge about their own
writing experiences and abilities than it does to add in a one-shot fashion
our assessment of students' writing abilities to our extensive knowledge
about our program.
In
other words, we prefer to weight the balance toward the students' experiences
and abilities rather than toward the quirks and details of our program.
Again, Dewey's insistence that our roles as teachers and members of the
community is "to select the influences which shall affect the [student]
and to assist him in properly responding to these influences" and to recognize
that all education-from infancy on-"proceeds by the participation of the
individual in the social consciousness" of the community (Pedagogic
432).
The First-day Writing Sample
Different
schools handle this differently, of course, but in many programs faculty
are asked to collect samples of student writing on the first day of class,
or during the first week of class. The purpose is to make sure that
students have been placed properly. If teachers see that a few students
in a basic writing class write with fluency and purpose, they might recommend
shifting the students into the standard class. Or if teachers see
that a few students in the standard class struggle on what appears to be
a fairly basic level, they might recommend shifting the students into the
basic writing class. The choice is typically made by the teacher
in consultation with the WPA; the students may be consulted, but the final
decision is not theirs.
Because
of the utter conventionality of this process, it sounds reasonable.
But on second thought, we can see that it undermines the initial placement
decision that had been given with such certainty and authority. At
orientation we say, "We know which course you need," and then on the first
day of class-the very next time we see the students-we say, "We need to
check your placement." Students thus discover that we aren't so certain
after all. And yet we meet that newly admitted uncertainty with another
"certain" decision: "You actually belong over here." If the students
trusted our decision the first time around, many of them have to start
wondering after the second. Is it any wonder that students so often
challenge our grading at course's end? We show them in our placement
processes that we often don't know how to assess writing well or fairly.
And
the students whose placements we change are in effect being singled out
as "difficult to place" students. Despite the lack of agency students
have with traditional placement methods, at least they have the comfort
of being placed in a course with others presumably much like themselves.
Then during the first week we change our minds and place them with other,
different students. It's not surprising that even students initially
placed in developmental courses sometimes resist changing after the first
day. They just want to settle in. The question that must linger
in the minds of students whose placement has been changed is, "What is
it about me that makes me difficult to place in a writing class?"
Of course, some students are relieved to make the switch, or they feel
vindicated after having questioned the initial placement in the first place;
either way, the lesson they learn about the writing program is not a flattering
one.
Also
important is the way we respond to the first-day writing samples of students
we do not want to move. When the school or program makes the placement
decisions, our initial teacher-response to student writing is likely to
some degree to justify each student's particular placement. So when we
respond to student writing in the developmental classes, our comments might
at least partly be aimed at confirming that the student is indeed a basic
writer: "You're in the right place," we need to assure them.
Justifying the placement decision, however unintentionally, pulls us away
from the central task, which is simply to help students improve their writing.
With
DSP, a first-day writing sample is an opportunity for the teacher and student
to "test" the student's placement decision. Based on what he or she
sees in the student's writing sample, the teacher can provide some direction
or feedback on how the student compares to others in the class, or on how
the student's writing matches up against end-of-semester standards for
the course or program. This is really an extension of the placement
process, similar in a way to the use of first-day samples in traditional
placement methods, but now it is the student's hypothesis ("I think I belong
in this class") that is being investigated, rather than the teacher's thesis
("You belong in this class"). The whole process is an open-ended
inquiry-again, much more conducive to the larger "environment as directive"(Dewey,
Democracy
28)
that most of us hope the college campus embodies.
Moreover,
the first-day writing sample is an opportunity for the teacher to begin
articulating a learning strategy for each student. If a student in
the standard composition class appears to struggle with development, the
teacher can emphasize the need for that student to work extra hard on development
strategies during the course. If a student in the standard class
appears to struggle with mechanics, the teacher can emphasize the need
for that student to work extra hard on editing strategies. The point
is that it's the student's choice to be there in the course, and we as
teachers can let each student know what he or she will likely have to do
in order to succeed in the course. For some, it may be quite a bit.
But what traditional placement methods fail to take into account is the
motivation of individual students-or other personal variables that might
affect a student's ability to do well in a course, such as part- or full-time
work, domestic responsibilities, and the like. Raw writing ability
alone is not the sole factor in student success. If a writer with
marginal ability is willing to write extra drafts, visit the Writing Center
religiously, practice regularly at a good OWL website, and so on, he or
she can undoubtedly accomplish more in a given semester than another student
of higher ability with no motivation at all. As we talk with students
about their first-day writing samples, we can gauge with them what it is
they will have to do and whether or not they are willing to do it.
And
finally, the teacher's responses to the student writing do not need to
justify the students' placement. The responses can be fully authentic responses
to the students' situations as writers looking for ways to improve and
ultimately to meet the expectations of the first-year composition program.
Agency, Articulation, Assessment
Dewey
reminds us that some methods of inquiry are better than others, just as
some methods of surgery, farming, or navigating are better than others.
Dewey describes successful inquiry as that which begins with an "indeterminate
situation," a situation that is uncertain, unsettled, disturbed.
Accordingly, inquiry is the process whereby such a situation is transformed
through interaction with the social environment into one that is determinate
or settled. Directed self-placement provides just such an educative situation.
"Purposive education or schooling should present such an environment that
this interaction will effect acquisition of those meanings which are so
important that they become, in turn, instruments of further learnings"
(Democracy 320).
Understood
in this way, the best learning stems from authentic inquiry. Ultimately,
the inquiry in which basic writers become involved isn't "settled" until
the end of the first-year writing program-or, in some schools, the end
of the four-year writing program. By that time the writers have had
one, two, or perhaps several semesters to work on their writing.
Our hope is that these writers have pursued their work with the "internal
control through identity of interest and understanding" that Dewey describes
as a hallmark of joining a community. But of course we must invite
them into this community by allowing their participation in important decision-making
moments. In short, we believe that we can set these writers on the right
track by taking three things very seriously:
Works Cited
Dewey, John. "My Pedagogic Creed." 1897. Rpt.
in John Dewey on Education. Ed. Reginald D
.
Archambault. Chicago: U of Chicago P. 1964. 427-39.
---. Democracy and Education. 1916. New York: Macmillan, 1923.
Huot, Brian. "Toward a New Theory of Writing Assessment."
College
Composition and
Communication 47 (1996): 549-66.
Reynolds, Erica. "Self-Efficacy and Directed Self-Placement:
Apprehension, Confidence, and
Gender
Components." M.A. Thesis. University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale.
1999.
[Note:
More excerpts from this work and more information on DSP is available at
www.gvsu.edu/royerd/dsp]
Royer, Daniel J. and Roger Gilles. "Directed Self-Placement:
An Attitude of Orientation." College
Composition and Communication 50 (1998): 54-70.
Williamson, Michael. "Assessing Students, Assessing
Ourselves." Presented at the Fifty-first Annual
Conference
on College Composition and Communication. April 12, 2000.
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. "Looking Back as We Look
Forward: Historicizing Writing Assessment."
College
Composition and Communication 50 (1999): 483-503.
Click here to go to the Conference on Basic Writing page
Please send any questions or comments to either Linda Adler-Kassner or Greg Glau
