Overall, I found the Journal of Basic Writing to very particular to my field of interest.
This journal addresses many of my own concerns as an instructor of basic writing. It reminds me of when I was a young mother, and I sought out parenting magazines to help me have confidence in my decisions and to understand where I still need to grow.
In particular, there is a passage in the article “Student Reflection and Critical Thinking: A Rhetorical Analysis of 88 Portfolio Cover Letters” which helped me look at how I have my students construct reflective writing:
“Reflective writing seems to be an accepted disciplinary way of encouraging critical thinking in basic writers and indeed in all first-year composition students. If students look back on their work reflectively and attempt to see what they have learned from the writing process, this information can be vital to improving their skills as writers and thinkers. “Becoming aware of your thought processes,” according to Swartz and Perkins, is the first step toward achieving metacognition or thinking about thinking (quoted in Barell) 258. Reflective writing also encourages students to highlight the reasons behind their choices and to describe how those choices affected their writing.” Laurel L. Bower
After reading this, I acknowledged the effectiveness and power of reflection for a student. The article also cites the drawbacks from a reflective letter in that a letter does not comprehensively address a reflection student’s experiences. This outcome from the study affirmed my belief in a reflective essay as opposed to a letter.
The beginning of the article “Linguistic Cultural Capital and Basic Writers,” the author Charlotte Brammer compares the protagonist, Jay Gatsby, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby to basic writing students. Jay Gatsby, in spite of his acquired wealth, existed on the periphery of society. Basic writing students of exist on the periphery of the society of writers. This comparison illuminated the shortcomings of being a basic writer and the outsiderness of this group. I feel much more empathy for the students since reading this article.
On the other hand, some articles focused on ESL basic writers, and I don’t have too much to do with ESL students generally. Perhaps there are about 2-4 in each class I teach. I tended to overlook those articles, except for the article, “The Power of Academic Learning Communities” by Rebecca Williams Mlynarczk and Marcia Babbitt. They focus particularly on a Student-Centered pedagogy, which, I believe would be very effective for the few ESL students that I have. I realize I need to do more to incorporate their learning perspectives and styles into my teaching program.
