Basic Writing - Defining Basic Writing

Defining Basic Writing

Sometimes called “remedial” or “developmental” writing, basic writing (BW) was developed in the 1970s, generally under the constraints of open admissions policies. Basic writing courses are meant to help students come to a basic understanding and familiarity with formal written English. BW students can be categorized two ways: 1) students coming straight from high school, who did not develop a basic competency in formal written English before graduation and who placed below average on a college writing placement test, and 2) non-traditional students who are older than average college freshman and who are coming to college for the first time in order to further their education in the hopes of gaining the skills necessary for better employment and earning more money. These are generally students that may have full-time jobs, come to classes at night, and may have children, and perhaps be a single parent. In some cases non-native and ESL students are also considered basic writers, because of their unfamiliarity with the English language, let alone formal written English (sometimes identified as standard English).

BW students are usually characterized by a lack of understanding of the rules of formal written English which may manifest itself in non-traditional syntax, grammar, spelling, punctuation, usage, mechanics, organization, and clarity. Mina Shaughnessy, a pioneer in the field of basic writing, characterized basic writers as “those that had been left so far behind the others in their formal education that they appeared to have little chance of catching up, students whose difficulty with the written language seemed of a different order from those of the other groups, as if they had come, you might say, from a different country, or at least through different schools, where even modest standards of high-school literacy had not been met." However, BW is also a relative term. What might be considered freshman-level writing at one university might be characterized as basic writing at another, or even advanced writing at another, depending on the ability of the general student population and university standards.

Basic Writing is also a field of study. The research in the field probes into the concerns of teachers and students on the academic margins. Deborah Mutnick explains about Basic Writing:

“It signifies struggles for inclusion, diversity and equal opportunity; debates over standards and linguistic hegemony; the exploitation of faculty and staff on the academic margins; and the policies that opened and not threatened to close higher education’s doors to masses of people. It has played a key role not only in providing opportunities for research on adult literacy but also in illuminating the politics of writing in terms of race, class, ethnicity, and other social structures that would have remained invisible in the mostly white, middle –class classrooms that have traditionally constituted the “mainstream.”