Reference Guides to Rhetoric and Composition

      Series Editor, Charles Bazerman

      The Series provides compact, comprehensive and convenient surveys of what has been learned through research and practice as composition has emerged as an academic discipline over the last half century. Each volume is devoted to a single topic that has been of interest in rhetoric and composition in recent years, to synthesize and make available the sum and parts of what has been learned on that topic. These reference guides are designed to help deepen classroom practice by making available the collective wisdom of the field and will provide the basis for new research. The Series is intended to be of use to teachers at all levels of education, researchers and scholars of writing, graduate students learning about the field, and all who have interest in or responsibility for writing programs and the teaching of writing.

      Parlor Press and The WAC Clearinghouse are collaborating so that these books will be widely available through low-cost print editions and free digital distribution. The publishers and the Series editor are teachers and researchers of writing, committed to the principle that knowledge should freely circulate. We see the opportunities that new technologies have for further democratizing knowledge. And we see that to share the power of writing is to share the means for all to articulate their needs, interest, and learning into the great experiment of literacy.

      Existing Books in the Series

      Invention in Rhetoric and Composition (2004, Lauer)

      Reference Guide to Writing across the Curriculum (2005, Bazerman, Little, Bethel, Chavkin, Fouquette, and Garufis)

      Revision: History, Theory, and Practice (2006, Horning and Becker)

      Writing Program Administration (2007, McLeod)

      Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Local Publics (2008, Long)

      Argument in Composition (2009, Ramage, Callaway, Clary-Lemon, and Waggoner)

      Basic Writing (2010, Otte and Mlynarczyk)

      Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy (2010, Bawarshi and Reiff)

      Basic Writing

      George Otte and Rebecca Williams Mlynarczyk

      Parlor Press

      West Lafayette, Indiana

      www.parlorpress.com

      The WAC Clearinghouse

      http://wac.colostate.edu/

      Parlor Press LLC, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906

      © 2010 by Parlor Press and The WAC Clearinghouse

      All rights reserved.

      Printed in the United States of America

      S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Otte, George.

       Basic writing / George Otte and Rebecca Williams Mlynarczyk.

       p. cm.

       Includes bibliographical references and index.

       ISBN 978-1-60235-174-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-175-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-176-9 (adobe ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-177-6 (epub ebook)

       1. English language--Rhetoric. 2. English language--Grammar--Problems, exercises, etc. 3. Report writing. I. Mlynarczyk, Rebecca. II. Title.

       PE1408.O77 2010

       808’.042--dc22

       2010008778

      Series logo designed by Karl Stolley. Copyediting by Jessica Williams.

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paperback, cloth, and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail [email protected].

      The WAC Clearinghouse supports teachers of writing across the disciplines. Hosted by Colorado State University’s Composition Program, it brings together four journals, three book series, and resources for teachers who use writing in their courses. This book will also be available free on the Internet at The WAC Clearinghouse (http://wac.colostate.edu/).

      Contents

       Acknowledgments

       Series Editor’s Preface

       Introduction

       1 Historical Overview

       The 1960s

       The 1970s

       The 1980s

       The 1990s

       2000 and Beyond

       2 Defining Basic Writing and Basic Writers

       Early Definitions

       Basic Writing as a Fix-It Station

       Basic Writing as a Back Formation of First-Year Composition

       A Sense of Mission and Purpose

       Adjustments and Revisions

       Cognitivist Definitions

       Contextual Definitions

       Prescribing Without Defining

       Initiation as a Goal

       Problems with Initiation as a Goal

       A Point of Crisis

       The Vulnerability of Basic Writing

       The Crisis as Reflected in the Journal of Basic Writing

       Climate Change for Basic Writing

       Responding to Calls to Eliminate Basic Writing

       “Our Apartheid”

       Context-Contingent Definitions

       “Basic Writing at a Political Crossroads”

       Capitulating on Definition

       3 Practices and Pedagogies

       Error

       Teaching Complication 1: The Need for Complexity