Patrick Sullivan
English Department
Manchester Community College
Great Path
Manchester, CT 06040
(860) 512-2669
What Can We Learn About "College-Level" Writing
From Basic Writing Students?:
The Importance of Reading
Introduction
This essay will examine four student responses to a writing activity that I assign as the second of five major projects in one of my basic writing classes. This class is conceptualized and designed to be a "pre-college" preparatory class, and it is the final class in a three-course basic writing sequence that we offer at our college. Students need to earn a "C" or better in this class to move on to FYC, and when they move on, it is expected that they will enter the mainstream college curriculum as "college-level" readers, writers, and thinkers--ready to successfully navigate the many demands of the college-level curriculum in all the various ways these demands manifest themselves. Students either test into this course via our placement test (currently a combined reading and sentence skills score on Accuplacer), or they "come up through the ranks" of our basic writing program. Student work done at a curricular location like this one--at the threshold of "college readiness"--offers us an especially promising site to discuss what we mean by college-level writing because issues related to "college-level work" come into sharp focus almost every day in classes like this.
The Assignment
Students in this class typically bring with them unique sets of strengths, aptitudes, interests, work habits, motivations, and personal histories. Despite many individual differences in aptitude, motivation, and skill level, however, it has been my experience, having taught this course now for 21 years, that students in this final pre-college class usually have three very pressing and interrelated needs--all of them are related to reading:
1. Most students in this class need to improve their ability to read assigned texts carefully and accurately. This is particularly noticeable once the readings become more challenging and demanding--that is to say, once they become "college-level" (that is to say, they become the kind of readings that students routinely encounter in college-level courses).
2. Most students in this class need to improve their ability to think thoughtfully and patiently about assigned readings, especially those assigned by instructors in basic writing courses like this because they are college-level readings (in terms of the cognitive demand they make on readers).
3. Most students in this class need to improve their ability to develop a mature, coherent, and thoughtful response to college-level readings, and to do so in a way that does not misrepresent, simplify, or unrecognizably transform these readings.
The point of greatest risk and challenge for students in this course is precisely when we attempt to make the transition to engage more challenging "college-level" readings. The assignment that I am examining in this essay is where that process begins in my class, and it is my argument here that this transition point is where "college-level" writing can be said to begin. I believe, furthermore, that "college-level" writing must be judged primarily by how well students read (see Bartholomae and Petrosky; McCormick; Morrow; Salvatori)
In terms of how this assignment is designed and conceptualized, this is the first time in the semester when students are asked to respond to an obvious college-level reading ("For Better or For Worse"; see assignment below), and most students find this quite challenging, as we will see. This assignment focuses on family, and I have chosen this subject carefully because it is one that students typically find very interesting:
Essay #2: Family Matters
Reading Sequence:
1. Alice Hoffman, "Provider"
2. David Sedaris, "Us and Them" from Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
3. E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly, from For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered (Chapter 1: A New Story About Divorce and Chapter 13: Lessons Learned in Forty-five Years of Studying Families)
Essay Assignment:
Once we have discussed each of these readings in class, I would like you to return to Hoffman's essay and reread it.
I would like your essay to focus primarily on your rereading of Hoffman's essay, and this question in particular:
Have the other readings in this unit in any way affected the way you now read Hoffman?
Please quote at least once from each of the three assigned readings. Essays should be approximately 1000 words long.
At this point in the semester, students have already written one essay, about James Baldwin's short story, "Sonny's Blues," so this is the first time they are encountering an assignment with multiple perspectives. It is also the first time they are encountering what most of them regard as a "hard" or "confusing" or "challenging" reading--the selection from Hetherington and Kelly. This is by design, as I have assigned shorter, easier, or more "enjoyable" readings (Baldwin, Hoffman, and Sedaris) to help them get situated in the course, to help them begin to see the pleasure they can get from reading, and to help ensure that they have some success and build some confidence early in the semester. I am also seeking to prepare them for more challenging readings to come. They generally find these earlier readings engaging or accessible in some way--"deep" and "powerful" in the case of Baldwin; "interesting" and relevant and also, they say, thankfully "short" for Hoffman; and funny in the case of Sedaris.
Although I would argue that the selection from Hetherington and Kelly is almost all of these things (deep, powerful, interesting, and relevant), my English 93 students typically do not see it that way. They find this reading, in fact, very difficult to understand and engage. The two chapters ask them to read are about 22 pages in combined length, and this, in itself, poses problems for many students in this class. This is also clearly college-level reading material, and, as I tell them, it is the kind of reading they can expect to encounter in mainstream college courses. An important part of my job as a teacher of this class is to help students learn how to engage college-level reading material like this thoughtfully. It is my argument here that students who are ready to be successful "college level" writers should be able to read material like this and then write about it with a fair degree of accuracy and thoughtfulness. Most students in my class find this extremely difficult.
Artifacts: Student Writing Samples
I would now like to consider four samples of student writing in response to this assignment. I will be focusing on what each student has to say about Hetherington and Kelly. Although these writing samples don't tell us everything we need to know about these student writers, they nonetheless give us a general sense of each student's strengths and weaknesses as readers, writers, and thinkers as well as their potential to be successful in FYC and in mainstream college courses.
Please note that although this assignment asks students to discuss ways in which the second and third readings in this unit (Sedaris; Hetherington and Kelly) affect the way they read Hoffman's essay, students usually have trouble responding to this element of the assignment. (Many, in fact, simply ignore it.) That challenge will be reflected in the student writing samples I have included here.
Just one more note before I proceed: I would like to thank the students whose work is included here for the privilege of allowing me to use their writing in this essay. Although there is some difference of opinion about whether or not to identify students by their real names when using their work in academic studies like this (see Bloom), I have chosen to retain all student names.
1. Danielle
I would like to begin with a writing sample from Danielle, who wrote a strong essay in response to this assignment. Here is what she had to say about Hetherington and Kelly:
For Better or for Worse really got into the struggle of divorce and the effects it has not only on the child but also on the adult. I believe the main point that the author was trying to get across is that, though divorce is in no way an easy thing to overcome, the outcome does not always have to be a bad thing. It is devastating to a family to lose someone they love.Many people carry cherished memories with them for years which make it very hard to let go. "Only the people who shared those moments know what it means to lose them forever." It can be very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when everything around you seems so chaotic. I myself struggled with the messy divorce of my parents.
At the very young age of 2 years old, I can honestly say I remember the day as though it was yesterday. I can say that without a doubt their divorce played a huge role in how I turned out today. It took a very long time for me to figure out how I was going to move on. I found it very interesting that many of the effects of divorce occur within the first 2 years. Again, I only being 2 years old when it happened, after 2 years I would have only been 4. I would have thought that I would have moved on a bit easier then I did. With that said, I found it interesting that the 1960’s study they did, showed that fathers play the more important role in both the boys and girls lives. I lived with my father for 10 years after their divorce. Not until I was about 11 years old had I went to live with my mother. I find it interesting that even with all those years of living with him I still got attached very quickly to others. This was not a good thing either. Because, I would get so easily attached it took a very long time to be able to let go. In the article it said that the negative effects of divorce were exaggerated. I don’t know that I find this to be 100% accurate however; I do believe that in some cases there are those who dwell, making it harder for them to move forward. A very good friend of mine that went through this has a very negative outlook on life. Not that I am a mean person, but it’s almost pathetic. Listening to how they justify themselves for doing what they do. Or listening to them complain over and over about their hardships but never doing anything to change. I would have to say that they are unfortunately one of those who would be considered "the defeated." [Hetherington and Kelly identify six common ways people respond to divorce: "enhanced," "competent loners," "good enoughs," "seekers," 'libertarians," "the defeated."]
Going through the experience myself, it does take a very long time to reassure yourself that everything is going to be ok. You really must look deep inside and figure out what positive learning experiences you can take out of it and leave the negative behind. Those involved must remember that it takes time. In the authors studies, the first and second year after seemed to be the hardest. "About 75 to 80 percent of adults and children show few serious long-term problems in adjustment following divorce and are functioning within the normal range."
Luckily, through the years I have turned out to be a very strong individual.I would have to say that I consider myself "enhanced." Most people who know me often say to me, "With all that you’ve been through, I’m surprised you turned out the way you did." Most of the time, I have to sit back and think about it. Sometimes even I wonder how I ended up having such a positive outlook on things. I really would have to say that I just try to keep a positive outlook on what happened and not let the negative stuff affect me. If I sit and dwell on the past I would never move on. I just have to give myself a constant reminder of what I want my life to be. I am not my parents, and I do not have to live my life correcting their mistakes.
As most readers of this excerpt will probably note, this writer has a number of strengths. Although there may be an overemphasis on personal experience, there is a thoughtful engagement with Hetherington and Kelly. In terms of her attitude as a writer, Danielle seems to be curious and interested in the enterprise of encountering new ideas and talking about them--a very important college-level disposition, it seems to me. She also maintains a strong sense of her own self and voice as she interacts with Hetherington and Kelly in this conversation. She also has a solid sense of the rhetorical conventions of the academic essay, and she uses paragraphs effectively to help present her ideas. She also seems comfortable in the world of abstract ideas and academic discourse. Overall, and to put it most simply, this student appears to be ready to do college-level work.
The single most important element of this essay, for me, is Danielle's engagement with the assigned reading. She has read Hetherington and Kelly carefully, and she has a solid and accurate understanding of the main outlines of their argument. As a teacher of this "gateway"/transition class, I can look at writing like this and say, "This writer is ready to be a successful college reader, writer, and thinker. With a little more polish, during the next 9 weeks or so, she'll be ready."
2. Jeff
For purposes of comparison, I would like to share with you a few selections of work from other students in this class whose work (when considered in conjunction with Danielle's) clearly shows for me the difference between basic writing and college-level writing. Here is the first sample, written by Jeff:
The boy found that the Tomkey family would never watch TV; instead Mr. Tomkey stated that he didn't believe in television. Once finding out that the Tomkey's didn't watch TV the boy began to monitor the family to find out what they really do. He found that they Tomkey family would talk to each other about their day during dinner. Because the Tomkey's didn't watch television, the boy believed that "They didn't know what attractive was or what dinner was supposed to look like or even what time people were supposed to eat". This quote had made me understand a similar quote written by Alice Hoffman, "having once believed that her life would sort itself out to be like those television shows". In both readings the television is shown to give off an image of what the ideal family was supposed to look and act like. To those who follow this image, that person would sometimes feel as if they have the power to judge others differently because they don't act like everyone else.