Legacy
The Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize is named in her memory and is awarded for an "outstanding scholarly book in the fields of language, culture, literacy, or literature with strong application to the teaching of English." Many current and important scholars of basic writing, including David Bartholomae and Patricia Bizzell, acknowledge Shaughnessy as a guiding influence on their work.
But Shaughnessy’s overriding focus on eliminating error from the writing of students has also drawn its share of critics. In a 1979 essay on “The Politics of Composition, ” John Rouse fiercely attacked what he saw as her over-emphasis on mechanical skills and correctness. And in 1991, Min-Zhan Lu published a controversial article on “Redefining the Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy” in the Journal of Basic Writing, the research journal that Shaughnessy herself had helped start in 1975. Like Rouse, Lu criticized Shaughnessy’s focus on the surface features rather than meaning of student writing. Both Rouse and Lu’s articles sparked many responses, and the debate over how dominant a role that issues of correct usage should play in teaching basic writing continues to this day.
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“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
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