Some teaching strategies grow out of the curricula educators inherit or develop through professional reading; others originate in the aromatic humus of their autobiographies. This article presents a proposal that has its origins in the latter. The author recognized that what delights her in prose or poetry is the figurative language a writer uses…

Critical analysis of the literacy narrative assignment within the context of the other genres in a basic writing course complicates understandings of the political import of the assignment. While several advocates of the literacy narrative have argued that it has the power of what Jean-François Lyotard has called petits récits, the authors argue…

In "A New World: Redefining the Legacy of Min-Zhan Lu"(JBW 27.2, Fall 2008), Brian Ray revisits the controversy that emerged in the early 1990s in response to critiques of the iconic Mina Shaughnessy made by Min-Zhan Lu. He offers a reading of the debate that focuses on common ground between the two sides through a metaphor of linguistic charity…

This article examines how institutions of higher education conflate moral and descriptive terms for good, bad, remedial, and basic writing students. It outlines some of the social and historical developments that have led to exclusionary admissions and curricular requirements, and identifies how Christian institutions are complicit in these…

Using diverse texts to critically examine America's melting pot ideal supports basic writing students' successful matriculation through rhetorically and socially challenging locations. This paper is a pedagogical study of a basic writing (BW) classroom in which students grappled with America's "melting pot" metaphor. The theme of the course…

Researchers use images of outsiders and insiders to distinguish basic writers from students more proficient with the demands of academic discourse and academic culture. For example, David Bartholomae examines how outsiders rely on unelaborated commonplaces to define their interpretations while insiders elaborate and work against their…