Mike Rose - Language of Exclusion

Rose writes about the all too common mistake many American university affiliates make, that of not only defining all writing in terms of their utilitarian "skill/tool" bias, but more importantly that of assigning students a "remedial" role they become boxed into. He worries for the future of students in universities across the nation, which are continuously accepting more and more students from varied educational backgrounds. His primary concern is that attitudes, shaped over the past two centuries of American history, toward writing as a product, rather than a process, lead teachers to grade students based on surface correctness. They consequently promote, he argues, a trap for students who cannot meet unrealistic academic standards and label them as deficient, in need of a "remedy" of sorts. I found his medical allegory appropriate because we do kind of treat our "remedial" students in the same way as patients: test, diagnose, dose, repeat. It is fundamentally crucial, he says, that we must stray from this superficial regard of writing in order to evaluate and understand where actual issues stem from and try to genuinely work with them on a case by case basis, rather than cast aside those judged incompetent. This is a political problem, since those judged "inadequate" are given less power in the system, leading me back to Delpit's article on inequality resulting from our culture of power. Rather than condemn students of any background who fail to meet these rigorous standards to "scholastic quarantine until their disease can be diagnosed and remedied," I suggest we implement Rose's idea to redetermine what illiteracy is and use the term more wisely where it belongs, and never by the academics feeling "frustration and disappointment in teaching students who do not share one's passions" in the university environment (352, 354).

I think he is right that "the ways society determines what it means to be educated change" and that "the story of American education has been and will in all likelihood continue to be a story of increasing access" (356). We must follow his advice and act to make an equitable present, rather than push the issue under the rug of the past or future. And because writing does lead us to engage more deeply in a discipline, even if, as Barbara Apstein says, we may read writing that does this and yet not write it ourselves, it is an ideal way to attempt to do so (I guess that's why he wrote the article!). I just wonder "if we gave it full status, championed its rich relationship with inquiry, insisted on the importance of craft and grace, incorporated it into the heart of our curriculum," if this would be enough to really make any significant changes for students deemed remedial for the simple fact that the education system is complex, public and private, well-funded and not, etc. (359).