In-class : Basic writing/deficit thinking

3/1/2022

We just can't get away from Comp/Rhet history. This week we read about Basic Writing, an overview and a critically important introduction from the remarkable Mina Shaughnessy from her text Errors & Expectations.

BASIC WRITING & MINA SHAUGHNESSY
Shaughnessy was a part of the movement at City University of New York that, in the years following open admissions, when new kinds of students (newly immigrated, working class and working poor, women, people of. color, adult learners, multilingual readers and writers) flooded the US college and university landscape.

While Shaughnessy has been critiqued, sometimes unfairly, for her focus on error, her humanity and humane approach that welcomed students into the classroom and made the effort to invite them into the wider literate world is never in question.

WHAT DO I MEAN BY "DEFICIT THINKING"
One of our earliest conversations in our class was about the ways we talk about writing and writers is bound by deficit thinking--in other words, the persistent belief, that has existed for seemingly ever in the US education landscape as traced by "why Johnny Can't" articles and the articles it spawned and continues to spawn, that students are bad writers rather than embracing the idea that writing is simply hard, takes time, requires reasons to do it, that "good writing" is, in many ways, a highly subjective idea.

And, of course, if we think about "bad student writers" it precipitates a whole bunch of assumptions: the student isn't very smart; they aren't trying; they don't pay attention; they don't care, etc.

WHAT TO POST: For this post, as the syllabus said I would ask: How do the theories, practices, ideologies that inform Basic Writing speak to the idea of deficit thinking about student writers. In what ways does Basic Writing champion student writers? In what ways does it potentially diminish their learning experience?

Post your response to this question. Take time to read the posts of your colleagues. Be prepared to discuss what you notice in our class discussion when we talk as a full class.

13 Comments

Melissa Batty

3/1/2022 03:44:18 pm

Basic Writing pedagogy deems itself inherent in understanding, interpreting, and applying a student’s knowledge and ability in terms of reading and writing; it gauges its ability to focus on a student’s identity, outside of institutional judgments, rather than focusing on whether they are “capable” or “incapable” to adequately perform within the classroom. Central to Basic Writing pedagogy are its approaches. First, is the error-centered standpoint or the colonial foci method to student learning –– error-centered ignores the possibility that Basic Writing students may present errors because of their “beginner” status as academics –– they still have need to develop their reading and writing skillset. Second, is academic initiation or the institutional biases that assume all students position themselves within the classroom on equitable footing –– this approach ignores socioeconomic and cultural differences amongst students. The third methodology is critical literacy which “Others” students as writers due to systemic and institutional inequity –– it ignores the basic concept that writers and readers come from different place and perspectives, affecting their interpretations of a text as both the author and the audience. Fourth, and finally, is the spatial approach, an institutional tool that may continue to marginalize students outside the White normative –– disregarding the possibility of academic growth which traditional Basic Writing students, with assistance from their educators, have within themselves to develop as individual writers.

Although Basic Writing pedagogy may oppress, there is room for its assessment to work successfully; traditional Basic Writing programs can coexist with anti-racist modifications. In giving Basic Writing students more agency over their work, error-centered pedagogy becomes an agent for autonomy and educators help students develop the critical skills they may use in future writing. Academic initiation may intrinsically assist Basic Writing students by meeting them within their domain, putting aside “systemic differences” which appear outside the norm –– instead academic initiation can foster their educational interests across academia, promoting a personal interest to acquire the necessary skill set to succeed at an institutional level. Using the critical approach as an ideological tool in opposition to one of failure, pushes educators to set aside their individual socio-political views by providing equal educational opportunities to all their students. Finally, creating a new space, such as peer review groups, progresses the spatial approach into the realm of anti-racist assessment and away from the conforming normative spaces that educators and institutions may idealize. Overall, Basic Writing models that are pedagogically holistic, lead to equitable success for Basic Writing students because educators are accountable to the students they are teaching –– diverting the goal away from institutional success to one of student success.

Ashley Merola

3/1/2022 03:47:03 pm

This week, the readings explore the relationship between the basic writing (BW) classroom and composition theories that demonstrate deficit thinking on the instructor or institution’s part. Mina P. Shaughnessy’s introduction finds this focus on flaws to be a more intricate issue in the field than one would assume. She argues that students in BW courses “are beginners and must, like all beginners, learn by making mistakes” (Shaughnessy 390). Beyond marking those mistakes, she believes the teacher’s pedagogical practices “must be informed by an understanding not only of what is missing or awry but of why this is so” (Shaughnessy 390). This search for the source of students’ errors sounds like a slight step in the right direction; however, her efforts seem to stop there. Deborah Mutnik and Steve Lamos attempt to amend what Shaughnessy’s error-centered approach lacks in their article, “Basic Writing Pedagogy: Shifting Academic Margins in Hard Times.” They commend BW teachers who have “sought to inflect their work with a deeply democratic and humanistic ethos” through their consideration of social and political contexts (Mutnik and Lamos 32). Although I can acknowledge the logic of Shaughnessy’s argument, I agree with the latter two theorists as they advocate for the active application of approaches to writing instruction that not only challenge deficit thinking in the BW classroom, but also promote promising changes in both the K-12 and post-secondary settings.

To be fair, Shaughnessy more so endures rather than embraces an emphasis on errors in the BW classroom. She describes how dismantling the damage done by such deficit thinking could make matters more confusing, since “grammar still symbolizes for some students one last chance to understand what is going on with written languages so that they can control it rather than be controlled by it” (Shaughnessy 394). Yet, by resigning herself to this reality, she reinforces mentalities Inoue might identify as more detrimental than deficit thinking (e.g. the white racial habitus) that restrict the linguistic freedoms of students through Standardized Edited American English (SEAE). Mutnik and Lamos reiterate this point when they accuse her pedagogy of “reproducing dominant cultural discourses that take a reductive, acontextual, arhetorical, and/or apolitical approach to notions of error” (23). They, like Inoue, prioritize equity over error, instead calling for “translanguaging” as a critical practice that “posits multilingualism and multidialecticalism as communicative and intellectual assets rather than deficits to overcome” (Mutnik and Lamos 30). In comparison to the K-12 classroom, this method made me reflect on how my mentor taught me to mark up student essays during my student teaching practicum. She told me to do the same as all other members of her department: take a red pen to every single error, even if it appears more than once, and use universal symbols to tell the student what they did wrong. I followed her instructions for the first few writing assignments, only to see my students’ faces fall when they found their papers covered in red ink. For many of them, English was not their first language. The deficit-directed feedback thus discouraged them from discovering that their linguistic differences can be strengths - an attitude that all writing teachers, whether in the BW classroom or not, should inspire their students to develop.

Sarah Bond

3/1/2022 03:50:50 pm

Lest I ever give the impression that K-12 teachers have it all figured out, allow me to confess that most teachers, myself included, spend far too little time thinking about how to grade and all too much time in the daunting reality of actual grading. Still, I can’t help but read an article like Mutnik and Lamos’s “Basic Writing” and wonder what would happen if middle and high school English teachers took over Basic Writing at the University level. To be fair to university-level teachers and professors, they are immersed in academia and unaccustomed to the variety of writing styles that are represented in a course like Basic Writing. For such teachers, these varieties will surely translate as problems, or deficits. The three primary issues addressed in “Basic Writing” include holistic grading, which is admittedly hit or miss among secondary educators, growing diversity and translanguaging, which is addressed in the K12 renewed attention to English Language Learners and their common misplacement in special education programs, and responsible technologies, which all teachers everywhere got a crash course in during remote learning! While the four major approaches are introduced with varying degrees of success in different districts, the key principles are ones that most secondary educators hold closely; they can be summarized as an attentiveness to students’ prior knowledge and the students’ capacity to learn. Given the reality that first year writing courses are rarely taught by those trained in pedagogy (I’m drawing on what I remember from our earliest discussions about FYW), extra student-centered work, like brainstorming, conferencing, and individualized feedback may not be prioritized, and instead, teacher feedback reflects the preferences, and unfortunately, biases, of the teacher. In other words, the posture of the teacher very much informs the way they read and assess student writing. The underlying question is: Who are they expecting to teach? Are they expecting a variety of voices with complex ideas and logical, but unconventional language, or are they expecting linear development of thought with SEAE and predictable punctuation?

For this reason, Shaughnessy’s Introduction to Errors & Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing offers a refreshing perspective on Open Enrollment in universities. If we are to value the claim that all can have access to a fair education, then serious attention to Shaughnessy’s philosophies are long overdue. Even in 1977, students existed in the confusion of what is good and effective communication. What works in the classroom sounds ridiculous just 500 feet outside of it, let alone on social media, and teachers who fail to see the linguistic gymnastics required by their students are missing out on both the beauty of their own discipline and the capabilities of their students.

As I wrote feedback this week on my own students’ essays, the commentary that most impacted me was the truth that “error disrupts meaning.” Rather than focus on each missing comma as a student deficit, I sought to communicate if and when the error in conventions disrupted the idea development of the writing; in this way, the teacher is not shaming students, but rather using their errors as tools for instruction. I was also intentional about engaging with students on the potential for revision, since as a student myself, I recognize that needing to revise often feels like failure to initially succeed; furthermore, the need for revision is not because of a failure to teach. That kind of thinking is a far greater deficit than any error in conventions.

Kayleigh Holt

3/1/2022 03:53:20 pm

In the beginning of Mina P. Shaughnessy’s article she clearly articulates the fraught atmosphere that higher education was experiencing in the late 60s and early 70s as a result of the changing admissions policies at many universities and colleges. Professors who were used to a largely privileged and often white classroom ecology were suddenly faced with students who Shaughnessy describes as “true outsiders” and “strangers in academia, unacquainted with the rules and rituals of college life” (pg. 388). At that time, the teachers of the basic writing classrooms were untrained on how to interact and help students “who appeared by college standards to be illiterate” (pg. 389).

That mindset, equating the errors and writing difficulties of a basic writing student with an inability to learn or lack of intelligence, is a harmful perspective to take. If that is how the professor approaches the course and the students there will be no effective learning taking place, it will only feed an “obsession with error” (Shaughnessy pg. 392). Focusing just on a student’s errors and taking them at face value fosters a climate of deficit thinking within the classroom. Instead of just correcting grammar and structure in the hope of getting students to ape the “correct” writing style, “a teacher who would work with BW students might well begin by trying to understand the logic of their mistakes in order to determine at what point or points along the developmental path error should or can become a subject for instruction” (Shaughnessy pg. 395).

In Mutnick and Lamos’ list of essential principles for teaching BW in their article on Basic Writing Pedagogy, they place believing that students have the ability to learn as their very first principle. The fact that they felt the need to state that principle so blatantly, and to place it in such a prominent position, highlights how prevalent the viewpoint of deficit thinking that they are cautioning against is. The Basic Writing class has evolved significantly since its inception, and many of the changes have been in service of diminishing that idea of deficit thinking within their classrooms. Mutnick and Lamos write that “at its best, BW provides access to higher education for masses of people who would otherwise never go to college; at its worst, it perpetuates ‘academic apartheid’...” (pg. 32).

Maura Geoghegan

3/1/2022 03:54:36 pm

Basic Writing attempts to help students become accustomed to academic writing who are most likely not prepared for this form of writing because they had previously been marginalized from the world of academics until open admissions occurred in the 1970s. However, the fact that students are placed into these courses because they don’t meet the “traditional standards” (Shaughnessy 387) and expectations of college shows that this course implicitly values a white racial habitus and privileged SEAE discourse that students from diverse backgrounds would not be familiar with. Since non-white students were enrolling in colleges and universities more frequently, especially during the period of open admissions, BW was created in response. The Basic Writing course stems from deficit thinking as a result of being designed for students who were already seen as lacking in writing skills by the time they are told to sign up for the course. College institutions, as well as society, view the white, middle class SEAE as the privileged writing discourse that creates a normalized habitus that non-white and non-SEAE speaking students come to at a disadvantage. These students who cannot meet these standards are placed into Basic Writing courses in which they are expected to learn these standards.

Basic Writing courses seem to have been established as a result of deficit thinking, but now seeks to separate itself from this harmful way of thinking. Mutnick and Lamos show the ways in which the variety of BW approaches each focus on some of the field of composition’s most important theoretical shifts and how these each seek to champion students in different ways. Mutnick and Lamos emphasize that it is ultimately up to the teacher to “develop local responses that meet students’ needs in specific institutional contexts” (21). They also champion students and work against deficit thinking in their list of key principles which state that teachers should assume all students have the skills to learn, engage in student-centered work, focus on higher-order skills instead of grammatical issues, and value what students already know (21).

Shaughnessy falls within the error-centered approach to BW and she calls for a reframing in the way teachers approach errors in BW writing by stating that “BW students write the way they do, not because they are slow or non-verbal, indifferent to or incapable of academic excellence, but because they are beginners and must, like all beginners, learn by making mistakes” (390). This mindset embraces the fact that writing is hard and everyone needs to learn by making mistakes; no one is immediately perfect at writing. Mutnick and Lamos sum up the nuances of basic writing best: “At its best, BW provides access to higher education for masses of people who would otherwise never go to college; at its worst, it perpetuates “academic apartheid,” a reification of racial, cultural, and linguistic stereotypes that is buttressed by the uncriticial usage of placement mechanisms and standardized test scores” (32).

Shauna Cascarella

3/1/2022 03:55:22 pm

Deficit thinking is a frustrating concept to me, and I think that is because of how much our thinking has changed and evolved over the years. These two pieces addressing Basic Writing make much more clear a way to close that “gap” that deficit thinking presupposes. Creating a much more normalized method of thinking and writing by informing students on the ins and outs of their learning.

The Basic Writing Guide makes abundantly clear that the concept of BW is largely a response to “political and economic pressures, changing demographics, and local conditions” (32). Shaugnessy saw this and decided it was unacceptable to allow these students to become unsuccessful and chose an approach that makes academic writing more accessible to students who exist within the societal deficit. She understands that these students feel like “academic writing is a trap, not a way of saying something to someone” (391). Rather than pushing aside the concept of error in writing she centered her instruction around it and was able to see success and improvement in academic writing. The BWG pushes back on this approach by giving an opening and opportunity for the BW student to learn the basics of writing first so that they may later be able to address errors in another academic class setting.

Thus, BW has potential to bridge the gap between deficit thinking and being able to write. As a class it allows for the idea that writing is hard and if it remains hard it will become inaccessible to students. Of course there is the fear that students will abandon all structure in all of their writing, or that (as is pointed out in the Basic Writing Guide) certain students end up doing twice as much work; specifically multilingual students who are learning double duty of how to write and how to write in their L2. It is hard to discern which of the two approaches would be most effective in building the BW skills, but it appears a solid mix backed by pedagogical thinking would be best.

Matthew Cutter

3/1/2022 03:55:27 pm

Many of the theories and practices that inform basic writing have come from the idea of deficit thinking. Basic writing courses exist mainly because of the perception that many students come to college with a deficit in writing and the assumption that these students are simply bad writers. Basic writing does not have to be beholden to deficit thinking though. When we allow “outsiders” into the academic space, they strengthen that space with their being there.

Basic writing can also diminish the student’s experience. Not only could being placed in a basic writing course effect their self-esteem, but many basic writing courses are too focused on error. You write a paper, get a ton of marks on it, get it back and see just how bad you are. This is not necessarily a helpful or engaging way to get who we consider “bad writers” to be “good writers”.

Megan

3/1/2022 04:00:13 pm

Hi Matt, I agree that being placed in Basic Writing can affect self esteem. It can make the student feel labeled as "less than" and as if they will never be seen as average or advanced. I think it would be interesting to consider how changing the name of basic writing would allow students to feel more empowered in a course that can be so beneficial to them. We need them to know all writers make mistakes and they are what allow us to be life-long learners.

3/1/2022 03:55:44 pm

I sort of narrated my version of this. What I admire about MS is that she, as I said, was in the thick of it and she decided that she would do something to keep those students in the university. I see this as a powerful and, I'm sure, at the time, controversial. She talks at length about students lack of familiarity with the page--her line, specifically, that students don't know what text looks like on the page, has stayed with me through my career. I remember reading that line and thinking that reading more would help with that, and that has defined how I teach any class I'm a part of.

However, of course, noble intentions aside, Shaughnessy focuses on "text on the page" by identifying and helping students to identify error to get towards what we would call SAE or, as Inoue calls it, SEAE. And the Edited part is what matters here. j

The result of this is that multilingual writers and other students who were not as well-versed in SEAE as privileged colleagues were warehoused in these not for credit classes, and that, to me, is where deficit thinking about student writing is most hurtful. Because that is an economic hit. It can postpone graduation. It can label them as bad writers for their entire career--with with other teachers or in their own sense of self. I don't think Shaughnessy or any earlier proponents of basic writing meant this to happen, but intention is not relevant here.

The other thing to consider is what it does to the actual writing. Too much basic writing, as the article from Comp pedagogy indicates, was about writing at the sentence level--writing a correct sentence, writing a correct paragraph. All sense of what it means to make a forceful argument in writing is lost. Obliterated. We deprive students of the opportunity to formulate and express ideas when we don't permit them to write more. Most research indicates that this is not an effective way to teach writing. It has the opposite effect, in fact.

More to say, but I'll stop here.

Megan G

3/1/2022 03:56:01 pm

The key approaches, principles, and practices of Basic Writing are admirable and aim to meet students where they are at. But even with its levels of sensitivity, it assumes they don’t know about academic discourse. Yes it is possible they don’t know much about this discourse and how to engage in it but the larger issue is their feeling that they don’t belong in it. The goal of Basic Writing is the produce more advanced writers, but they enter the courses already labelled as basic. This term can have a negative connotation as it assumes they do not have much to contribute to academics. While it is true they are just starting out at a basic level, what these students have to say in their writing is far beyond basic. They each bring unique and valuable experiences forward but just articulate them in a different way than those who are labeled advanced writers.
I believe when done correctly, Basic Writing has the opportunity to be an empowering experience for students who are emerging writers. One of the key approaches is error-centered, which encourages students to learn from making mistakes. This lets them know mistakes are normal and are actually needed to continue to learn. Many of them likely come from academic experiences where they were shamed for not following a rubric or understanding the purpose of the assignment. Value is placed on the teacher’s response to prose, instead of a skill and drill mindset that only focusing on ticking boxes. This approach should be implemented in each stage of a student’s journey to instill a confidence around writing instead of a fear.

Alyssa Campbell

3/1/2022 03:56:54 pm

As I read Shaugnessy's words as well as the section of this about defecits, I found myself drawing lots of parallels to Cris Tovani's "I Read It, But I Don't Get It," in the sense that so much of how students feel about themselves in English is related to their early success or failures to read and write. If students were considered "good" readers, or "good" writers, they innately, intuitively, and often without explicit how-to instructions, were able to find the information necessary in text or convey their thoughts eloquently albeit formulaically in writing. When these students were used as examples over and over, and their connection and positive feelings toward reading and writing grew (because they associated them with being successful), they read more and wrote more. This gave them practice, skills, natural strategies, and the head start they may have had on students that did not catch on immediately grows exponentially.

Meanwhile, the students that worked hard at decoding words in text but couldn't find meaning, or writers that struggled to know how to begin or what exactly they were even supposed to respond to or say, hit road block after road block. In reading they were told far too often to "read between the lines" without the explanation of what that means and HOW to do it. In writing, they were taught the infamous five paragraph essay and how to write the most formulated thesis for any work, but not how to share their actual thoughts in any creative or free-flowing capacity. They are taught the fastest route to the WHAT is expected of them, but not the HOW to fail and learn and find strategies to get there on their own. They were not given enough practice to struggle, and therefore fold, cave, avoid, or give up entirely when confronting it. They are not avoiding it because they're lazy; they're avoiding it because the gaps in their knowledge of coping strategies are so far-stretched that they'll fall down trying to get it done. In this way, we end up letting students equate academic success to whether or not they can get the what without ever fully teaching or addressing the how.

Brian Seibert

3/1/2022 04:00:21 pm

Basic writing classes in a vacuum are a positive movement to encourage more high school graduates to make that leap into the college arena. As was mentioned in Shaughnessy’s writing, when the movement for open enrollment began in the 1960s and 70s, students who would not otherwise be admitted into college or universities were being allowed in.

In many cases, writing assessments were and are being used to determine which students would need to take a Basic Writing course. Shaughnessy also mentioned that most of the students who took those courses were people of color, foreign or dual speaking citizens. While it may seem to some like a degrading course to take, it affords many opportunities that would not have otherwise been possible.

That is however, in a vacuum. As we discussed in class, college courses are crazy expensive. It is becoming more of a gamble than an investment, especially for those who begin the college experience in a deficit. Basic Writing courses can provide a positive boost to elevate students in higher education, but it takes determination to stick with it and make it worth the expense.

Olivia L

3/1/2022 04:02:29 pm

One of the practices surrounding BW which I noticed in the text was the idea that we must measure and analyze students' growth and development as writers (p 29). Since we are held at such high stakes with assessments, it makes it more difficult to create strong assessments that challenge students especially with a deficit in writing. Things like grammatical errors, and other small mistakes can diminish their learning experiences, but there is a fine line where it may also help them in their writing. This is why the Basic Writing pedagogy is so effective.
One of the other theories given by Susan Griffin that really stood out to me was, "...the realm of experience longs for more than knowledge." (p 33). This is part of the deficit we see. Without the experiences and practices, we cannot expect students to improve their writing or grow in any way. This relates not only to K-12, but to First Year Writing courses and other college writing courses as well. Maybe the Basic Writing would be a helpful approach especially given the rage of levels. As mentioned, student debt levels have risen, and in recent years, the demand for students has become high. Schools will take anyone, including those who are not well-prepared or motivated. Basic Writing would be a place to implement this.

In-class : Basic writing/deficit thinking

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