Mina Shaughnessy Diving In

“Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing” by Mina Shaughnessy In this article, Shaughnessy argues that educators need to start examining their own teaching and learning processes and the complex and contextual needs of their students, instead of focusing on what students can be doing differently. She points out that basic writing students are not behind and need to “catch up” to any particular level, but there must been a more effective means of communication needs to be established between the students and teachers (291). Shaughnessy presents four stages of development as a basic writer instructor and explains how educators move through these stages before becoming competent to teach basic writing. The first stage called “Guarding the …show more content…
They argue that there are five key principles that underlie the various critical approaches to teaching basic writers. These principles included assuming all students are capable of learning, engage students in student-centered work, address “higher order” issues alongside “lower-ordered” issues, integrate academic writing and reading instruction, and embrace the conflict between what they already know and what they need to learn (21). Mutnick and Lamos suggest that there are four major basic writer pedagogical approaches that go with theoretical changes since its conception. One of the four approaches is error centered, which is based on Shaughnessy’s theory of the logic of errors. They focus on the student’s errors he/she produces, view Standard Written English as “normative and neutral rather than ideological and culturally biased” and are still used to help students learn grammar conventions (22). Secondly, Academic-initiation approaches integrate reading and writing, hold basic writer students to the same expectations as “regular” students, defined by discourse theories rather than cognitive view of error, have a three-step process of comprehension, interpretation, and application, and Bartholomae’s theory of academic socialization underlies these approaches. Thirdly, critical approaches focus on “reforming unjust relations of power and privilege”, view the basic writer as having been “marginalized by mainstream societal exclusions and inequities with respect to race, class, gender, sexuality, language, and culture” (25).