Hierarchical conclusion

Throughout my blogs I have tried not to favour either hierarchical or collaborative forms of writing and have seen the benefits in both systems. I have advocated a dialogic process which matches the benefits of a hierarchical system with a colloborative system. Emphasising collaboration is important not just for building important business skills for after university but peer editing and one to one tutorials can improve a writers skills. Society is ultimately hierarchial and such systems always at some point restate themselves (at university this is done through grading) so emphasis on collaboration must be aimed at first-year students or at students before they come to college as Nikki suggests.

Throughout this dialogue I have found Tom's notion of an inherent voice in language misguided and have placed the emphasis on ritual. I see 'voice' as a positive affect of language which is seperate from the author, I think it is an incredibly important aspect of creative writing and I would argue that in the Gibbelins essay we have analysed the student has shown great potential for the development of 'voice'. However I again must emphasis the importance of the academic at university and consider these conditions should be met first before we continue on 'voice'.

View from the margins - conclusion

Basic writing is often the result of non-traditional students trying to adapt to a new academic language. However, our Gibbelins writer might not be considered a traditional student from the margins. She may well be a quiet, non-descript member of the average university classroom. We must be aware that students literary practices are affected by their social or educational history, and that this may set them on the margins just as much as race, gender or disability.

Awareness without stereotyping is a key issue in dealing with the prevalence of concerns that such a writer has presented in her work. We must not judge their intellect or their effort, but instead provide a range of suitable learning opportunities to stimulate both their ‘voice’ and their development from an ‘interlanguage’ to full control of academic conventions.

We have the advantage in the UK that marginalized students and basic writers are less stigmatized through being immersed in academic culture rather than separated out into basic writing programmes. However, this places a responsibility on the teacher to spot their struggles and adapt to their needs within the classroom.

Unfortunately, the field is divided on best practice for dealing with basic writing and that is why I have argued for a combination of theories and practical approaches, chosen by the teacher to address basic writing problems at both an individual and collective level.

This is something that has been borne out in the tutorials. During this semester, I have worked with a Nepalese business student struggling to adapt to a creative assignment, a young female student who was too afraid to ask questions in class, and an Asian mother in her thirties who needed reassurance that she had ‘got it right’. Each required a different approach, which suggests to me that one teaching style or stance is not the answer. However, a safe, supportive environment (fostered here by the personal connection of peer tutoring) is essential, allowing the student to have a dialogue without fear of looking stupid or getting it wrong.

On one other occasion, two Level Two writing students told me felt their ‘style’, that they had come to university to develop, was being suppressed or marked down. This shows the tension between the ‘voice’ and academic or writing genre requirements, and suggests that this tension may not be easily resolved since both hold important lessons.

My own view is that neither expressivist nor hierarchical approaches should be privileged. From personal experience, the academic language is just another language variety to learn and I think that one’s ‘voice’ emerges regardless. Nicki used music as a metaphor in her argument for applied linguistics. As a music student, I came to university to break through the predictability of my beginner’s style. Learning the difficult language of music opened up my own ‘voice’ because only then was I in control of the conventions and able to choose when to leave them behind.

In the same way, I have faith that our beginner writer will both find her voice and learn the art of writing for different audiences, whether that be a university discipline, a writing genre or her own personal narrative.

Hierarchical POV: Get that 'Voice' out of my head

In his last discussion, Tom comments that the student’s writing lacks “individuality”, that he is writing in a “pastiche” of children’s stories and promotes a question based learning in the revision process until he finds his “voice”. His comments seem to be similar to those of the Voicists (academics looking for a personal voice between the words of a text) who when examining student writing and professional texts often prefer narratives with a personal outlook[1]. As William Coles points out, the essays that receive the most positive attention from them include narratives, colourful description and impassioned belief[2]. Here we can see a conflict between the subjective and objective forms of creative and academic writing, as Voicists seem to prefer texts with dramatic/personal conventions. Ultimately if we concentrate on the idea of ‘voice’ I fear we may confuse the writer into not making the difference between the personal and the objective. We should abandon any idea of a Rousseausesque “natural language”, which suggests that words offer us direct access to the truth or a personal voice[3]. Jacques Derrida rightly points out that the words we use are not ours but exist before us. We should acknowledge David Bartholomae’s point that the “struggle of the student writer is not the struggle to bring out that which is within; it is the struggle to carry out those ritual activities that grant one entrance into a closed society”[4]. Individuality is important but ultimately what’s more important is that the student has to learn to enter into the discourse of University academia. Once this student understands these ‘rituals’ they can then manoeuvre them slightly to fit their opinion. Commenting that this writer’s writing is a “pastiche” seems odd as since students only have a 13 week period to write it and analysis it what do you expect? Surely 'pastiche' shows an awareness of the conventions of childrens writing? The problem is with their writing not the finding the voice as that has to be learnt. ‘Voice’ is a technique used to give the illusion of confidence and a student can only apply such a technique after they learnt the basics through co-operative, hierarchical and other disciplines of learning. Particular things need to be concentrated on first, such as proper academic referencing (I think its an attempt at Harvard referencing) and paragraph structure. Once these conventions have been mastered then we can worry about ‘voice’.I

In thinking about how to respond to this student’s problems, if we mark it as part of a group of work we would have to think carefully about any phrasing we would use. I believe that some standards of marking by some teachers do not benefit hierarchical systems of good writing in giving a good response. Roz Luanic, Ronny Clark and Rachel Rimmershaw in their study of Tutor’s comments on student work criticise the common use of the phrase, ‘Not sure what you mean here’ (which I have had written on my assignments many times)[5]. The problem with such a comment is that it is a one-sided dialogue as by asking what the student means the tutor is leaving it open to interpretation. Luanic, Clark and Rimmershaw suggest it would preferable to make corrections based on an assumption of what you think it means or point out if it contradicts the text. I will now use an example from our set assignment:

“Even thought children could probably cope with things like heads being chopped off, adults wanted them to be changed to protect the children. This tale has been adapted because children wouldn’t be able to understand the period of time.”

I will concentrate on the phrase ‘period of time’ here as I think it is confusing for the reader and would warrant a 'Not sure what you mean here' type comment. An example of a more suitable comment would be the following:

“Are you suggesting that children wouldn’t understand the genre of fairytales, the language in which they were written or the social conditions of the period of history its based? I assume you are talking about the period of time in which it was written but it’s not clear”.

In my example I am offering up different avenues of choice for the reader and have elaborated my problem with that comment. Through such exposition the tutor can help students improve their writing. Hierarchical/Co-operative systems only work when there is a clear flux of information from tutor to student.
Bibliography
[1] Darsie Bowden, ‘The Rise of the Metaphor; “Voice” in Composition Pedagogy’ in Rhetoric Review, Vol 1,(US:Depaul University: 1995) in Journal Storage,p.183 < http://www.jstor.org/view/07350198/ap020028/02a00100/0?searchUrl=http%3a//www.jstor.org/search/BasicResults%3fhp%3d25%26si%3d1%26Query%3dAuthorial%2bvoice&frame=noframe¤tResult=07350198%2bap020028%2b02a00100%2b0%2cEFFF01&userID=86dc3c2e@wlv.ac.uk/01cce4401e0050bdec7&dpi=3&config=jstor> [Accessed 18th May 2006]

[2] Bowden, p.183.
[3] David Bartholomae, ‘Writing Assignment: Where writing begins” in Writing on the Margins: Essays on Composition and Teaching, (USA:Palgrave Macmillian, 2005), pp.177-192 (p.185)
[4] Bartholomae, p.178.
[5] Ronny Clark, Roz Luanic, Rachel Rimmershaw, ‘What Am I supposed to Make of this? The messages conveyed to students by tutors written comments’ in Student Writing in Higher Education, (Suffolk: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press, 2000), pp.47-65. (p.58.)

View from the margins - 3

Can I begin by setting a certain older learner’s mind at rest? The Conference on Basic Writing has identified ‘re-entry students (such as displaced homemakers, older learners who are retraining, or former members of the military)’ as part of the diverse population of basic writers (Uehling, 2005, my italics). Not all older learners are basic writers in the same way that not all ESL students, socially disadvantaged or disabled learners are basic writers. Nicki asks: “If this aspect of Fiona’s thesis is incorrect, can we responsibly rely on the other assertions that she mentioned.” I hope that now you can!

I would also like to thank Nicki for bringing up the pertinent subject of stereotyping. She has positively stereotyped older re-entry students, no doubt based on her own considerable talents. I think that this shows how we all are vulnerable to making judgements about other students based on our own views. Matt, for example, assumed that the surface-level errors and lack of evidence were ‘merely the result of a lack of effort’, typical of a first-year student. Tom makes the wider assumption that process is more important than product. Here, I have used the label of basic writer – itself, an indictment of labelling educational attitudes.

We tend to think of marginalised students as somehow caught in a learning deficit because of their background, colour, ability, gender, etc. We also think of diversity and students outside ‘the norm’. We identify and label, and then we attack with our pedagogies! But this view of students on the margins is just another stereotype. Believing in it results in teachers of seemingly homogenous, traditional classrooms being ‘inclined to believe that any problems their “majority” students have in writing are the result of a lack of effort, the sign of intellectual deficiency, or a product of resistance’ (Marshall, 1997, p.231-2). Such labelling produces a kind of blindness.

What we must open our eyes to see is that marginalised students also exist in the silent corners of the average, white, middle-class, English-speaking classroom; that they may make up the majority in a classroom (Hall and Balester, 1999) without the teacher realising it. I would even suggest that we are all non-traditional students in our own way, needing to discover our own best practice to learn. Isn’t that why we are all arguing here – because we all have our own views on the best way for this student to develop, most likely based on our own experiences of learning?

Marshall is trying to prepare new teachers like ourselves and challenge our pre-conceptions. Imposing our own pedagogies, no matter how well argued, may be flawed if we do not recognise that all our students bring their own histories and problems into their literary practices. The fight that this particular student faces, with her ‘interlanguage’ (and possibly ‘interdialect’, given some of the peculiarities of phrasing), is that her marker may well see her writing as riddled with error and make assumptions, such as Matt’s ‘lack of effort’.

This dialogue is perhaps more about how we personally, as beginner teachers, approach our students than the pros and cons of different pedagogies. Mina Shaughnessy states a similar aim in Errors and Expectations:

“[This book] assumes that programs are not the answers to the learning problems of students but that teachers are and that, indeed, good teachers create good programs, that the best programs are developed in situ, in response to the needs of individual student populations and as reflections of the particular histories and resources of individual colleges” (Shaughnessy, 1977, p.6).

I would suggest that this efficacy can only come with practice, with a range of pedagogical tools to hand, and an awareness of our own controlling perceptions. Therefore, sticking to one particular stance is risky business - not for the teacher but for the student.

References

Kells, Michelle Hall, and Balester, Valerie. (eds.) (1999) Attending to the Margins: Writing, Researching, and Teaching on the Front Lines. Portsmouth (New Hampshire): Heinemann-Boynton/Cook.

Marshall, Margaret, J. (1997) Marking the Unmarked: Reading Student Diversity and Preparing Teachers. CCC 48(2), pp.231-248.

Shaughnessy, Mina, P. (1977) Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing. New York: Oxford University Press.

Uehling, Karen. S. (2005) The Conference on Basic Writing: 1980-2005. Adapted from Histories of Developmental Education. Lundell, D.B. and Higbee, J.L. (eds.) Minneapolis: Center for Research on Developmental Education and Urban Literacy, 2002). Available on the internet at >http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/basicbib/content/conference.html<

Hierarchial POV: In Response

I agree with Fiona’s recommendation that a hybrid of different academic tasks (including essays and blogs) would help develop a writer’s confidence. A continuing assessment of an informal blog/letter allows the student to synthesize knowledge through a personal writing style. As Richard Larson states “our responsibility is to control and vary the rhetorical demands of writing tasks to give students practice in adjusting relationships among writer, reader and subject”[1]. Such a sequence has a cumulative effect on the reader as the writer will be forced to consider the difference between the personal and the impersonal. To increase the benefit of this system all tasks need to be structured so new assignments grow out of old ones. As soon as a student grows accustomed to the main arguments of specific subject they can then summarise and comment on them through the inclusion and exclusion of material.

Notions of a writer’s ‘voice’ should be considered in the context of a collaborative writing process as a voice is not something that is innate in a text but is something that is learnt through experience and is in constant development. If we use Carol McGagary’s concept of integrative collaboration we can see this disclipline as using both the advantages of a hierarchical/dialogic binary[2]. In this disclipline we can see peoples roles changing and overlapping in the process, such a process need not necessarily only apply to group work but also in how the student interacts with the teacher. This dialogic process need not necessarily undermine the autonomy of the teacher, as through peer editing and one-one tutorials a writer can engage in expressing his opinions on texts in an informal context. Without dialogue there is no development but this has to go both ways as the tutor has to be open to new ideas. If the student feels restricted in this mode then he perhaps has to learn to work with other people, a skill which when learnt will prove beneficial when the student goes to work in the job market. Often during the studying for my Paradise Lost dissertation I often came upon references to teachers being influenced by the informal opinions of students (particulary I am with thinking of William Empson) so I would argue that an integretative collaboration is a two-way process. In fact this piece of work we are all doing is an example of this, in that we (or more specifically Tom) asked our tutor to adapt our group project.

To further Nikki’s comments about students achieving greater satisfaction by considering the audience, we should extend this idea to acknowledge the actual reason that most students are at university. As when examining this student’s work we must also consider how the development of these skills is important for developing skills necessary for business and industry. The benefits of perfecting these skills at university are extremely important and must be considered across the curriculum. When Lisa Ade and Andrea Lunsford surveyed university graduates within the workplace, they found that 87% of them said that most of the writing they do is as a member of a team or group and not individual. Other studies have reinforced this idea and found that group writing yields better results in industry and in worker’s individual writing[3]. Of course in this specific case this task can only be done individually but I’m suggesting that Universities should impose it on students to attend group seminar groups and tutorials by making attendenance important for whether or not they pass or not. The benefits of co-operative writing should be stressed more in first year to increase student’s abilities and this type of writing could be improved.

Bibliography

[1] Quoted in Elizabeth Rankin, From Simple to Complex: Ideas of Order in Assignment Sequences, (US:< http://jac.gsu.edu/jac/10/Articles/10.htm>, 1990) para 2.
[2] Quoted in Talitha May, An Overview of PRP Collaborative Writing, (US:< ,2005">http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/students/writing/prpguide.pdf#search='Hierarchical%20writing'>,2005), p.2
[3] Vidya Singh-Gupta, Eileen Troutt-Ervin, Preparing Students for Teamwork through Collaborative Writing and Peer Review Techniques, (US:< http://www.ncte.org/library/files/Publications/Journals/tetyc/1996/ty2302pr.html?source=gs>, 1996), para 6-7

View from the margins - 2

‘Let’s encourage discovery first and technique will follow naturally,’ says Tom. If this were true, we would have little need of Rhetoric and Composition classes!

This is not to rule out expressivism, however. ‘Voice’ is important for motivating and developing confidence in a writer, and, indeed, may be particularly useful for marginalised students who may feel their voice is restricted by cultural differences in the writing classroom. The danger here is that separating writing from context may result in solipsism, in which the personal writing produced may not be appropriate for the purpose (UTA Hypernews, 1996).

Engaging with this particular student may require a teacher to draw on several pedagogies. Expressivist methods would suit her in that a basic writer is often already aware that she is a weak writer (Butler, 1987), and needs to develop the confidence not to be ‘scared off’ by errors and academic expectations. Hierarchical teaching, meanwhile, may be useful at Level One to help the transition from school to university. Writing for separate discourse communities, for example, is a skill that incoming students often need help with and this may be achieved by passing on expert knowledge via a teacher or peer tutor. Kells and Balester (1999), for example, suggest combining the needs of a student to learn academic discourse by drawing on their personal experience.

In some ways, this stance represents the two primary discourses in the field of basic writing: critical discourse, such as expressivism and other theory-based approaches, versus the iconic discourse of the heroic teacher-figure that is ‘the troubling legacy of Mina Shaughnessy’ (Gunner, 1998, p.25). I contend that we must adapt to the individual’s needs rather than employing a pedagogy which constrains either the subject’s ‘voice’, via iconic approaches, or the context, via critical discourse. In fact, Lu (1987) argues that teachers should actively avoid employing only one kind of discourse.

This translates into practical options, which offer teacher-led, peer-based and direct empowerment of the writer. For example:

- hybrid approaches, such as we have seen at Wolverhampton with mixed form assignments blending academic essays with non-academic blogs;

- letters, which are less formal but encourage personal engagement and non-error-based re-writing, are directed to an audience, serve as useful teacher-student dialogue and feedback, and also offer a means of acculturation for non-traditional students (Sweeney, 2005);

- performance, where in-class speaking and reading is used to build up familiarity with standard forms through peer group work (Labov, 1970);

- peer editing, which may be less damaging to self-esteem and offer a more supportive atmosphere for learning;

- one-to-one conferences, which offer a personal connection, a safe learning environment for the student, and the opportunity to address individual needs. All of my tutorial students have been too embarrassed to ask their teacher for clarification of assignment criteria, for example.

To reiterate, marginal students need help for a multitude of reasons: an ESL student may have found his voice but is struggling with the language and needs sentence-level tutoring (Blau and Hall, 2002), whereas a female Asian student (as in my mock tutorial) might be excellent academically but lacks confidence and needs help in finding her own voice.

My point is that the writing teacher needs a full toolbox of pedagogies to choose from - not just one.


References

Blau, Susan, and Hall, John. (2002) Guilt-free Tutoring: Rethinking How We Tutor Non-Native-English-Speaking Students. The Writing Center Journal 23(1), pp.23-44.

Butler, J. (1987) Remedial Writers: The Teacher’s Job as Corrector of Papers. in Enos, Theresa (ed.) A Sourcebook for Basic Writing Teachers. New York: Random House, 1987. 557–64.

Gunner, Jeanne. (1998) Iconic Discourse: The Troubling Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy. Journal of Basic Writing 17(2), pp.25-42.

Horner, Bruce, and Lu, Min-Zhan. (1999) Representing the "Other": Basic Writers and the Teaching of Basic Writing. Urbana (Illinois): National Council of Teachers of English.

Kells, Michelle Hall, and Balester, Valerie. (eds.) (1999) Attending to the Margins: Writing, Researching, and Teaching on the Front Lines. Portsmouth (New Hampshire): Heinemann-Boynton/Cook.

Labov, William. (1970) The Study of Non-Standard English. Urbana (Illinois): National Council of Teachers of English.

Lu, Min-Zhan (1987). From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle. CE (College English) 49(April 1987), pp.437–48.

Sweeney, Linda. (1995) Strategies for Working with Developmental Students: Put it in a Letter. Learning Center Newsletter [online]. Florida: Engineerica Systems, Inc. >http://www.learningassistance.com/2005/december/<

UTA Hypernews (1996) [online] Brooke, Collin. Arlington: University of Texas, 7th September 1996 [cited 16th May 2006]. Expressive Processes: Expressive Pedagogies discussion subject. Available from the Internet: >http://www.uta.edu/HyperNews/get/delgua/2/1/3.html<

Hierarchial POV

In analysing this text I concur with you both that the spelling errors and lack of substantial evidence in the analysis are merely the result of a lack of effort a student puts into a first year assignment and the pupil shouldn’t be judged too harshly for these. Most of the spelling problems I’d guess are due to an absent-minded approach to the ‘change’ button in the spell check e.g. wheat, there. Such problems could be overcome early if the pupil merely read the text out loud.

Such an activity may also reveal a global problem in the form of hierarchical structure, as the paragraphs tend to read like lists rather then structured arguments. More like ticking the boxes then having any serious thought applied to them. I’m using Willis L. Pitkin, Jr’s definition of operation of discourse[1] to analyse multiple base clauses in the texts such as

“Young children are active explorers and thinkers. They identify easily with events and people in literature. They can relate to what they hear or read through their own experiences (Jacobs 1978). The Hoard of the Gibbelins was a Victorian Tale”

The use of conjunctive verbs in this passage would of made the text flow easier rather then the staggered (almost gunshot) approach of short succinct sentences. The first sentence sets up the topic well for the following two lines but the third line should clearly be subordinate to the second. The forth sentence sounds like it should be a different paragraph and seems tagged on. Despite some mistakes in the story and analysis, I do think praise should be given for the pupil’s clarity of expression. But I think his sentence structure could improve if he had a hierarchical plan and was able to write a more linear argument.

A good idea for a plan would be Richard L Lacan’s idea of a Linear Rhetoric which “views discourse as a succession of steps taken in a temporal sequence (section by section, paragraph by paragraph)”[2] As the writer is still learning to write at a university level I would recommend them to decide propositions and conclusions in advance of writing so they can create a linear argument through the text. As the writer also seems to be full of good ideas I’d also recommend perhaps the technique of making two plans for two separate arguments in assignments and then putting them together in combination.

[1] Willis L. Pitkin, , ‘Hierarchies and the discourse hierarchy’ in J Stor.org (http://www.jstor.org/view/00100994/ap020292/02a00030/0?currentResult=00100994%2bap020292%2b02a00030%2b0%2cA61E&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D1%26Query%3DHierarchical%2Bwriting> Accessed 10th May 2006)
[2] Richard L Lacan, ‘Toward a Linear Rhetoric of the Essay’ in J Stor.org, (,< http://www.jstor.org/view/0010096x/ap020094/02a00030/0?currentResult=0010096x%2bap020094%2b02a00030%2b0%2cE6&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D1%26Query%3DHierarchical%2Bwriting> Accessed 5th May 2006) p.141

View from the margins - 1

The story adaptation and analysis essay suggests that this student is ill-prepared for university and the requirements of academic discourse. Problems can be seen at both local and global levels. Poor grammar, sentence and paragraph construction, informal and dialectical language, phonetic spelling, repeated words, tautologies and incorrect homonyms, all demonstrate a wide variety of local concerns. Problems with narrative structure, rhetorical issues and framing a coherent, supported analysis evidence some of the global issues.

The prevalence of concerns indicates that we are dealing with a basic writer. In addition, basic writers commonly focus on personal experience, clichéd maxims and attending stylistic features (Lunsford, 1980). Textual examples include: personal opinions cited as evidence such as ‘…children could probably cope with things like heads being chopped off’; maxims like ‘…children like adventure’ and ‘…children have short attention spans’; and use of personal pronouns such as ‘You have to be very specific in the way you write things’.

This is not to say that the student lacks intelligence; rather that the pedagogical approach requires awareness and sensitivity. The question here is how best to respond to this writer in order to encourage her progress. The answer lies, initially, in attaining an understanding of the issues surrounding basic writing.

The term ‘basic writer’ has taken over from remedial, developmental or illiterate but has itself developed condescending connotations (Bloom, 1995). It is most often associated with marginalised students: speakers of a different language or dialect, those with learning disabilities, older learners trying to retrain, traditional-age students coming from disadvantaged or erratic prior educations, and so on. However, a more general definition of the basic writer for our purpose is of ‘those who are least well prepared for college’ (Bizzell, 1986).

Composition researchers like Patricia Bizzell, Mike Rose and David Bartholomae have acknowledged the difficult transition such students face in adapting to formal university writing. However, their research centres on American universities where composition and rhetoric is taught, and basic writing programmes are available. Here in the UK, basic writers must fend for themselves within the general academic community. This has its advantage in that the student is less likely to be stigmatised while learning opportunities may be created through familiarisation with academic culture – Bartholomae (1985), for example, argues for an immersion in academic discourse. However, this puts the teacher under considerable pressure to decide best practice in a field of study that is highly conflicted (cf. The Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Basic Writing, which offers 321 separate reviews of book, articles and periodicals on basic writing).

What we have here is a student who has created what Bartholomae (1980) calls an ‘interlanguage’: a fusion of what she has learned of academic discourse so far and her own personal language and dialect. One technique for addressing this would be to ask the student to read their work aloud and Bartholomae demonstrates how a student will often self-correct as they read. This empowers the teacher to take a positive stance towards errors and initiate a discussion of the reasons behind them. Others would argue for a more direct empowerment of the basic writer and several approaches to this will be discussed in due course.

References

Bartholomae, D. (1980) The Study of Error. CCC 31(October 1980), pp.253–69.

Bartholomae, D. (1985) Inventing the University, in Rose, M (ed.) When a Writer Can't Write: Studies in Writer's Block and Other Composing-Process Problems. New York: Guilford, pp.134-65.

Bloom, Lynn Z. (1995) A Name with a View. Journal of Basic Writing, 14(1), pp.7-14.

Bizzell, Patricia (1986) What Happens When Basic Writers Come to College? College Composition and Communication, 37(3), pp.294-301.

Lunsford, Andrea A. (1980) The Content of Basic Writers' Essays. CCC 31(October 1980), pp.278–90.

The Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Basic Writing (2005) 2nd Ed. Adler-Kassner, L. and Glau, G.R. (eds.) New York: Bedford/St Martins.

The Assignment

The Assignment.

The adventure of the Gibbelins treasure

It was a fierce stormy day outside, and the trees were shaking from side to side like someone was pushing them. James, Mark and Emily were all very bored in the house. They lived with only there father. Their father had rushed out on an emergency at work and told them they weren’t allowed to leave the house because of the weather. James was left in charge as he is the oldest at thirteen. Mark was ten and Emily was eight. James found it very difficult because Mark and Emily were very bored from being locked up in the house and started to have a play fight. It got out of hand and a vase was broken. It was one of there dads birthday presents. James pushed Mark off of Emily into the basement door. The door swung open. Their father had always told them never to go down there. The three of them all looked at the stairs leading down to the bottom of the basement. Then James and Mark started to walk down them while Emily stood at the top urging them not to. They didn’t listen to her and carried on walking down the stairs. Emily ran down after them because she didn’t want to miss out. As they were looking through the old things down there they cam across a map. It said at the top of it The hoard of the Gibbelins. They all could remember their grandfather telling them a story about the gibblens treasure before they used to go to bed. All they could remember was that many people tried to find this treasure but never succeeded. Mark and Emily believe that the treasure is still there, whereas James told them not to be silly and there is no such thing and to all go back upstairs. Emily decides that she is going to take the map and find the treasure herself. Mark says that he can find it quicker than her. James listening to their conversation who has always been very competitive decides he is up for the challenge, so they all set off in a race to find the treasure. Emily rushes off on her pink bike and heads up to the coast where the treasure is meant to be. Just as she reaches the coast there was a nail on the path and punchers her wheel on her bike. She then has a look around and realises that she is lost. She sits on the floor and starts to cry and waits for one of her brothers to find her. Shortly after she had left Mark rushed off sprinting down the road. Mark was a very fast runner and had won two gold medals at his last sports day. As he runs he doesn’t realise the he’s laces are coming lose. He then tripped and grazed he knee that started to blood slightly. He then sat on the floor like Emily and waited to see one of the other to. James left the house last out of the three on his skate board. He loved his skate board and took it everywhere with him. He was going so fast he didn’t see the sticks in from of him. They got caught up in the wheels and he went flying forward. As he fell on the floor he could hear Emily crying just round the corner. He went to see her and gave her a big hug. The both decided to go home. They weren’t walking for long when they came across Mark sitting on the floor. His knee had stopped bleeding at this point. Mark decided to join them walking home. When they got back to the house they were only there for five minutes where there father pulled up in the car. They all realised his vase was broken. There dad walked in and saw the vase smashed on the floor. They all ran up and hugged him and said that they were really sorry. There father turned round and said its ok I wanted to get rid of it anyway, and so they all laughed. There father then said that because he felt bad for leaving them earlier he had bought them all ice cream to say sorry. They all decide that the ice cream was the treasure after all.

The End







The Adventure of the Gibbelins Treasure is an adaptation of the original tale, The hoard of the Gibbelins. This adaptation still focuses on them ail plot The hoard of the Gibbelins, but has been made modernised and is more suitable for use at this present time. The adaptation is about two brothers and a sister all being told about the tale by their grandfather, and then all going on their separate adventures to see if the Gibbelins treasure really did exist. The original tale was written in Victorian times and for older children. However, children in Victorian times were made to act a lot older than what they really were and even looked older. The Hoard of the Gibbelins in this case would probably have been suitable for young children in that time. Children today are more like children rather than young adults. The adventure of the Gibbelins treasure has been written for children in the age range of five to seven. The language is a lot simpler than the original story and more appropriate for children in this age. Children’s attention span is not very long. They need to be interested in what is being read or otherwise they will simply switch off. This is why the language is simpler. Children today would not understand the language and the words that were used in The Hoard of the Gibbelins. The title of the story has been adapted because children like adventure and the title really needs to catch there eye.

There has been a lot of research into children’s literature. It is very hard to write for children. Some say it’s harder to write for children than what it is to write for adults. You have to be very specific in the way you write things and be very careful wheat you write about It is important the child is interested in what is written or otherwise they will not want to read it. Literature opens doors for thinking and feeling. Children enjoy the experience of standing some else’s shoes (Jacobs, 1978). In The Adventure of the Gibbelins treasure, the child can experience the adventure that is being told and enjoy it from someone else’s point of view. Young children are active explores and thinkers. They identify easily with events and people in literature. They can relate to what they hear or read through their own experiences (Jacobs, 1978). The Hoard of the Gibbelins was a Victorian tale. These tales centuries ago were very different and usually written for adults. These were then adapted to what is known as fairy tales, for children to read. They had been adapted for a younger audience so that children can identify easily with the events that have taken place. Even though children could probably cope with things like heads being chopped off, adults wanted them to be changed to protect the children. This tale has been adapted because children wouldn’t be able to understand the period of time.

The original story of The Hoard of the Gibbelins is written in an omniscient point of view. This is where the narrator knows everything about the characters and the story. Many writers do not recommend using this style of point of view, for example Tessa Krailing. Krailing suggests that this type of narration has no reader involvement and does not recommend it for writing for children (Krailing, 1988). As it was said earlier, children have short attention spans and need to be interested. If omniscient point of view does not involve the reader, how could you expect a child of five to seven to stay interested? It can be argued that many children’s books are written in this style, for example Harry Potter. These books, however, are written for older children and adults rather than children of the age’s five to seven. You would not expect a child of this age to be able to read a book like this. The adventure of the Gibbelins treasure has been adapted to a third person objective point of view. This point of view is where the narrator can only relate to reader what he has seen or heard. This is more suitable for children as it keeps them interested and involved. Third person point of view was also chosen as it is very hard to write in first person especially when writing for children as they can become very confused.




References

JACOBS, L.B. (1978) Using Literature with young children. New York: Teachers College press. P.31.

JACOBS. L.B. (1978) Using Literature with young children. New York: Teachers College press. P.33.
KRAILING. T. (1988) How to write for children. London: Allison and Busby, Ltd. P.29.

Okay I'm in I'll have a post up here tomorrow
Matt M

Hey, Mat, welcome home...

You should, like the rest of the flock, be able to edit everyone's post now. Try it and see.

To all:

I'm going to post the intro 5pm on Friday if all runs smoothly, so anything you have before that deadline will be great, landlubbers. Cruss thum fungers.

Tom.