The Resolution:
The Executive Board of the Council on Basic Writing put together a Sense of the House resolution, which was presented and passed at the 2011 CCCC business meeting on 9 April 2011. This resolution came out of a sense of the increasing invisibility of Basic Writing at CCCC.
The Resolution: “Be it resolved that Basic Writing is a vital field and its students and teacher scholars a productive force within composition; is under attack by exclusionary public policies; and therefore must be recognized publicly and supported by CCCC as a conference cluster and with featured sessions.”
The Signatories:
Bill Lalicker
Westchester University
Shannon Carter
Texas A&M–Commerce
Sugie Goen-Salter
San Francisco State University
Peter Adams
Community College Baltimore County
Hannah Ashley
Westchester University
J. Elizabeth Clark
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Karen S. Uehling
Boise State University
Greg Glau
Northern Arizona University
Alan Meyers
Truman College Chicago
Kathleen Baca
Dona Ana Community College
Susan Naomi Bernstein
Independent Scholar
Barbara Gleason
City College, CUNY
Tom Peele
Long Island University
Deborah Mutnick
Long Island University
Rebecca Mlynarczyk
City University of New York
Kelly Ritter
University of North Carolina Greensboro
Michael D. Hill
Henry Ford Community College
Marisa A. Klages
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Sarah Kirk
University of Alaska, Anchorage
Bruce Horner
University of Louisville
David Bartholomae
University of Pittsburgh
Michelle Stevier
Dickinson State University
Elizabeth McLemore
Minneapolis Community & Technical College
Christina Montgomery
Saginaw Valley State University
Elaine Hunyadi
Saginaw Valley State University
Hope Parisi
Kingsborough Community College, CUNY
Chitralekha Duttagupta
Utah Valley University
Ann Shivers McNair
University of Southern Mississippi
Heidi Johnsen
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Linda Chandler
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Chuck Jordan
Lake Michigan College
Lee Torda
Bridgewater State University
Liz Bryant
Purdue University
Michelle Zollars
Patrick Henry Community College
Reid Sunahara
Kapiolani Community College
Lynn Reid
Brookdale Community College/City College of New York
Alexandra Reihing
Nassau Community College
Kathryn Douglas
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Sara Webb-Sunderhaus
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
Kelly Keane
Bergen Community College
Leigh Jonaitis
Bergen Community College
Mark Sutton
Kean University
Dan Beugnet
Laura McCartan
Metropolitan State University
Jennifer Cost
San Diego Mesa College
Elizabeth Modarelli
Stark State College
Joanne Gabel
Reading Area Community College
Rachel Rigolino
SUNY New Paltz
Joanne Howard
Montgomery College, Rockville Campus
Ana Marie Lopez
Jennifer Swartout
Heartland Community College
Pamela VanHaitsma
University of Pittsburgh
Jason Evans
Prairie State College
Elizabeth Cone
Suffolk Community College
Thomas Reynolds
University of Minnesota
Linda Stine
Judy Hansen
College of Southern Idaho
Beth Gulley
Johnson County Community College
Sue Henderson
East Central College
Robert Miller
Community College of Baltimore County
Sheila Otto
Middle Tennessee State University
Nicole P. Greene
Xavier University of Louisiana
Carla Maroudas
Mt. San Jacinto Community College
Melinda Veller
Rend Lake College
Julie M. Thompson, Ph.D.
Hamline University
Gail Stygall
University of Washington
M. Lani T. Montreal
Malcolm X College
Jim Cody
Brookdale Community College
Bonne August
New York City College of Technology, CUNY
Wendy Smith
San Diego Mesa College
Jessica Schreyer
University of Dubuque
Marsha Millikin
Saginaw Valley State University
Deborah M. Sanchez
North Carolina Central University
Kim Ballard
Western Michigan University
Wendy Olson
Washington State University Vancouver
Cheryl Hogue Smith
Kingsborough CC, CUNY
Lynn Quitman Troyka
Queensborough CC, CUNY
Cheryl Smith
Baruch College, CUNY
Amy Edwards Patterson
Moraine Park Technical College
Statements of Support
I fully support a conference cluster and featured sessions devoted to issues represented by the term “basic writing.” This commitment will insure that the organization continues to pay appropriate attention to questions of diversity and language difference.
David Bartholomae
Professor and Charles Crow Chair
Department of English
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
***
The teaching of basic writing occupies a paradoxical position in composition. It is the specialty of some of the leading figures in composition studies and, simultaneously, the province of teachers and students placed at the bottom of the academic institutional hierarchy. The emergence of basic writing as an academic field in the early 1970s has frequently been cited as crucial in the development of composition, producing “[m]any of the teaching and research projects we now take for granted and “a number of remarkable innovations in the study and teaching of writing” (Trimbur, “Cultural Studies” 14). Basic writing represents a writing movement that has consistently addressed “broad questions about the aims of education and the shape of various educational institutions” and that contributes significantly to the “revitalizing of the teaching of writing” (12). By working with students institutionally designated as at the bottom, basic writing has explicitly called into question the social and political role of educational institutions and the politics of representing students, or prospective students, and their writing in particular ways, as either “literate” or “illiterate,” “college material” or “remedial,” “skilled” or “unskilled.”
Yet the lessons and insights of basic writing are at risk of being lost or forgotten. John Trimbur has written that we need to “relearn” the insights of open admissions (“Cultural Studies” 14-15). James Slevin has expressed concern that the training of writing teachers typically does not include investigation of the role writing instruction has played in socializing those new student populations historically called “remedial” (14).
I support the statement to sustain the continuing insights of basic writing and its project of responsibility to those most commonly identified as outsiders to the academy. I do so both in order that we meet our responsibilities to these students, but also to ensure that we meet our responsibilities as a field and organization committed to rethinking the meaning of literacy, the teaching of writing, and their potential contributions to projects of democracy and justice.
References:
John Trimbur’s “Cultural Studies and Teaching Writing,” Focuses 1.2 (1988): 5-18.
James Slevin’s “Depoliticizing and Politicizing Composition Studies,” The Politics of Writing Instruction: Postsecondary, ed. Richard Bullock and John Trimbur (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991): 1-21.
Bruce Horner
Endowed Chair in Rhetoric and Composition
315 Bingham Humanities Bldg.
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY 40292
***
Basic Writing is an important sub-set of composition studies with a significant student population and with a long and distinguished history and scholarship. We feel it is important that Basic Writing be acknowledged explicitly by CCC in a time of waning public support for this important endeavor.
Rebecca Mlynarczyk
Kingsborough Community College, CUNY
CUNY Graduate Center
Co-Editor of Journal of Basic Writing
***
We need to support and sustain programs, courses, and scholarship in Basic Writing. Our students must have to access to resources that allow them to learn and to grow as writers– and as full participants in democracy.
Susan Naomi Bernstein
Independent Scholar
Queens, NY
***
Reports from the floor of the business meeting, 4/9/2011:
I’ve never been prouder of CBW. The way so many people came together to work on getting the resolution urging CCCC to give BW more visibility at the conference was simply amazing. Yesterday, so many people emailed their support that we “crashed” the server. And this morning the resolution passed without opposition. Chris Anson added that he supported our suggestion and would work to find ways to accomplish it for the 2012 conference, even though that process is already underway.
I just want to thank and congratulate everyone CBW who contributed to this impressive achievement in the space of about 48 hours.
Peter Adams
Community College of Baltimore County
***
Hello All,
The resolution we developed and passed in the CBW workshop and SIG of CCCC was entered into the CCCC business meeting as a sense-of-the-house motion this morning. That resolution is:
“Be it resolved that Basic Writing, a vital field and its students and teacher scholars aproductive force within composition; is under attack
by exclusionary public policies; and therefore must be recognized publicly and supported by CCCC as a conference cluster and with featured sessions.”
After a careful explanation and reading of the motion by William Lalicker and words of support by Lynn Troyka, Kelly Ritter and Shannon Carter (Kelly read a statement by David Bartholomae and Shannon read a statement by Bruce Horner), the motion was unanimously passed by the body of CCCC. We received a promise of support by Chris Anson, next year’s CCCC chair, who believed we would be able to cull and highlight BW presentations during next year’s conference.
Yay, us!
It’s worth noting that this motion and the movement it has spurred is just the start. Now, we need to inundate the review committees with proposals that show the vibrancy and validity of BW as a field of study within CCCC and as a vital social concern for all compositionists. We also need to start to take a much more vocal presence in journals, in the media, and on the social front. To that end, look for an article on Insidehighered.com on Monday morning regarding the motion and (hopefully) the current movement within CBW.
Please join the CBW in moving our issues and our ideas to the forefront of composition studies and to the larger higher education world.
Great conference all. Great movement all. See you back in the classroom.
Mike Hill
Henry Ford Community College
Inside Higher Education Article
“Basic, But Vital”
Previous versions of this post appear here, here, and here.
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