For those of you who are familiar with Queer Theory, you will understand what I mean when I say that Dev Ed students are coming into our classes in closets.
The following post will be in reference to Basic Writers, but the theory is applicable to all disciplines.
Closetedness is a state of being brought on by the stereotypes of the observer and the observed. I feel that both students and instructors are unaware of these closets, yet students are being asked to "come out" without really understanding what got them there in the first place. The nature of closetedness, as I’ve come to understand it, is extremely versatile and really has no specific definition. The following quote by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick I think explains this elusive quality the most effectively:
Even at an individual level, there are remarkably few of even the most openly gay people who are not deliberately in the closet with someone personally or economically or institutionally important to them. Furthermore, the deadly elasticity of heterosexist presumption means that, like Wendy in Peter Pan, people find new walls springing up around them even when they drowse: every encounter with a new class full of students, to say nothing of a new boss, social worker, loan officer, landlord, doctor, erects new closets whose fraught and characteristic laws of optics and physics exact from at least gay people new surveys, new calculations, new draughts and requisitions of secrecy or disclosure. The gay closet is not only a gay feature of the lives of gay people. But for many gay people it is still the fundamental feature of social life; and there can be few gay people, however courageous and forthright by habit, however fortunate in the support of their immediate communities, in whose lives the closet is still not a shaping presence. (67-68)What this means is that even though students have been outed as Dev Ed (be it by themselves, their instructors, or their test scores) this is not a serve-all diagnosis that would allow facilitators the freedom or confidence for a fix-all prescription. The issues that lead (or drag) students into Developmental Education are as unique as the students themselves. In order to address the needs of our students, we must address their closets.
The closet has both an interior and exterior space. The exterior, which actually calls for the interior, is constructed by the subjective stereotypes of the observer (in our students' case, their instructors). The closet is the tag an observer places on the observed to categorize a stereotype. The tag of Basic Writer implies a stereotype. What makes these students basic? How one perceives what is basic about a writer changes from one observer to the next and more importantly from one writer to the next.
It is in the privacy of the interior of this basic closet that a writer learns how to define themselves as a writer. What we must do is eliminate the need for closetedness so that this self-definition of the student, although still very personal, becomes public. While confined within this interior space, the observed (the basic writer) is actually no different than the oppressed discussed by Paolo Freire. When our students can make their interior space public, they can then begin to constructively create their own language, define themselves, and tear down their own closets. I think it is important to note here that it is ultimately the duty of our students, not us, to remove their own barriers.
In an attempt to help my students make the interior of their closets public, I asked my two sections of Basic English to answer the following question:
What makes a writer a Basic Writer?
Below are their unedited responses. What you'll notice are that very few of the responses address the same needs and that in more cases than not, the answers are a bit ambiguous. After reading these self-definitions I had to really ask myself if my students knew why they were in Basic Writing. If they don't know why they're there, how are they expected to get out?
Student Responses
A basic writer is a person who doesn’t really understand the meaning of basic sentencing. This makes he/she basic writer’s because they can’t understand a thesis or know how to even stay on there topic when writing.
Knowing ever thing about writing. Where the punctuation go. How there spelling is.
Well a basic writer is someone that may not know a lot about basic writing like grammar, writing, and so on. Myself I ain’t the best writer.
I think because you might not have the skills.
I think what makes a writer a basic writer is the ability of the writer to write according to his lecturer’s instructions. I could write more.
I think a basic writer is someone doesnt give a full description and or not use enough detail.
I think a writer is a basic writer because we don’t have that much knowledge for writing right now.
I think to be a basic writer is someone that has difficulty putting essays together, such as not knowing when to stop a sentence and not make a runon. Also how to start off a essay with the intro and get a topic sentence and thesis. And they wouldn’t know to put the whole essay together and giving a good concluding paragraph, body, and intro.
A basic writer is someone who can write but there missing things like comma splices. Also the can’t spell that well eather. A basic writer doesn’t have the same skills as a writer in a book would. Well they do they just can’t or don’t know how to use the skills to write a easy.
A basic writer is someone who doesn’t explain his or herself or use examples when writing. A basic writer also doesn’t know how to put their thoughts and ideas into words and explain themselves better.
Well if you ask me a basic writer is someone who give basic information. They are individuals who give thought to just a couple of ideas for their sentences.
What makes me a basic writer is that I don’t know that much about writing and sometime I don’t spell it right.
My opinion about what makes a writer a basic writer, is a write the hasn’t perfect his way of writing but is good the is a basic writer because he know the basis of writing.
I want to make a writer a basic writer because I want to improve my written English and for my point is when I write sometimes y very important in the several communications I want to effort.
It makes it a basic writer because of the fact he hasn’t gotten to the point of writing with strong words, maybe they don’t understand what they are writing.
A basic writer is a person who has the skill to write but doesn’t use all the rules. Like a person may know how to write but writes with run on sentences of less punctuations. Its like you know what you write to write and how is the problem.
A basic writer is someone who knows the fundamentals of writer but needs help on some aspects. For example putting their main ideas on paper and in order. Also how to develop a thesis statement.
I think that we have some skills but not the skills needed to take the other class. I also think that the skills need to be improved.
I think a basic writer is a basic writer due to inexperience with writing.
A basic writer, is someone who if you if you give them a topic the can write about a topic, but they don’t know exactly what they are writing about. A basic writer is somebody who can write pretty well but the have a couple of errors here and there.
I think that what makes a writer a basic writer is anything that holds a writer back from fully expressing him or her self full thoughts in their essays and papers. A basic writer is some who maybe just can’t write their feelings on paper.
Being a basic writer you need to understand the basic steps on how to write. Fragmenting sentences is my weakness and the proper punctuation. When writing a paper I tend to go ahead I need help staying in the no, and with fragmenting and punctuation.
Spelling, grammar, structure of sentences, staying on topic, not jumping around.
Has lots of work to improve on. From spelling, subjects, capitalization, and more. A writer needs make since when writing about something. Needs to understand what he is writing about and how he wants to present it.
I think I’m here to learn how to write better essays.
The establishment of knowing how to make his/her main idea and point of view meaningful. Understanding what their writing.
What makes a writer a basic writer is the way a writer writes in a motion to what he or she is feeling and putting does feelings in a paragraph or sentences.
When your grammar and sentence structure is not as refined as it should be. When you should focus on main ideas and really don’t know how to.
The photo for this post is of me with one of my former GED classes. I chose to use this particular photo because I felt that these students truly fit into this paradigm of closetedness.
