Literacy Crisis and Color-Blindness: The Problematic … racial discrimination in education and the...

W125

l a m o s / l i t e r a c y c r i s i s a n d c o l o r - b l i n d n e s s

CCC 61:2 / deCember 2009

Steve Lamos

Literacy Crisis and Color-Blindness: The Problematic Racial Dynamics of Mid-1970s Language and Literacy Instruction for “High-Risk” Minority Students

This article argues that mid-1970s discourses of literacy crisis prompted a problematic shift toward color-blind ideologies of language and literacy within both disciplinary and institutional discussions of writing instruction for “high-risk” minority students. It further argues that this shift has continuing import for contemporary antiracist writing instruction.

The mid-1970s would find many members of the U.S. mainstream increas-ingly worried that societal troubles—the war in Vietnam, the pending energy crisis, the Watergate scandal, and other woes—were threatening the status of the United States as “hegemonic power of the West” (Genovese 61) and leav-ing it in a “weaker, less-independent position than at any time in the previous twenty-five years” (61). At the same time, the mid-1970s would also find many mainstream whites concerned that such general societal troubles were being exacerbated by an overemphasis on issues of race and racism as prompted by the civil rights movement and other race-based reform efforts of the late 1960s and early 1970s. As racial theorists Michael Omi and Howard Winant

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 125 12/14/09 5:39 PM

selson

Text Box

Copyright © 2009 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

W126

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

argue, many whites at the time would begin to insist that such efforts had produced a kind of “reverse racism” in which “whites were now the victims of racial discrimination in education and the job market . . . . In attempting to eliminate racial discrimination, the state went too far. It legitimated group rights, established affirmative action mandates, and spent money on a range of social programs which, according to the right, debilitated rather than uplifted, its target populations” (117).

In turn, mainstream white fears regarding both the general decline of the U.S. social order and the specific instability of U.S. racial order would manifest themselves within one of the most widely discussed higher educational issues of the mid-1970s—the so-called literacy crisis. A number of mainstream journal-ists, scholars, and politicians would insist repeatedly during this time that U.S. students’ language and literacy abilities had precipitously declined as a function of late-1960s and early-1970s educational experimentation in general and race-based educational experimentation in particular. They would further insist that the only cure for such crisis was a swift and decisive abandonment of all such experimentation in favor of a return to the linguistic and literate “basics”—i.e., training in “standard” English and grammatical correctness—while eschewing any and all attention to unnecessary political issues such as race.1

A number of contemporary composition theorists have usefully noted the problematic implications of such literacy crisis discourse. Ira Shor, for instance, has characterized such discourse as part of a general effort to “help restore order in language, school and society . . . [an] order that was in everybody’s interest, not simply in favor of the elite, so the reasoning went” (66). John Trimbur has suggested that talk of literacy crisis served as a crucial catalyst for “an antidemo-cratic attack on the educational reforms of the 1960s and 1970s, an offensive to stop affirmative-action, remedial, and equal-opportunity programs in higher education and to firm up the meritocracy in order to consolidate the privileges of middle-class and upper middle-class students” (283). Scott Wible, too, has suggested that such literacy crisis discourse blamed attention to non-white language and literacy practices within U.S. classrooms for “drain[ing] educa-tional resources and hasten[ing] academic decline” (464) in ways that would prompt many to advocate for a color-blind, back-to-basics mentality (465).

My aim in this article is both to echo and extend these important critiques of literacy crisis discourse. I do so by describing and analyzing the impact of such discourse on disciplinary and institutional discussions of one of the most popular and widespread attempts by predominantly-white colleges and uni-versities in the United States to develop and implement language and literacy

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 126 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W127


instruction for non-white and non-mainstream students—the “high-risk” educational program movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This high-risk movement was embodied in a variety of programs—Educational Opportunity Programs (EOPs), open admissions programs, various “basic writing” programs, and others—each ostensibly designed to “make higher education available to low-income and minority-group students who lack the credentials—but not the qualities—to succeed in college” (Egerton 7). While I certainly believe that the high-risk movement was initially conceived as a mechanism through which to offer progressive race-based educational opportunity to non-white and non-mainstream students, I argue throughout this article that such opportunity was significantly undermined during the mid-1970s by the proliferation of literacy crisis discourse and its problematic stance toward issues of race and racism. Such proliferation, I claim, would shift the emphasis of both discussions within composition and English Studies publications and discussions within specific high-risk programs away from the critical interrogation of the racist status quo and toward its outright acceptance and promulgation.

I begin here by characterizing quickly some of the key ways in which literacy crisis concerns would prompt a shift from race-consciousness to color-blindness within mid-1970s disciplinary discussions of high-risk language and literacy instruction occurring in composition and English Studies. Next, I demonstrate the ways in which such color-blind literacy crisis discourse would shape institutional discussions of high-risk instruction within one particular high-risk program operating during this time, the “Educational Opportunity Program” Rhetoric program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in ways that profoundly reconfigured its philosophy, practice, and structure. Finally, I speculate briefly about the potential value of such analysis for contem-porary disciplinary and institutional discussions of the language and literacy needs of marginalized minority students.

Disciplinary Discussions of High-Risk Language and Literacy Instruction: From Race-Consciousness to Color-BlindnessThe flurry of civil rights activity and race-conscious college and university protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s would prompt a large number of predominantly white colleges and universities across the United States to develop and implement high-risk programs: a 1971 survey of approximately 1,200 predominantly white institutions conducted by Reuben R. McDaniel Jr. and James W. McKee identifies nearly six hundred full-blown high-risk educa-tional programs at predominantly-white colleges and universities in addition

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 127 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W128

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

to another three hundred or so programs featuring at least some basic level of services (1). Accompanying such widespread program development would be a range of scholarship in composition and English Studies journals exploring high-risk program philosophy, practice, and structure with respect to issues of race, racism, language, and literacy. As the CCCC’s widely circulated and highly influential 1974 “Students’ Right to Their Own Language” (SRTOL) document would suggest in its introductory section, the “social upheavals of the 1960’s” and the “insistence of submerged minorities on a greater share of the Ameri-can society” (1) were prompting scholars and teachers in composition and English Studies to grapple with a fundamental question throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s: “what should the schools do about the language habits of students who come from a wide variety of social, economic, and cultural backgrounds?” (1).

One prominent group of scholars and teachers working during this time would attempt to answer this question through what I would like to character-ize as a “race-conscious” ideology of language and literacy, one fundamentally concerned both with cultivating the extant language and literacy skills of stu-dents and with cultivating non-racist institutional environments for students. As one example of a text espousing such race-consciousness, consider the SRTOL statement itself (first presented in a special Autumn 1974 issue of CCC).

After offering a fair amount of background information describing what dialects are, the SRTOL offers a series of recommendations regarding what high-risk language and literacy programs should do to assure that nonwhite and nonmainstream students can in fact realize their right to their own language. With respect to issues of reading, for instance, the SRTOL insists that we con-cerned scholars and teachers should “structure and select materials geared to complex reading problems and oriented to the experience and sophistication of our students” rather than simply “confin[ing] ourselves to the constricting and ultimately ineffectual dialect readers designed for the ‘culturally deprived’” (7). As the resolution then reiterates, “we should not be so much interested in changing our students’ dialect as in improving their command of the reading process” (8). In turn, with respect to issues of writing, the resolution recom-mends a number of things: that “if we name the essential functions of writing as expressing oneself, communicating information and attitudes, and discover-ing meaning through both logic and metaphor, then we view variety of dialects as an advantage” (8); that “[i]f we can convince our students that spelling, punctuation, and usage are less important than content, we have removed a major obstacle in their developing the ability to write” (8); and that, while “we

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 128 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W129


do not condone ill-organized, imprecise, undefined, inappropriate writing in any dialect . . . we are especially distressed to find sloppy writing approved so long as it appears with finicky correctness in ‘school standard’ while vigorous and thoughtful statements in less prestigious dialects are condemned” (9). And, finally, with respect to issues of literacy beyond the immediate writing classroom, the statement suggests that teachers and theorists working within high-risk programs consider both carefully and critically the ways in which race-based change might apply to a range of issues including “standardized testing” (e.g., “[i]deally, until standardized tests fair to students from all back-grounds can be developed, they should not be used for admitting, placing, or labeling students” [12]); writing “in courses other than English” (e.g., “what is needed . . . in all departments is a better understanding of the nature of dialect and shift in attitudes towards it” [13]); writing in the workplace (e.g., “English teachers who feel they are bound to accommodate the linguistic prejudices of current employers perpetuate a system that is unfair to both students who have job skills and to the employers who need them” [14]); and, finally, teacher training (e.g., urging teachers to “ratify their book knowledge of language by living as minority speakers . . . wholly immersed in a dialect group other than their own” [18]).

Across each of these recommendations, we can see the SRTOL arguing that language and literacy instruction must be geared toward recognizing and cultivating nonwhite and nonmainstream students’ existing strengths, not simply toward forcing students to utilize typical white mainstream standards in writing and speech. The SRTOL insists quite vehemently that instruction ought to focus on “improving [students’] command of the reading process”; it insists that writing instruction should not aim toward stressing “finicky correctness in ‘school standard,’” at least not “while vigorous and thoughtful statements in less prestigious dialects are condemned”; finally, it insists that testing programs, non-English disciplinary environments, work environments, and teacher training programs all be reconsidered so as to acknowledge and cultivate students’ existing strengths rather than dwell exclusively upon their perceived weaknesses. In each of these ways, the SRTOL itself insists that race-conscious thinking about student literacy needs and the institutional contexts in which these needs are addressed must occur if students are going to be successfully educated for the future.

Evident, then, across this SRTOL document (as well as in the work of many other race-conscious theorists at the time that space concerns preclude me from discussing2) is a clear insistence that issues of race and racism need

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 129 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W130

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

to be addressed directly when attempting to theorize high-risk language and literacy instruction. Such work would pose the following kinds of questions:

• How can we best recognize the linguistic and literate skills and abilities that high-risk minority students already possess as a function of their non-white and/or and non-mainstream backgrounds, and how can we use them as the basis for future learning?

• How can we best examine, critique, and ultimately alter traditional white mainstream standards of language and literacy in light of stu-dents’ extant racialized skills and abilities?

• How can we best develop and implement new programs and structures of language and literacy instruction that will allow us to translate such new race-conscious awareness of students’ existing skills directly into institutional practice?

It is in these ways, I think, that much important work of the late 1960s and early 1970s would posit in effect that race did matter—and quite profoundly—to successful language and literacy instruction.

As a contrast to this, consider the disciplinary work dedicated to “color-blindness” emerging during this period of literacy crisis concern—that is, work positing that race is irrelevant to effective language and literacy instruction. One key example of such work can be found in Mina Shaughnessy’s Errors and Expectations, a literacy crisis-era text frequently cited as foundational to the “basic writing” (BW) movement.

In both the introductory and concluding sections of this text, Shaughnessy seems at least somewhat skeptical of typical literacy crisis discourse and its racist implications. She begins, for instance, by suggesting that such discourse largely ignores the fact that many high-risk students come from “racial or ethnic enclaves” and speak “other languages or dialects at home” such that they might find it challenging to “reconcile the worlds of home and school” (3). She further argues that such discourse ignores the fact that many high-risk students have had a “generally humiliating encounter with school language, which produces ambivalent feelings about mastery, persuading the child on one hand that he cannot learn to read and write and on the other that he has to” (10).

Yet Shaughnessy nonetheless insists throughout much of the remainder of her text that attending to students’ racial backgrounds within the context of instruction is ultimately unimportant. Rather, she insists, it is most important to attend to what students are cognitively capable or incapable of doing in a

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 130 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W131


decidedly color-blind way. She argues, for instance, that regardless of racial or ethnic background, all high-risk writers are best viewed as “beginners, [who] like all beginners, learn by making mistakes” (5). She further suggests that such mistakes ought to be defined as “errors,” as “unintentional and unprofitable intrusions upon the consciousness of the reader” (12) to be understood via analysis of “the underlying patterns that govern the language that [students] are learning” (10) and “the degree of predictability and efficiency in [students’] use of language” (10). Such a view of error, she says, is particularly necessary given what she describes as “the reality of academia,” one rooted in the “fact that most college teachers have little tolerance for the kinds of errors that BW students make, that they perceive such errors as indicators of ineducability, and that they have the power of the F” (8).

Shaughnessy then spends six chapters of her text cataloging and analyzing the various sorts of errors that the students whom she is describing tend to make. While offering a detailed analysis of difficulties with “Handwriting and Punctuation” in Chapter 2, for instance, she argues that “the teacher must try to decipher the individual student’s code, examining samples of his writing as a scientist might, searching for pattern or explanations, listening to what the student says about punctuation, and creating solutions in the classroom that encourage students to talk openly about what they don’t understand” (40). Similarly, while attempting to theorize students’ problems with “Syntax” in Chapter 3, Shaughnessy argues that three issues are at stake: “what the student has not internalized in the way of language patterns characteristic of written English . . . his [or her] unfamiliarity with the composing process . . . and his at-titude toward himself within an academic setting” (73; emphasis in original). And, while discussing errors “Beyond the Sentence” in Chapter 7, Shaughnessy argues that students have three primary cognitive needs: “the need to experi-ence consciously the process whereby a writer arrives at a main idea or point; the need to practice seeing and creating structure in written language; and the need to recognize specific patterns of thought that lie embedded in sen-tences and that point to ways of developing large numbers of sentences into paragraphs and essays” (274).

Finally, in light of this detailed discussion of error, Shaughnessy suggests that BW programs ought to adopt a three-semester writing sequence to for-malize and institutionalize cognitivist error analysis and correction. The first semester within such a sequence, she says, ought to focus on “the conventions of written English that are unfamiliar and troublesome to [the BW student]” (290); the second ought to feature assignments designed to help this student

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 131 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W132

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

“sustain commentary over longer and longer units of discourse without los-ing his or her readers’ bearings” (290); and, lastly, the third ought to deal with the composition of a “research paper,” one in which “rigorous procedures for directing and sustaining a line of inquiry that will meet academic criteria for thoroughness and correct form” are offered (290).

Across each of these detailed discussions of student error and curricula designed to address it, Shaughnessy clearly asserts that it is not race but rather cognition that matters most when dealing with high-risk students. She insists that students within high-risk programs ought not to be viewed as linguisti-cally or culturally different, but rather as cognitive “beginners” who commit errors because they have not yet mastered the sorts of language and literacy activities expected of them within the “reality” of the college environment (a reality profoundly shaped by the “power of the ‘F’”). She further assumes that this particular version of reality does not reflect any sort of racialized power or privilege, but reflects instead a set of deracialized and apolitical cognitive challenges that each successful student must learn to negotiate in the same basic way.

In this way, such an example from Shaughnessy (along with numerous others of the time3) would ask different questions than those common earlier:

• How can we most usefully identify the linguistic and literate deficien-cies that high-risk minority students possess (e.g., by studying the types of errors that they commit)?

• How can we begin identifying and correcting these deficiencies such that we can begin teaching mainstream standards to students both quickly and efficiently?

• How can we most effectively dismantle existing race-conscious pro-grams and structures and replace them with those dedicated to decid-edly color-blind remediation of these deficiencies?

These new disciplinary questions would clearly posit three things: that race ultimately did not matter when dealing with students’ linguistic and literate deficiencies; that mainstream notions of standards and correctness ought to be embraced and enforced to facilitate remediation; and, finally, that any race-conscious institutional structures of language and literacy instruction ought to be fundamentally reconfigured so as to emphasize a return to the non-racialized basics.4 Furthermore, these new questions would hasten in some sense what Min-Zhan Lu identifies as a larger process of “neutralizing the politics of

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 132 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W133


writing, teaching, and research at a time—the 1970s—and an educational site—the [high-risk] classroom—when the dominant culture found issues of difference and power most difficult to contain” within the discipline of com-position and English Studies more generally (56).5

Importantly, however, this sort of shift from race-consciousness to color-blindness would occur not only within disciplinary discussions but also within institutional ones. To illustrate this, I turn now to an analysis of the way in which a similar shift would impact the high-risk writing program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign during the mid-1970s.

Institutional Discussions of High-Risk Language and Literacy Instruction: EOP Rhetoric at the University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignThe “Educational Opportunity Program” (EOP) at the predominantly white University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) was originally developed in 1968 to support, recruit, retain, and graduate over 550 high-risk black students per year, thereby constituting one of the largest and most highly publicized high-risk programs instituted in any predominantly white institution of the era (Williamson 66).6 Particularly central to the success of this overall EOP endeavor was a language and literacy instructional program housed within the English department and comprised of two entities: first, a full-year first-year composition program (designated during this period in program history with course numbers Rhetoric 104 and Rhetoric 105) known as “EOP Rhetoric” that was reserved for any EOP student interested in enrolling; second, a one-on-one and small group tutorial center known as the EOP Rhetoric “Writing Lab” (des-ignated with course number Rhetoric 103) designed to support students’ work in the EOP Rhetoric program and other writing courses around the campus. The importance of these programs was underscored by the original dean of the EOP program (whom I will call “Dean A”)7 in a paper that he gave at the 1969 CCCC meeting in Miami: he writes that, given the fact that “the success of any student, but more importantly, the less well prepared student, is dependent on his facility with communication skills,” the EOP program would make every effort to support both the EOP Rhetoric program and the EOP Rhetoric Writing Lab as fully as possible (2).

From its initial incarnation in 1968 until the end of the 1971–72 school year, the EOP Writing Lab had operated under the dual administrative control of the EOP Rhetoric program (itself operating under the larger auspices of the English department) and the “Senate Committee on Student English” (SCSE),

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 133 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W134

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

an administrative arm of the UIUC faculty senate.8 Under this lab arrangement, the EOP Rhetoric program had been primarily responsible for hiring instructors to carry out lab functions whereas the SCSE had been primarily responsible for hiring a number of directors to oversee lab activities. However, beginning in Spring 1971, there began to emerge a growing sense across the campus that the Writing Lab was not fully meeting the needs of EOP students.9 In light of this apparent failure on the part of the lab, the SCSE portion of lab control would be transferred beginning in 1972–73 to a new student services entity called the “Expanded Encounter with Learning” (EEL) program, an offshoot of the EOP program that had been developed in 1972 with the help of a federal grant to assist those students who were deemed especially “lacking the language and skills developments necessary to effectively negotiate the academic demands of the University” (“The Expanded Encounter” 6).10 Under this new administrative arrangement, the Writing Lab would be co-administered and co-staffed by both the EOP Rhetoric program and this new EEL entity, effectively doubling the overall amount of lab tutoring and support available to EOP Rhetoric students while augmenting the lab budget with federal funds.

This new EEL program would insist on an overt philosophy of race-consciousness as it would theorize both its administrative philosophies and hiring plans for lab tutors. A 1971 missive entitled “The Expanded Encounter with Learning Program,” for instance, suggests that the Writing Lab and its activities must be conceived as part of a larger EEL effort to “provide [students] with a comprehensive, totalistic and interdisciplinary approach to learning. It will recognize that the students come with skills and past experiences that are invaluable to the students’ further academic development . . . [and will foster] student discussion of past experience in school, family, and community” (6). This missive further stresses that both its administrators and instructors whom it would hire for programs like those in the lab would, whenever possible, share students’ “ethnic and cultural background since we intend to utilize students’ prior experience and learning as part of a holistic approach to academic learn-ing” (10). In addition, the director of the EEL program would stress the many race-conscious dimensions of both the larger EEL program and its involvement with the lab in a memo written to “administrators, faculty, and students,” one designed to characterize the program in light of a series of apparently com-monplace questions about its mission and activities (Memo to “Administrators, Faculty and Students” 1). For example, in response to the hypothetical question “Don’t these special courses discriminate against us and hold us back?” the director of the EEL asserts that

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 134 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W135


[n]o, the “discrimination,” if it must be called that, was done before the University ever met you. Perhaps your parents and teachers and you yourself did all you could to prepare you for college and yet your preparation is still somewhat deficient compared to other students. So the University distinguishes among its students’ preparation in order to give each individual the learning that he personally needs. If we followed any other policy (such as putting every entering freshman into calculus, seminars in poetry and international relations, etc.), then the University would be unrealistic. Treating every student equally means giving every student the program he individually needs—NOT giving every student the same program. (3)

In these ways, then, the EEL would stress its race-consciousness quite openly vis-à-vis students—e.g., by positing students’ racialized backgrounds and experiences as “invaluable to [their] further academic development” as well as central to increasing the “the number of tools” utilized to negotiate the aca-demic environment—and vis-à-vis lab staff—e.g., by stressing the ways in which administrator and teacher background ought to match student background whenever possible as a means to foster a “holistic approach to learning.” At the same time, the director of the EEL would himself insist that the purpose of this program was to provide EOP students with individualized, race-conscious support as a means to assure their eventual graduation. He seems quite ada-mant, in fact, about not placing blame primarily on individual parents, teach-ers, or students for students’ academic situations, as they may have done “all [they] could” to capitalize on available educational opportunities; instead, he insists that the larger social and racial forces of “discrimination” have played an important role in shaping students’ lives such that the EEL program must give “every student the program he [or she] individually needs—NOT [give] every student the same program.” To an important degree, then, the EEL and its director would theorize lab activities in openly race-conscious ways remi-niscent of race-conscious texts such as the SRTOL. Race mattered, and quite profoundly, both in terms of how language and literacy were conceived and taught within this environment as well as in terms of how UIUC would attempt to change its own status quo practices to meet the needs of its marginalized nonwhite students.

Crucially, however, by the mid-1970s, thinking about the importance of race-consciousness within lab philosophy, practice, and structure would begin to change rather significantly. One prime example of this can be seen in the writings of the director of EOP Rhetoric who served from 1972–75 (an individual whom I will call “Director B” for the remainder of this piece), particularly in a January 1974 document entitled “Proposal for Change in the Rhetoric Place-

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 135 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W136

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

ment Policy at the Lower Level.” Director B first insists within her proposal that the race-conscious focus of the entire EOP Rhetoric program ought to be reconfigured in light of the pressing demands of literacy crisis, as “some recent surveys indicate that, unfortunately, students’ writing ability is not necessar-ily getting better and better” (1).11 Director B then asserts that the best way to solve this literacy crisis is to ensure that Illinois develops a more complete and widely available remedial program for all of its students, one that can help to turn the tide of poor scores and declining proficiency sweeping both the country and the campus. She also expresses significant concern, however, that precedent for such a program is lacking in recent years because Illinois decided to “abolish remediation” in 1960 and has since only provided for “partial remediation” with the development of the EOP Rhetoric program in 1968.12 The reason that EOP Rhetoric constitutes only “partial remediation,” she suggests, is that it is not open to all students, but rather only to those minority students admitted through EOP. This causes two related problems, she insists: first, it prevents regularly admitted students from enrolling in “remedial” Rhetoric such that “the educational value of the course is lost to most [of them]” (4); furthermore, it creates a context of “racist bias” in which minority students are funneled into the “remedial” track, thus creating a situation in which “only EOP students can qualify for remediation, regardless of widely varying placement scores” (5).13 Finally, given this growing sense of literacy crisis on one hand and the purported problems with race-based placement on the other, Director B concludes that only one course of action is advisable: the reconstitution of EOP Rhetoric, including its Writing Lab, as an expanded color-blind program open to all students. She suggests that the program should “remove the stigma of ‘remedial’ or ‘EOP’ with a placement designation for all freshman of 1) Rhetoric 104 plus Rhetoric 103 followed by Rhetoric 105, 2) Rhetoric 105 only, 3) Rhetoric 108 [i.e. ‘honors’ composition], or 4) proficiency out of the course. This would be the fairest, least racist, most educationally sound policy” (6). Such programmatic reconstitution, she concludes, would both provide access to “remediation” for all students and ensure that the “racism” inherent in the present system would be eliminated.

A similar argument would be articulated during the next year by the new director of EOP Rhetoric (i.e., “Director C”) who served from 1975–77. In a 1975 memo entitled “To the Rhetoric Teaching Staff,” Director C initially seems to grant that EOP student background might play a role in shaping both the kind of language and literacy skills that students possess and the kind of instruc-tion that they therefore require. She suggests that “most of the errors in EOP

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 136 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W137


students’ writing result from the difference between their spoken dialect and the structure of Standard English” (1); furthermore, she argues that students should be “taught to recognize this difference. By explaining the structure and function of written Standard English, we teach students to respect both Stan-dard English and their own dialects” (1). However, Director C quickly makes it clear that cultivating such “respect” has ultimately nothing to do with race and everything to do with students’ ability to eliminate errors and produce mainstream Standard English in ways that scholars such as Shaughnessy were advocating at the time. Indeed, she insists in this same memo that within the larger EOP Rhetoric program, “our first task is to eliminate a large number of mechanical and idiomatic errors” (3) present in student writing. She later as-serts in a follow-up 1976 memo that the main goal of the EOP Rhetoric Writing Lab ought to be “to teach students how to improve their writing by teaching them why they have made mistakes in papers and how to correct them” (“The Directive: Rhetoric 103” 1) using the following protocol that clearly echoes Shaughnessy’s overriding emphasis on mechanical correctness: “Focus first upon the smaller elements of the students’ writing: spelling, word choice, ‘ed’ and ‘s’ verb endings, verb tense, pronoun reference, structure of individual sentences, etc. When simpler problems are eliminated, move to more sophis-ticated problems such as diction, conciseness, coherence, transition, methods of support, complexity of thought, etc.” (1).

By making these arguments, both Director B and Director C reveal a number of fundamental differences between their views and those of the race-conscious EEL. First, both would argue that race does not ultimately matter in terms of understanding EOP students’ linguistic and literate deficiencies: Director B argues that the “fairest, least racist” way to understand the writing problems that EOP students face—purportedly the exact same problems that white students face—is not to examine their existing racialized language and literacy skills, but rather to measure “objectively” their existing deficiencies through administration of a color-blind placement test; similarly, Director C implies that the best way to afford “respect” to EOP students is not to identify their existing racialized language and literacy skills, but rather to assess the cognitive nature of their writing problems in decidedly Shaughnessian terms. Both directors would further insist that mainstream standards ought to be embraced rather than critiqued as the primary cure for students’ deficiencies: Director B demands that the EOP Rhetoric program offer “remediation” aimed at helping students achieve (among other things) “competency in the mechan-ics of writing” as defined by a mainstream audience; similarly, Director C calls

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 137 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W138

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

quite openly for adopting color-blind remedial instruction with the “first task” of “eliminating” student errors with respect to mainstream grammar, style, and usage. And, finally, both directors would insist that past race-conscious EOP Rhetoric and Writing Lab structures ought to be dismantled and reconstituted as error-focused and remedial in light of impending crisis: Director B calls for the fundamental reconstitution of EOP Rhetoric as a color-blind remedial enterprise open to all students with writing problems, apparently as a means through which to address a course with an allegedly “racist bias”; relatedly, Director C suggests that EOP Rhetoric and its Writing Lab should operate first as a color-blind and error-focused remedial program. Clearly, then, both Director B and Director C would insist that the same status quo for language and literacy use that had been racialized and criticized as unfairly “white” by previous program administrators ought to be both deracialized and embraced as “right.” Only in this way, they would imply, can EOP Rhetoric and the Writing Lab help students escape from the clutches of crisis.

Crucially, however, these two administrators would do much more than simply state their views in the context of mission statements and program documents. Instead, both would work quite actively in tandem with a number of their administrative superiors, including the dean of LAS and the vice-chan-cellor for Academic Affairs, to assure that their views would reconfigure the institutional structure and function of the Writing Lab. This can be seen best through a brief analysis of a 1974–75 struggle in which they grappled directly with the EEL for primary administrative lab control.

The Administrative Struggle for Lab ControlThis struggle for administrative control over the Writing Lab would begin in Fall 1974 with an official complaint from Director B to the head of the English department, one in which she argues that the EEL program and its director were causing “interference” with day-to-day lab activities along with significant “suffering” for many lab tutors hired by the EOP Rhetoric program (Memo to the Head of the English Department 1). Then, in a follow-up meeting with both the head and the dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS), Director B clarifies this initial charge by suggesting that “the EEL is encroaching upon services which rightfully belong in the Writing Laboratory” and that students are “receiving conflicting advice from their two sets of tutors” within the context of their lab work (“Notes on Meeting with the Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences” 1). As proof of such purported “interference” and “encroachment,” Director B refer-ences a short memo written to her by the director of the EEL, one in which he

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 138 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W139


had wondered whether one particular male tutor originally hired by the EOP Rhetoric program “might not be too severe in giving grades” (Memo to Director B 1), especially given that this individual had “originally praised certain papers and gave little indication of how serious [one female Lab student’s] mechanical errors were. [However, when] she wanted to take the papers to show her mother, he wrote D’s and E’s on them, along with brief comments that were basically negative. [This student’s] questioning of him brought little satisfaction, since he apparently wanted the low grades to motivate her to improve” (1). Director B describes this memo as an example of what she and her staff had been forced to “put up with” when dealing with the EEL (Memo to Head of the English Department 1). She also expresses her wish that, in light of such a memo, the administrative arrangement in the lab be changed such that the EEL would no longer have to be “consulted” regarding administrative, budgetary, or hiring matters (“Notes on Meeting with the Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences” 1).

Director B would then witness her official complaint and request for administrative reconfiguration rise up the chain of administrative command at UIUC fairly quickly, arriving first on the desk of the Dean of LAS and shortly thereafter on the desk of the Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs (VCAA). For his part, the Dean of LAS characterizes these complaints as follows in an October 1974 letter to the VCAA:

The Department of English, which is responsible for the administration of the rhetoric requirement, thinks that there is not the degree of cooperation that might be expected [between English and the EEL]; different approaches and different evaluations and strategies are employed, and the situation appears to be somewhat unsanitary . . . . The Department of English is not satisfied with the present ar-rangement for its writing laboratory and would like, if it is to retain responsibility, to make a strenuous effort to strengthen the Writing Lab. It cannot do so unless questions of control and authority are straightened out. (1)

In turn, as the main arbiter of these complaints, the VCAA would decide in a January 1975 letter to grant the EOP Rhetoric program/English department full administrative control over the lab. He writes first that “[t]here should be no question that the English Department [as administrative home of the EOP Rhetoric program] is in charge of this supportive service and that the EEL will-ingly offers its considerable experience to planning a stronger writing labora-tory. Questions on this level ought to be resolved immediately” (Letter to Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences 1). He also insists that “What is therefore needed is a clearly stated policy affirming this understanding and the construction

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 139 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W140

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

of guidelines by which the two units can work cooperatively for the students’ benefit” (1), a policy that will begin to address the ways in which the campus might begin to develop a “future writing laboratory help for non-EOP students who also need it” (1).

And, finally, at the direct request of the VCAA, this complaint would be translated into official institutional praxis in fall 1975 by the newly hired Di-rector C. In an October 1975 letter to the director of the EEL, Director C first insists that “the Vice Chancellor determined . . . that the English Department is in charge of the supportive services of EEL and that any referrals made are to be made by the [Director of EOP Rhetoric]” (Letter to Director of the EEL 1). She then offers a detailed interpretation of what this decision ought to mean in terms of lab philosophy and practice: the EEL program would retain responsibility only for teaching students about “use of the library,” “examination skills,” “study habits,” how to improve “class participation,” how to maximize use of “conferences” in the Writing Lab, and “word skills” like dictionary use and spelling (2); in contrast, EOP Rhetoric would be solely responsible for teaching “basic writing skills and usage” (2). And, finally, she concludes her letter by admonishing that “I hope that you [in the EEL] will willingly, and of your own initiative, assist the [Lab] student in these areas” (1).

These administrative struggles illustrate a clear shift in lab philosophy, practice, and structure from institutional race-consciousness to color-blindness taking place. To begin, Director B’s official complaints about “interference” and “encroachment” suggest that she did not appreciate the openly race-conscious director of the EEL raising questions about “mechanical errors” or their rela-tionship to the assessment schemes used for minority students within the lab context. After all, Director B had already expressed her views about the need for color-blind and error-focused instruction and assessment within all EOP Rhetoric activities in her January 1974 proposal and elsewhere.14 Indeed, Di-rector B’s request seems like a direct request that the director of the EEL and his staff stop asking unnecessary race-conscious questions about grading and assessment of “error,” thus freeing Director B and her EOP Rhetoric staff to pursue the goals of color-blind remediation without unnecessary “interference.”

Next, both the dean of LAS and the VCAA would indicate that they too saw the race-conscious EEL as unnecessarily impeding lab function. The dean of LAS would argue that the race-conscious EEL was not “cooperating” with Director B’s color-blind requests to “strengthen” the lab in this literacy crisis context; he would also conclude that the situation was “unsanitary” and demand that these issues of “control” and “authority” be resolved to the

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 140 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W141


“satisfaction” of the EOP Rhetoric program and its parent English department. For his part, the VCAA would decree both that the EOP Rhetoric program as-sume immediate primary control over all instruction taking place within the context of the lab and that the program begin theorizing immediately how best to offer such remediation to all “non-EOP students” regardless of their racial or ethnic background. Thus, although neither the dean of LAS nor the VCAA would go so far as to mandate the full exclusion of the EEL from the lab, both would determine that EOP Rhetoric should possess full authority over the EEL in all lab matters—assessment or otherwise—such that color-blindness would become the official modus operandi of the lab.

And, finally, Director C would assure that these sorts of color-blind com-plaints would be transformed into color-blind institutional praxis. By spelling out in detail a new institutional power relationship within the lab, Director C would assure that the EEL program retained control only of ancillary aspects of writing activity—i.e., “use of the library,” “examination skills,” “study habits,” “class participation,” “conferences,” “word skills,” and so forth—deemed periph-eral to the color-blind mission of the lab; meanwhile, she would also assure that the EOP Rhetoric program assumed complete control of the central features of writing instruction—i.e., basic writing “skills and usage”—along the color-blind lines of what she had described in her “Directive” (as discussed previously). Director C would thus officially establish a new division of labor in the lab, one assuring that no further interference with the EOP Rhetoric program’s goal of color-blind remediation would be possible.

On the whole, then, I believe that this example of administrative recon-figuration within the EOP Writing Lab illustrates how the sort of shift toward color-blindness occurring within the larger discipline of composition and English Studies at this time would occur within the EOP Rhetoric program as well. No longer would the lab “utilize students’ prior experience and learning as part of a holistic approach”; instead, it would seek to remediate students’ perceived deficiencies in a color-blind way more likely to reify rather than challenge the white mainstream status quo.15

ConclusionI have attempted throughout this text to describe and analyze briefly some of the ways in which the color-blind dimensions of literacy crisis thinking dur-ing the mid-1970s ultimately shaped both the disciplinary and institutional dynamics of high-risk language and literacy instruction. As William DeGenaro suggests, we need work of this sort that attempts to “localize the history of

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 141 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W142

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

[such programs] and locate the origins of English Remediation at our own in-stitutions” (57) if we ultimately hope to stave off the “regressive social policies and unchecked elitism” (54).

I would hope that my work might prompt those of us in composition and English Studies to respond thoughtfully to recent disciplinary calls for a full return to the “scientific” and / or “language-focused” study of writing within our field (e.g. Haswell; MacDonald), particularly when such study aims to un-derstand the needs of marginalized nonwhite and nonmainstream students. We may well agree that such rigorous quantitative and language-focused work needs to exist alongside other types to foster what Richard Haswell describes as “ecumenical” (218) research in our discipline. However, we may also wish to temper our embrace of such perspectives with an awareness of the fact that past calls for such “scientific” research regarding such issues—particularly those of the mid-1970s language and literacy theorists analyzed above—could and did encourage a kind of color-blindness with decidedly problematic philosophical, practical, and structural effects of the sort that I have outlined throughout this piece. I think, in other words, that this kind of historical work might encourage us to be cautious concerning how we choose to embrace such admonitions in the present and future.

I would also hope that my work might aid those of us interested in resist-ing the conservative attacks on current contemporary high-risk programs and their descendents being enabled by contemporary literacy crisis discourses in places such as CUNY, the Cal State system, the University of Minnesota, and many others (see Fox; Gleason; Greene and McAlexander). Understanding the problematic dimensions of disciplinary and institutional color-blindness should help us to understand better the origins of such attacks. It should also help us to conceptualize more fully new kinds of strategies for partnering with various federal and local efforts to support “race-conscious” language and literacy instruction (e.g., programs operating within HBCUs, Latino-Serving Institutions, and/or Tribal Colleges; programs such as CUNY’s “Black Male Initiative”) in ways that can help to preserve important institutional spaces from which to continue fighting for racial justice.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Deborah Holdstein, John Trimbur, Kevin Roozen, Catherine Prendergast, John Schilb, and one anonymous CCC reviewer for their helpful com-ments and suggestions regarding this manuscript.

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 142 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W143


Notes

1. As one key example of such literacy crisis discourse in action, consider Merrill Sheils’ well-known 1975 Newsweek article “Why Johnny Can’t Write.” Sheils opens her piece with the bold claim that “[i]f your children are attending college, the chances are that when they graduate they will be unable to write ordinary, expository English with any real degree of structure and lucidity. If they are in high school and planning to attend college, the chances are less than even that they will be able to write English at the minimal college level when they get there . . . . Willy-nilly, the U.S. educational system is spawning a generation of semiliterates” (58). She then locates the roots of such crisis in the purportedly widespread late-1960s and early-1970s educational belief that “one form of language is as good as another” (Pei, qtd. in Sheils 58); in a general overemphasis on “‘creativity’ in the English classroom” at the expense of more traditional areas of study (60); and, quite significantly, in the racialized philosophies, practices, and structures of language and literacy instruc-tion advocated by the CCCC within its “Students’ Right to Their Own Language” (SRTOL) document. Sheils insists, in fact, that the SRTOL is squarely rooted in “political activism of the past decade . . . [an activism that] has lead many teachers to take the view that standard English is just a ‘prestige’ dialect among many others, and that insistence on its predominance constitutes an act of repression by the white middle class” (61). She also dismisses the SRTOL as “more a political tract than a set of educational precepts” (61), one that fails to recognize the real issue at stake within this crisis—namely, whether or not students can learn to speak and write correctly according to the tenets of Standard English. As she argues, “‘prestige dialect’ or not, standard English is in fact the language of American law, politics, and commerce, and the vast bulk of American literature—and the traditionalists [among which Sheils places herself near the end of her piece] argue that to deny children access to it is in itself a pernicious form of oppression” (61). Finally, after making such claims, Sheils concludes her piece with a re-sounding “back-to-basics” call that draws an analogy between language use and a kind of servitude:

[t]he point is that there have to be some fixed rules, however tedious, if the codes of human communication are to remain decipherable. If written language is placed at the mercy of every new colloquialism and if every fresh dialect demands and gets equal stay, then we will soon find ourselves back in Babel. In America today, as in the never-never world Alice discovered on her trip through the looking-glass, there are too many people intent on being masters of their language and too few willing to be its servants. (65)

In these ways, then, Sheils clearly places blame for student illiteracy at the feet of 1960s and 1970s “political” reform efforts rooted in issues of race, arguing that

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 143 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W144

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

such efforts have ignored the necessity of “fixed rules” within language and literacy instruction while refusing to teach students their roles as “servants” who respect the “masters” of the linguistic and literate mainstream.

2. See, for instance, Smitherman, “God Don’t Never Change” and the “Soul ’N Style” column in English Journal; Sledd; O’Neill; Kochman.

3. See especially the work of some of Shaughnessy’s contemporaries within this new BW movement (e.g., Bartholomae; Lunsford; Perl).

4. I acknowledge that there were many disciplinary and social pressures placed on composition scholars in the literacy crisis era to shift toward color-blindness: calls for more quantitative research in composition designed to combat that claim that “Johnny can’t write” (e.g., Lloyd-Jones; Shaughnessy, “Open Admissions”; Wiener); calls for color-blind “scientific” research designed to offer support for embattled programs with tenuous budgets (e.g., Soliday); and pressures from organizations such as the NAACP to stress “Standard English” as the focus of language and lit-eracy instruction for minority students even within high-risk efforts (e.g., Beissel). Nonetheless, I do think it important to point out that such color-blind work was far more accepting of the extant racial status quo than previous race-conscious work had been.

5. Some scholars did continue to make race-conscious arguments regarding high-risk instruction even in the wake of literacy crisis discourse (e.g., Daniels; Smither-man, Talkin’ and Testifyin’). Yet, such discussion would be increasingly supplanted by talk of literacy crisis itself (e.g., the 1977 CE “literacy crisis” issue) and/or discussion of the new color-blind BW movement (e.g., via the new Journal of Basic Writing edited by Shaughnessy). In this sense, race-consciousness would not seem to pos-sess nearly the same disciplinary stature during the mid-1970s that it did earlier.

6. In its early days, over 95 percent of the EOP population was black, in large part due to the political leanings of the main recruiter for EOP, the Black Student As-sociation (BSA; Williamson 68). EOP did, however, seek to increase its recruitment of Latinos/Latinas (and to a smaller extent both Asians and Native Americans) later in its history.

7. I deliberately refer to all Illinois administrators throughout this piece by insti-tutional title alone rather than by title and personal name. I do so to place analyti-cal emphasis on the institutional discourses and practices that these individuals enacted rather than on their purported personal beliefs and/or values.

8. I offer analysis of the earliest history of this particular program in my CCC article entitled “Language, Literacy, and the Institutional Dynamics of Racism: Late-1960s Writing Instruction for ‘High-Risk’ African American Undergraduate Students at One Predominantly-White University.”

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 144 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W145


9. As a May 1971 letter from the dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) to the head of the English Department suggests, “the belief that the Writing Laboratory is not doing the job for the EOP students appears to be widespread on the campus. In view of our heavy investment in the program, it seems necessary to ask whether or not the effectiveness of the program does, in fact, justify the cost” (1).

10. All archival documents and texts related to the University of Illinois are ref-erenced, quoted, and otherwise analyzed with the permission of both the main University of Illinois Archive and the University of Illinois English Department.

11. Director B also cites SAT data suggesting that average verbal scores have dropped over thirty points in the previous decade (1) and a New York Times article suggest-ing that “elementary schools and secondary schools are not preparing students as well in verbal . . . skills as they did in former years” (1).

12. From 1941 until 1960, the University had offered a remedial rhetoric course for all those failing to pass the “English Qualifying Exam,” a kind of first-year composi-tion exit exam (“Comments on the English Qualifying Examination” 1).

13. Director B would extend this argument even further during a subsequent in-terview with the EOP program, insisting that EOP Rhetoric

is, in fact, discriminatory. It’s discriminatory in both directions. Most kids hear about it as a black course or a Latino course, and, of course, if we took all fresh-men and tested them and took scores from them we would not have an all black course by any means. I don’t think it would be even 50 percent black, I doubt if it would be . . . There are some very low scores among regularly admitted students who are not given the opportunity to take this particular course in rhetoric. (qtd. in “The Educational Opportunities Program” III-24)

Evident in this quote once again is Director B’s belief that any race-consciousness on the part of the EOP Rhetoric program is tantamount to a kind of racial “dis-crimination.”

14. Director B had also been arguing to many of her staff members during this time period that the “writing problems of different ethnic groups are not substantially different and that anyone can handle them” such that “Latinos [need not] tutor other Latinos” within the lab (Writing Lab Staff Member 1).

15. I explore the long-term implications of this mid-1970s color-blindness for the EOP Rhetoric program in a book project tentatively titled In the Interests of Op-portunity: Race, Racism, and University-Level Writing Instruction in the Post–Civil Rights Era.

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 145 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W146

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

Works Cited

Bartholomae, David. “The Study of Error.” CCC 31.3 (1980): 253–77.

Beissel, George F. “Comment on James Sledd.” College English 34.4 (1973): 582–83.

Chair of Senate Committee on Student English (SCSE). “(Draft) Report and Ten-tative Plans: Writing Laboratory/Clinic.” Feb. 1969. Record Series 9/5/33, Box 1, Univ. of Illinois Archives, Urbana, IL.

“Comments on the Qualifying Examina-tion.” 22 Feb. 1967. Record Series 9/5/33, Box 1, Univ. of Illinois Archives, Urbana, IL.

Conference on College Composition and Communication. “Committee on CCCC Language: Background Statement.” CCC 25.3 (1974) (Students’ Right to Their Own Language Special Issue): 1–18.

Daniels, Harvey. “What’s New with the SAT?” English Journal 63.6 (1974): 11–12.

Dean A (Dean of the Educational Opportu-nity Program during 1969–1970). “The Role of English in the College Education of Minorities: A Crown Don’t Make No King.” Conference on College Compo-sition and Communication. Miami, Florida. 17 Apr. 1969.

Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Letter to Head of the English Department. 25 May 1971. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

. Letter to Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs. 21 Oct. 1974. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

DeGenaro, William. “Why Basic Writing Professionals on Regional Campuses Need to Know Their Histories.” Open Words: Access and English Studies 1.1 (2006): 54–68.

Director B (Director of EOP Rhetoric during 1972–1975). Memo to the Head of the English Department. 17 October 1974. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

. “Proposal for Change in the Rheto-ric Placement Policy at the Lower Level.” January 1974. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

Director C (Director of EOP Rhetoric dur-ing 1975–1977). “The Directive: Rhetoric 103.” Program Description. 1976. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

. Letter to Director of the EEL. 6 Oct. 1975. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

. “To the Rhetoric Teaching Staff.” 1975. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

Director of the EEL. Memo to “Administra-tors, Faculty and Students Re: The Ex-panded Encounter with Learning.” n.d. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

. Memo to Director B. 15 Oct.1974. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

“The Educational Opportunities Program: A Report on Its Objectives, Problems, and Accomplishments.” Program Report. 20 Dec. 1974. Record Series 41/1/30, Box 3, Univ. of Illinois Archives, Urbana, IL.

“EEL Use of Writing Laboratory.” 1972. Record Series 41/1/30, Box 3, Univ. of Illinois Archives, Urbana, IL.

Egerton, John. Higher Education for “High Risk” Students. Atlanta: Southern Educa-tion Found., 1968.

“The Expanded Encounter with Learning Program.” 1971. Record Series 41/1/30,

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 146 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W147


Box 1, Univ. of Illinois Archives, Urbana, IL.

Fox, Tom. Defending Access: A Critique of Standards in Higher Education. Ports-mouth: Boynton/Cook, 1999.

Genovese, Michael A. The Nixon Presidency: Power and Politics in Turbulent Times. New York: Greenwood, 1990.

Gleason, Barbara. “Remediation Phase-Out at CUNY: The ‘Equity versus Excellence’ Controversy.” CCC 51.3 (2000): 488–91.

Greene, Nicole Pepinster, and Patricia J. McAlexander. Basic Writing in America: The History of Nine College Programs. Cresskill: Hampton, 2008.

Haswell, Richard. “NCTE/CCCC’s Recent War on Scholarship.” Written Communi-cation 22.2 (2005): 198–223.

Kochman, Thomas. “Social Factors in the Consideration of Teaching Standard English.” Florida FL Reporter 7.1 (1969): 87–88, 157.

Lamos, Steve. “Language, Literacy, and the Institutional Dynamics of Racism: Late-1960s Writing Instruction for ‘High-Risk’ African American Undergraduate Students at One Predominantly-White University.” CCC 60.1 (2008): 46–81.

Lloyd-Jones, Richard. “A View from the Center.” CCC 29.1 (1978): 24–29.

Lu, Min-Zhan. “Importing ‘Science’: Neu-tralizing Basic Writing” In Representing the ‘Other’: Basic Writers and the Teach-ing of Basic Writing. Eds. Bruce Horner and Min-Zhan Lu. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1999. 56–104.

Lunsford, Andrea. “Cognitive Development and the Basic Writer.” College English 41.1 (1979): 38–46.

MacDonald, Susan Peck. “The Erasure of Language.” CCC 58.4 (2007): 585–625.

McDaniel, Reuben R., and James W. McKee. An Evaluation of Higher Education’s Re-sponse to Black Students. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1971.

“Notes on Meeting with Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences.” 17 Oct. 1974. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1994.

O’Neill, Wayne. “The Politics of Bidialec-ticalism.” College English 33.4 (1972): 433–38.

Perl, Sondra. “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers.” Research in the Teaching of English 13.4 (1979): 317–36.

Senate Committee on Student English. Minutes. 15 Sept. 1969. Record Series 9/5/33, Box 1, Univ. of Illinois Archives, Urbana, IL.

Shaughnessy, Mina. Errors and Expecta-tions. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.

. “Open Admissions and the Dis-advantaged Teacher.” CCC 24.5 (1973): 401–04.

Sheils, Merrill. “Why Johnny Can’t Write.” Newsweek 9 Dec. 1975: 58–65.

Shor, Ira. Culture Wars: School and Society in the Age of Conservative Restoration. London: U of Chicago P, 1986.

Sledd, James. “Doublespeak: Dialectology in the Service of Big Brother.” College English 33.4 (1972): 439–56.

Smitherman, Geneva. “God Don’t Never Change: Black English from a Black Perspective.” College English 34.6 (1973): 828–33.

. “Soul ‘N Style.” English Journal 63.4 (1974): 16–17.

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 147 12/14/09 5:39 PM

W148

c c c 6 1 : 2 / d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9

. Talkin’ and Testifyin’: The Language of Black America. Boston: Houghton, 1977.

Soliday, Mary. The Politics of Remediation: Institutional and Student Needs in Higher Education. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 2002.

Trimbur, John. “Literacy and the Discourse of Crisis.” The Politics of Writing Instruc-tion: Postsecondary. Ed. Richard Bullock, John Trimbur, and Charles Schuster. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1991. 277–95.

Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Let-ter to Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences. 22 Jan. 1975. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

Wible, Scott. “Pedagogies of the ‘Students’ Right Era’: The Language Curriculum Research Group’s Project for Linguistic Diversity.” CCC 57.3 (2006): 442–78.

Wiener, Harvey. “Questions on Basic Skills for the Writing Teacher.” CCC 28.4 (1977): 321–24.

Williamson, Joy Ann. Black Power on Cam-pus: The University of Illinois, 1965–1975. Urbana: UIUC P, 2003.

Writing Lab Staff Member. Memo to Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of English. 1 Oct. 1974. Univ. of Illinois English Dept. Archives, Urbana, IL.

Steve LamosSteve Lamos is an assistant professor in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric and the English Department at the University of Colorado–Boulder. He is currently at work on a book examining the influence of racism on the institutional structures and functions of writing programs at predominantly white universities from the dawning of the open admissions movement in the late 1960s through the culture wars of the early 1990s. He has published work related to this project in CCC, Col-lege English, and the Journal of Basic Writing.

W125-148-Dec09CCC.indd 148 12/14/09 5:39 PM

Literacy Crisis and Color-Blindness: The Problematic … racial discrimination in education and the...

Documents

Transcript of Literacy Crisis and Color-Blindness: The Problematic … racial discrimination in education and the...