As part of a research project focused on understanding what teachers need to know about basic writers, I put together a quick reference list for teachers. As a product of that list, I developed a short presentation that can be used in any classroom to introduce topics concerning basic writers that were settled in the past and those currently being debated in departments across the country. In addition to the presentation, each of the document linked below contains annotations of reference which further explain the brief synopsis of each subject provided here.
basic_writers.ppt | |
File Size: | 36 kb |
File Type: | ppt |
First, it is important to know what factors are considered when students are placed into a writing program at a university. Because I have great resources about the program at Ball State, I have explained what the program hopes to accomplish, how the program determines its class designs, and how the program has changed over the years.
Read more about Placement and Testing.
Read more about Placement and Testing.
Also, it is important for teachers to know what to expect from the students who are placed into developmental writing courses. Often, the students are placed into these courses because of an inability to conform to the expected standards for expressing their thoughts. It is not so simple, though.
Read more about Intelligent Errors.
Read more about Intelligent Errors.
While it may appear that students are objectively placed into varying starting points in university writing programs, the ways in which programs are set up often explain unexpressed ideological epistemologies. What university says about a students with its place is as important as what the students learns in its courses.
Read more about Ideologies.
Read more about Ideologies.
Because of what university's are "telling" its students when they are placed into writing programs, Basic Writing, as a course system, is being debated for its merits and detriments. Placing students into BW programs can have great benefits to universities hoping to embrace diversity. However, mainstreaming all students into first-year courses, not BW courses, also has benefits for the students who get the opportunity to learn from writing "college" essays, not from writing disconnected pieces of it along the way.
Read more about the benefits of Basic Writing Programs and Mainstreaming Programs.
Read more about the benefits of Basic Writing Programs and Mainstreaming Programs.