Since the 1970s, legacy Basic Writing systems have survived despite growing resistance grounded in an increasing awareness of their troubling roots and harmful effects. In this article, two 2017 basic writing students and their teacher conduct a mixed-method "postmortem" examination of the now eliminated zero-credit course and writing test placement system at their university. They combine a local desegregation history, an assessment validity inquiry, and a case study of growing resistance to Basic Writing for over a decade, including their own resistance in 2017. Adapting the "root and branch" metaphor from Green v. County Board (1968), the authors analyze reforms from 2007 to 2017 that significantly trimmed the branches of a decades-old, legacy Basic Writing system-but did not root it out completely. Finally, the authors examine their own failed efforts to obtain college credit for the work they did together in 2017 and the complex ways that Basic Writing has harmed each of them.
This article presents a novel method for data collection. It relies on a larger case study of the game
League of Legends
to forward the concepts of contextual cropping and collateral data. Contextual cropping gives researchers recommendations for gathering data with screenshots while respecting the in situ ecology of that data. Contextual cropping complements screenshot data with contextual metadata and offers potential collateral data with which to further texture research.
Grading has long been the source of negative emotions in Writing Studies for teachers and students alike; these negative emotions and experiences especially affect women-identifying professors and professors of color. This poetic research study presents the found poems of writing instructors in one predominantly White Midwest US university English department; poems came from restories from participants’ interviews about how they developed as assessors of writing. The aim is to foreground lived experiences of college professors who teach undergraduate writing for a living as the field continues to explore ethical and humane ways of assessment for all involved.
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