Evaluating Writing Programs in Real Time: The Politics of Remediation

Abstract

College remediation has become increasingly controversial in recent years. David Bartholomae has suggested that we reexamine the term writing (The Tidy House); Mike Rose has argued that an ideology of intellectual inferiority permeates instruction (The Language of Exclusion); and a highly influential basic curriculum dissolves distinctions between and college composition (Bartholomae and Petrosky). During this same era, several programs have begun to experiment with enrolling remedial-placed students in full-credit-bearing college composition courses (Grego and Thompson; Rodby; Royer and Gilles). As names such as Bartholomae and Rose would suggest, this antiremediation movement is being propelled by scholars who are sympathetic to the aspirations of those labeled remedial writers. At the same time, however, forces opposed to the admission of unqualified students have launched their