View from the margins - conclusion

Basic writing is often the result of non-traditional students trying to adapt to a new academic language. However, our Gibbelins writer might not be considered a traditional student from the margins. She may well be a quiet, non-descript member of the average university classroom. We must be aware that students literary practices are affected by their social or educational history, and that this may set them on the margins just as much as race, gender or disability.

Awareness without stereotyping is a key issue in dealing with the prevalence of concerns that such a writer has presented in her work. We must not judge their intellect or their effort, but instead provide a range of suitable learning opportunities to stimulate both their ‘voice’ and their development from an ‘interlanguage’ to full control of academic conventions.

We have the advantage in the UK that marginalized students and basic writers are less stigmatized through being immersed in academic culture rather than separated out into basic writing programmes. However, this places a responsibility on the teacher to spot their struggles and adapt to their needs within the classroom.

Unfortunately, the field is divided on best practice for dealing with basic writing and that is why I have argued for a combination of theories and practical approaches, chosen by the teacher to address basic writing problems at both an individual and collective level.

This is something that has been borne out in the tutorials. During this semester, I have worked with a Nepalese business student struggling to adapt to a creative assignment, a young female student who was too afraid to ask questions in class, and an Asian mother in her thirties who needed reassurance that she had ‘got it right’. Each required a different approach, which suggests to me that one teaching style or stance is not the answer. However, a safe, supportive environment (fostered here by the personal connection of peer tutoring) is essential, allowing the student to have a dialogue without fear of looking stupid or getting it wrong.

On one other occasion, two Level Two writing students told me felt their ‘style’, that they had come to university to develop, was being suppressed or marked down. This shows the tension between the ‘voice’ and academic or writing genre requirements, and suggests that this tension may not be easily resolved since both hold important lessons.

My own view is that neither expressivist nor hierarchical approaches should be privileged. From personal experience, the academic language is just another language variety to learn and I think that one’s ‘voice’ emerges regardless. Nicki used music as a metaphor in her argument for applied linguistics. As a music student, I came to university to break through the predictability of my beginner’s style. Learning the difficult language of music opened up my own ‘voice’ because only then was I in control of the conventions and able to choose when to leave them behind.

In the same way, I have faith that our beginner writer will both find her voice and learn the art of writing for different audiences, whether that be a university discipline, a writing genre or her own personal narrative.