Basic Writing as a Political Act Book review

Review: Basic Writing as a Political Act. Hampton Press, 2002. New Jersey. Print

            Basic Writing as a Political Act by Linda Adler-Kassner and Susanmarie Harrington focuses on the bigger issues of basic writing. Specifically, it shows how literacy practices are not neutral in the classroom setting, and argues that in order to make basic writing a “political act” one has to understand the ideological forces at play perpetuating views of literacy that are stripped of social context. The authors of the book challenge the place of autonomous literacy in the classroom and champion social literacy practices that incorporate a student’s social context into the academic setting. One of the strongest analyses of the book is that it provides a new paradigm on how to see basic writing as a truly political act.  

            Making basic writing political may seem synonymous with grassroots activism, and with the recent noteworthy attempts of people like Elizabeth Warren who has railed against the corporate takeover of higher education, educators may mistakenly see this book as a kind of blueprint for political activism. However, the book stays clear with engaging in any kind of heated debate of that nature and instead focuses on what teachers can do in the classroom, and more importantly how students in the basic writing community can incorporate their literacy practices into the classroom and make it valued, steering it away from the practices of autonomous literacy with its emphasis on quantifiable date and aggregate skill building.

            The authors argue that the autonomous model of literacy emphasizes skills-based learning and de-emphasizes the context of how that learning takes place; it doesn’t allow basic writing students to ask questions about how they became “basic writing” students and what led them there to begin with. This fundamental challenge is what gives Basic Writing as a Political Act its whole purpose. However, there is a spectrum of thoughts and ideas that animate the conversation about basic writing. Educators like Ira Shor argued that basic writing classrooms are suspect to begin with, and that any meaningful change cannot be reached in the classroom unless the basic writing institution is itself abolished.

            Kassner and Harrington first lay out their argument and contrast it with the position of Ira Shor. They do not want to abolish basic writing because they agree that in doing so the inherent framing of basic writing students as problems will not be addressed. The framing of how basic writing students are defined is what drives the crux of this book and Kassner and Harrington look at the models that institutions use to effectively transition basic writing students into the mainstream.

            The question of mainstreaming students, the authors assert, is actually laden with assumptions about what students can and cannot do. In its systemic critique, the question is placed front and center and made point blank: what are the forces that mainstream basic writing students, and how do those powers affect what is being taught in the classroom? To more narrowly understand and exploit these issues, there are key features of a basic writing classroom that the authors look at. One involves the students’ literacy practices, their actual voices that educators must work to use authentically in the classroom, and the other is the syllabus used in the classroom.

            The authors interviewed 38 students about their literacy contexts outside of school; the main concerns of the authors was to try to understand how basic writers thought of themselves in terms of writing. It was revealed that they actually cared deeply about their writing and used it to connect meaningful events in their lives. However, if students shared a common concept of being a writer as developing ideas from mind to paper, their conceptions of writing well, or school writing differed dramatically.

            For the students, learning to write well was associated with purely discrete components of writing such as grammar, sentence structure, syntax, subject-object agreement and spelling. This focus on the discrete components of writing, the authors argue, ends up alienating the students from the classroom. This model of learning is not a new revelation, and authors such as Mike Rose in his work Back to School, paint a picture of the writing correction guidelines established by early 20^th century educators that treated common writing errors more as symptoms of some overall deficiency, hence the character of “remedial education” became synonymous with treating writing difficulties that students had with that of mental deficiency.

            In order to counteract this, the authors argue that professors have a lot of leeway when it comes to controlling the tone of a basic writing class through how they choose to highlight students’ skills.  Although there is an acknowledgment that instructors of basic writing courses try to implement creative ways that allow students to express themselves and show themselves capable of connecting their literacies to the classroom, there is still a constraint placed upon academic institutions that limit the potential of students. This constraint places students’ skills as simply a means to an end: the end result is writing an academic paper successfully, but this doesn’t value their literacies for what they are. In order to rectify this, the authors suggest incorporating a more social-oriented model of literacy into the syllabus.

            The authors posit that syllabi are important markers in determining the way that basic writing is conceived. A syllabus is a document that is written in the moment and that can shape students’ literacy practices.  These practices are established within the students’ social contexts, but if a syllabus simply treats skill building as a way to transition into the academic world without explaining the context to students then it perpetuates an autonomous form of literacy.

            Indeed, skills that we deem useful in the academic world are explicitly laid out in the syllabi and therefore the authors argue, our syllabi is a public document that sets the cornerstone of what kind of classroom we want to teach, including how we would like to frame the issue of basic writing, and whether or not those students that we teach to are allowed to validate their own experiences without feeling like their literacy practices are simply meant to be transferred to an academic setting.

            That academic setting in principle, the authors argue, excludes basic writers. What the authors recommend is that the syllabus reflect a core principal that basic writers need in order to frame basic writing as a political act. In order to do this then there has to be an emphasis on making students be responsible for their writing so that they understand that literacy practices are meaningful in a social setting where everyone is contributing. The questions that must be asked when creating a syllabus are to ask self-consciously, “What does it mean to be a basic writer at this local institution at this time?”

            While the battlefield where political writing is fought takes place center-stage on the national level, the authors understand that in order to make basic writing a political act one has to understand what the forces are at the local levels that converge to create basic writing programs in each state. To understand what these forces are means to acknowledge the historical factors that have created “basic writing” and it gives students autonomy and understanding of their place in the institution.

            It is fraught with ideas of what basic writing is and what steps should be taken to fix a system that is seemingly perpetually broken. The question remains though about how students can talk about basic writing as a political act without somehow regarding the broader institutional forces that give funding, take funding away and generally set the tone of how these adult education centers are framed. On this count, the authors make a very cogent point about the implicit judgment that newspapers and media sources carry when they talk about community colleges and the “school-success narrative.”

            This narrative basically champions the basic writing student that often comes from a poor economic background. This success narrative is used as a way to reinforce the value of education as a means to access traditional middle-class standing. Students in basic writing classes are seen as falling from the traditional path of education but are on their way to trying to make it again. In this narrative, middle class values are valued and the objectives of literacy as a means to achieve success is faithfully left untouched. It validates the importance of education in attaining middle-class status without questioning the forces that made the conditions that basic writing students have to live with.

            The challenge of educators is to now try to make basic writing a political act but the book’s solutions leave something to be desired. How do we face the institutional forces that dictate how much money basic writing students should get? The book raises more questions than answers and perhaps it wasn’t the authors’ intentions to create a blueprint for any kind of structural change. Normally, one would think of grassroots activism led by students as being political, but the authors don’t raise that possibility or perhaps see that kind of activism as premature without asking about the political potentials of a classroom.

            I believe that this book is a good way for teachers to measure something that can be quite divisive and rancorous. We as educators obviously want to help our basic writing students move freely into the academic writing community. At the same time, we don’t intend on alienating them from their literacy practices at home that are varied, complex and give so much self-understanding to these students. This is the heart of the dilemma that we as educators face today.