Conclusion

Space prevents me from presenting more examples of student writing, but these examples demonstrate a few of the ways that basic writing students are thinking about language and meaning at the sentence level and performing textual analysis with an aim toward developing an argument. Asking students to examine language for meaning at the sentence level is to ask them to engage in critical thinking. Specifically, they are asking themselves and each other what meanings are created through choices that the authors have made in the language they use. In writing about this subject, many of them are beginning from a position of rhetorical strength. At the same time, the experience of seeing multiple interpretations of the same text heightens students' awareness that meaning is situated. Exposure to and practice with this kind of discourse production helps prepare them for the writing they'll be doing in other English classes and, perhaps, in classes in other disciplines. This approach provides a context in which students can explore their ideas about these subjects while simultaneously focusing on the linguistic features of the text; it provides opportunities for critical thinking and foregrounds the relationship between the meaning we make of a text and textual elements. Finally, the series of assignments rearticulates ideas of religion, writing, and popular culture in ways that might catalyze new thinking about these subjects.