Politics of Basic Writing" by Karen Greenberg (from ALP blog)

 In the Politics of Basic Writing", Karen Greenberg embraces her profession, a basic writing teacher, fully comprehending that it's a designation considered, in some way, "shameful." She also describes her role in directing her college's Developmental English Program as being inextricably linked with to research and development in the tools that assess success in these writing programs.  She disagrees with David Bartholomae's assertion that "most basic writing courses are "obstacles rather than opportunities" (65) and with his concern about the veracity of the assessment tools that place students into developmental writing classes. While she seems to agree that assessment tools are, in many cases, unreliable, she contends that it's not because assessment tools, in and of themselves, aren't useful.  Rather, it's that the assessment tools are so distrusted among teachers of basic--and other--writing courses that they essentially reject them as inappropriate and don't participate in their invention or implementation.  When writing teachers don't participate, the task of creating and implementing the assessment tools is quickly assumed by administrators and state legislators-- a group that has neither first-hand knowledge of the workings of writing programs nor any real incentive to support them or ensure that the students are successful. Greenberg seems to be taking Mary Berger's advice to heart by agreeing that teachers need to be more invested in the process to ensure a better result and to ensure that these programs aren't simply eliminated from the curriculum.

     Greenberg states that despite the misgivings of teachers, “state-mandated assessments of college basic skills programs are sweeping the country.” (65) Successful outcomes for basic writing programs will continue to diminish because already underfunded programs will continue to atrophy as funding is further reduced.  If the college has limited money, they are likely to favor programs that produce results that can be qualified as “successful” by state-mandated assessment tools. Greenberg stresses the importance of showing that these programs are useful to college success as a whole.  She states that the theories associated with basic writing practices need to inform the reality of the basic writing classroom and vice versa.  Despite theoretical  insights into basic writing practices gained from diverse fields such as cognitive psychology and applied linguistics, classroom practices continue to follow a “remedial” model and too many basic writers “are subjected to skills/drills content and to pedagogies that conceptualize writing as a set of subskills that must be mastered in a series of steps and stages.” (67) Greenberg goes on to describe basic writing instruction and assessment at CCNY and defines the goal of the program, “to help students develop more sophisticated ways of thinking and writing, based on induction, deduction, generalization and evidence.” (67) Greenberg connects the growth and diversification of basic skills programs at CUNY as leading to the inception of a variety of programs across the CUNY system.

     Greenberg writes that CUNY’s writing programs depend upon early identification of students’ strengths and weaknesses as determined by the CUNY Writing Skills Assessment Test -- a test developed by writing teacher “who surveyed the research and practice in the field of composition” (68) and based on academic research and the premise that the most important writing skill for these students was the ability to write “expositive/argumentative essays in Standard Written Academic English.” (68) The test, as a tool, is more effective than many, according to Greenberg, because it is read and evaluated by two or three full-time writing teachers. In her article, “The Politics of Basic Writing”, Karen Greenberg appraises the test and the outcomes as successful, citing 80%-93% pass rates at Hunter College.  She further states that the persistence and graduation rates of students who enter as basic writers are comparable to students that tested out of basic writing coursework.  These results, Greenberg claims, prove her assertion that assessment tools can be effective if they’re crafted and administered by teachers of basic writing rather than administrators without access to or knowledge of the student population they serve.