The Council on Basic Writing will be hosting a half-day workshop on Wednesday morning at CCCC. Please see the description below. I hope that you will join us!
Best,
Lynn
Lynn Reid
University Director of Writing
Fairleigh Dickinson University
“Reclaiming Our Time: Basic Writing and the Challenge of Speed”
Workshop Facilitators
Lynn Reid, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Jack Morales, Pace University
Bill Lalicker, West Chester University
RAsheda Young, Rutgers University
Acceleration as a means of redressing structural inequalities for Basic Writing has revealed a number of theoretical issues that have plagued its study ever since its flagship, The Journal of Basic Writing, began articulating these problems in 1975. Half a century later, even contemporary examples of these conceptual issues are well-worn: the dangers of conflating success with pass rates; the temptation to mistake cultural assimilation for learning, and what basic writing might mean in the context of a neurodivergent landscape for higher education. The editors of the most recent special issue of the Journal of Basic Writing admit that one of the obstacles facing Basic Writing courses – particularly in ALP models – is the “heterogeneity” of programs across the U.S. (Anderst et. al. 3). These are problems that stem from the inability to reconcile the need for a national discussion with one that honors the context-specific problems that make ALP a workable model in some locations while exacerbating barriers in others. Most notably, perhaps, is the analysis by Giordano and Phillips that points to legislatively mandated or administratively conjured reform movements as “austerity measures masquerading as social justice work” (Giordano and Phillips 34). These efforts to reform basic writing often define success through the lens of completion and pass rates, leaving behind discussions about how to support basic writers who are being rushed through a developmental process that can take more time than a corequisite program can afford to give.
This half-day workshop sponsored by the Council on Basic Writing looks to open a space for learning from models that have been operating under a variety of conditions: models that have “been in place for a number of years…[or that] were just beginning or were in their infancy when the pandemic forced us inside our homes, in front of our computer screens, teaching students whose faces we no longer saw and whose faces we rarely heard” (Anderst et. al. 2). As basic writing programs continue to transition away from a multi-semester, pre-requisite model to the faster, co-requisite model that combines credit-bearing reading and writing instruction with non-credit bearing reading and writing instruction, our workshop will present strategies for engaging some of the more prevalent issues with growing, maintaining, and starting a co-requisite model of writing instruction. Questions that will be engaged by the workshop will be:
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What kind of support, professional outreach, and mentoring can established programs offer new programs and their faculty?
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How do co-requisite accelerated models of basic writing make the distinction between skills that should be “credit-bearing” and those that should not?
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What reflections might the instructors of accelerated learning programs afford the ongoing conversations in basic writing that might prove useful to the development and reform of programming?
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How do co-requisite models engage the role of neurodiversity and cognition in their programs?
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How do co-requisite models approach support for digital literacy access and acquisition?
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With such a diverse set of practices and contexts, what does acceleration mean and how does it complicate our understanding of what it means to be a basic writing student, teacher, and/or researcher?
These questions will be engaged at different stations and will be led by a facilitator.
Breakout Group 1: Participants will consider opportunities to slow down writing pedagogy to support the learning needs of students enrolled in Basic Writing courses.
Breakout Group 2: Participants will analyze the external factors that disproportionately impact student success in Basic Writing courses. Topics will include the ways in which socioeconomic challenges, trauma, and chronic stress can impact student learning.
Final Group Discussion: The workshop will conclude with a discussion of how we define Basic Writing in the context of acceleration and developmental learning.
NOTE: ENDING TOPIC
Works Cited
Anderst, Leah, Cheryl Comeau-Kirschner and Jennifer Maloy. “Editor’s Column”. Journal of Basic Writing.
Vol 43. No.2 (Fall 2024).
Giordano, Joanne Baird and Cassandra Phillips. “Adapting Writing Studio Pedagogy for Flexible and
Equitable Acceleration. Vol 43. No. 2 (Fall 2024)