Basic Writing in the 21st Century

Basic Writing in the 21st Century offers a cutting-edge survey of basic writing practices, issues, and scholarship as well as a much-needed resource for all writing instructors and scholars. The book’s thirty-three original essays―written by emerging scholars, mid-career professionals, and established and award-winning scholars―offer rich, varied discussions of concerns that typically receive far too little attention in basic writing as well as writing studies altogether. Topics include ableism and accessibility, queer perspectives on teaching and learning, translingualism, teaching multilingual writers, and the impact of institutional landscapes on teaching and learning. Bookended by intriguing overviews of legacy scholars’ contributions and compelling, experience-based teaching/learning narratives, this truly significant book represents contemporary practices and current perspectives while also being certain to stand the test of time.

Timely and thought-provoking. This collection reframes the formative era of basic writing scholarship within a context of critique, revision, and expansion. It shows why basic writing inquiry―and the committed scholars it attracts―will always be the lifeblood of our field. And it serves as a guidebook for a new generation of teachers and scholars who want to understand how to make a difference. ― Deborah Brandt, Professor Emerita of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The breadth of Basic Writing in the 21st Century is breathtaking. The authors span the history and currency of basic writing, oldtimers to relative newcomers, their scholarship, research, pedagogy, and personal stories: history, theory, philosophy, politics (from the politics we carry in ourselves, from the world to the small, rural college, university to community college), the pedagogies that have stood the tests of time to pedagogies that tell of these times, tools for the classroom (physical and digital). Fifty years of basic writing in one collection, fifty years of continuous struggle to keep the foot in the institutional door. This is a critically important collection. ― Victor Villanueva, Regents Professor & Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts, Washington State University

Dr. Laura Gray-Rosendale is Professor of English, President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow, and former Director of Writing for STAR (Successful Transition and Academic Readiness)―a program that supports “at-risk” students, at Northern Arizona University.

Dr. Barbara Gleason is Professor of English, Director of the MA in Language & Literacy and former Director of Composition in The City College of New York English Department.