Writing and Privilege

April 7, 2022 1:56 PM

Silvery Fish's recent prison writing post is an excellent reminder of the potential of writing to change the lives of incarcerated folks and the long tradition of college writing instructors and scholars investigating that potential, including former prisoners. There's an idea that writing instruction can or should help the underprivileged (PDF), which has contributed to a broader debate over who gets defined as underprivileged or remedial student writers. Perhaps the most widely cited article on the topic is David Bartholomae's "Inventing the University," which contributed to Bartholomae's debate with another prominent writing scholar, Peter Elbow, about the purposes of writing and the identities of student writers.

Later, Victor Villanueva would follow other scholars thinking about the idea of "Students' Right to their Own Language" and dig deeper into the racist problems of "remedial" and "basic" writing. Some of those problems come from the association of such writing with the assumed prevalence of error. The indictment of error-hunting on the part of writing teachers contributed to arguments over the role of language politics and ideology in writing instruction and questions about the future of college writing instruction more broadly considered. The changing demographics of college populations and the considerations of language politics would later lead to enthusiastic and critical rethinkings about what college writing could be or should be, including the argument that any unitary standard of language assessment by the dominant-language culture is inherently racist. Given such arguments, college writing teachers have continued to try to define what good writing instruction should do, and to propose a general Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing. While the language in the Outcomes and Framework can come across as a bit bureaucratic, the recommendations in Bad Ideas about Writing are more pithy and approachable.

posted by vitia (6 comments total)

Did not expect to see my academic field on the blue today! Bad Ideas about Writing is a great book, and I teach it in an intro class to get conversations started about common misconceptions. Doesn't hurt that it's completely open access.
posted by Tesseractive at 2:15 PM on April 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

This is fantastic, vitia! Thanks for putting this together.

I’ll be digging into these links later, starting with Bad Ideas About Writing.

As Charlie Jane Anders has said, writing can save your life. Any focus on allyship for writers daring to begin understanding themselves and their experiences through writing is encouraging.
posted by Silvery Fish at 2:38 PM on April 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

An excellent thread to accompany last week's How to make writing easier to read for everyone, I think.

Thanks for this, lots to dig into.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:18 AM on April 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

Thank you for linking Bad Ideas About Writing. As a community college English instructor, I am constantly grappling with these issues. There is indeed a lot of racism and classism baked into some of the assumptions about What Makes Good Writing. Lately I’ve been working with a group trying to decolonize English literature and composition courses; it’s really, really hard. I’m starting to think it may not be possible in the current incarnation of the postsecondary system.

I’ve had some frustrating conversations with people who don’t understand why I don’t just hammer my students with grammar rules and why I don’t just fail any essay with less than perfect grammar/spelling/punctuation.

I’m reminded of this MeFi post about literacy privilege.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:57 PM on April 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

Thanks, hurdy gurdy girl. I'm a "recovering grammar snob," too, like Chandra. I still cringe at having corrected people's grammar and style on the blue, and feel like I should apologize to Cortex again, and thank them, for deleting some of the asshole comments I made around 2012. So thank you again, Cortex, and I'm sorry.🫢😞

The biggest reason I no longer worry about "error" in student writing is the phenomenon of mediation: research has demonstrated that as students grapple with increasingly complex ideas, they make more errors in conventions: in other words, error can be a sign of learning and engagement.
posted by vitia at 1:48 PM on April 9, 2022 [4 favorites]

I have never heard of mediation in that context! Very cool.

I am also a recovering grammar snob. I think I must have been unbearable as a novice English instructor. I strive to be better now, and honestly just being mindful is probably what saves me most of the time.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:16 PM on April 9, 2022