Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing

Despite the fact that I thought this article kind of read like an overly academic treatment for a cliched, inspirational "teacher in the inner city" movie, it was refreshing to read a comp theory article that address the importance of the teachers attitude. As Shaughnessy outlines on the first page, teaching writing is one of the most time-consuming and interactive subjects, as it requires constant reading, writing, and feedback. For this reason, the attitudes and motivations of writing professors are just as important as those of his students, and the success of the interactions between the two determine exactly how much a student takes away from a "basic" writing class. I didn't really appreciate the occasional conceit of the author in addressing these students, but maybe it's just the television student in me that believes every basic writing class is a pool of potential and talent, all they need is the right young Hollywood star to inspire them.
Movie metaphors aside, the discussion of the first stage of teacher development reminded me of our discussion about students overreaching in their academic tones. Shaughnessy discusses this in her description of the "written Anguish" students churn out in the hopes of appeasing their teachers who are stuck in this first stage, but truly no one benefits. Even when a teacher has progressed to stage two, "converting the natives," they still are guilty of encouraging this behavior, offering large generic models to their students who, without a better understanding of composition, will still fall into their old habit of copying and overreaching academic tones.
The biggest thing that I took away from this article is that we need better training for our writing teachers. If teachers could begin the year or semester with a more open understanding of the limitations of their students and the strategies to best reach them, they could have more time to seriously help them improve their writing, rather than wasting it fretting about how bad it is, and how it will never get them into college. This, I suppose is Shaughnessy's point, though it's a little hard to glean through the conceit the author tries to push off on "basic writing teachers," but embraces happily at the slightly over the top call to arms at the end. Yes, the work is waiting for you. So stop writing articles that make me think of Michelle Pfeiffer rapping to a classroom full of Southern California and go teach.