Basic writing programs across the country are often underfunded and underappreciated, even as they do some of the most important work a writing program can do--help struggling writers succeed in academic contexts.
Basic writing professionals and their students want to change the story about writing and writers by sharing stories that represent the important, transformative work that takes place in basic writing courses. These are the stories about students in basic writing courses engaging with difficult texts, producing insightful responses, and publishing their original work in peer-reviewed journals.
What follows are examples of such contributions: from the professional organization for basic writing, from a basic writing program in the midwest, and from a basic writing classroom in the northeast. |
Professional Organization:
Conference on Basic Writing (Shannon Carter, CBW Co-Chair)
At the 2009 CBW Workshop (March 2009, San Francisco, CA), workshop leader Shannon Carter (Texas A&M-Commerce) introduced NCoW to participants and invited these basic writing professionals to talk about basic writing students and themselves as writers. Interviews took place in lobbies and other common areas throughout the Hilton conference hotel in downtown SF. Equipment used included Flip Cameras (provided by the A&M-Commerce’s Converging Literacies Center) and other cameras provided by members of the CBW Executive Board.
Take a look at what these basic writing teachers, scholars, and administrators have to say about writing and teaching at-risk writers.
- Video created byJ'Non Whitlark and Shannon Carter (Department of Literature and Languages) with Joanna Thrift (Gee Library). Modeled after NCoW's inaugural video Who is a Writer? (Bowden and Vandenberg), this video brings together interview footage from the 2009 CBW Workshop in order to further the national conversation on writing via stories from writers working closely with at-risk writers. Video will also serve as cornerstone for forthcoming BWe article (link to BWe) that invites more widespread and robust participation in the National Conversation on Writing from basic writing professionals across the country.
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- NCoW interview script and consent forms available in the Contribute section
The Conference on Basic Writing is a partner with the National Conversation on Writing. Learn more about CBW:
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CBW home: http://orgs.tamu-commerce.edu/CBW/
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CBW official journal: BWe: Basic Writing e-Journal.
- CBW blog: http://cbwblog.wordpress.com/
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Basic Writing Program
University of Missouri Western State University (Dawn Terrick, Director of the Basic Writing Program)
“Granting Access and Rewarding Success in a Developmental Writing Program Through the Use of a Student Publication.”
The winner of the 2009 CBW Award for Innovation developed a highly successful basic writing program at the Missouri Western State University that not only prepares students for the rigors of academic writing via a rigorous assignment sequence filled with complex readings (coming soon, link to “tableofcontents”) and challenging writing assignments (coming soon, link to “promptsbwe” for writing prompts) but publically celebrates their achievements with a peer-reviewed publication and a reception (coming soon, link to “handoutbwe” for justification for publication).
- View most recent publication at
- [PDF download opens in new browser window]
- Video from the reception for this Spring 2009 publication is coming soon.
Please also check out the Fall 2009 issue of BWe for more details regarding this exciting program.
- Terrick, Dawn. “Granting Access and Rewarding Success in a Developmental Writing Program Through the Use of a Student Publication.” BWe: Basic Writing e-Journal (Fall 2009): forthcoming. <http://orgs.tamu-commerce.edu/BWe/>
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Classroom
LaGuardia Community College-City College of New York (Susan Bernstein, Assistant Professor of English)
Students in Dr. Bernstein’s basic writing course (Spring 2008), produced and shared this mural and associated video, showing their writing as activism and civic engagement. The “text” generated is image-based and the relevance is communicated orally.
Students in Professor Bernstein’s basic writing course read, listened to, wrote about, and respond with artwork and performances to Dr. Martin Luther King’s anti-Vietnam War speech “A Time to Break Silence” (1967). In this speech, King suggests that “we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.”
The mural the students created shows a collaborative representation of the speech with many illustrations combined to create one collective statement. The students found King’s speech relevant to world events in 2009 and to their own writing.
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