Reflecting on #4C23 Remediation and the Student-Ready University

On Sunday, I returned home from Chicago where I was attending the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC [but we say "See's"]). 

It was a trip back in time on a few levels, and more than once, it had me thinking about an exchange from way back in 2003 about working with students who still have a long way to go in their development as writers.

I shouldn't be surprised that the conference sent me into my past. The last time I attended an in-person conference was 2019. And on another detour down memory lane, the conference was a block away from Columbia College Chicago, where I spent my first year of college as a theater and fiction writing student. Then after the conference, I hopped on a train to visit family in Milwaukee, the place I grew up. 

So, my head was in a space where I was often looking backward to look forward. All of which very likely contributed to this specific 20-year-old memory being brought to mind a few times. 

Jack Hicks was trying to get us creative writing MA students to understand a certain frame of mind that is essential for anyone planning to teach writing. He asked what an instructor should do with students who 'can't write worth a damn' (paraphrasing here, but trying to get Jack's tone right). We students all tried to give thoughtful answers, but after some struggle, Jack interrupted us and said, "There's nothing you can do. Your job is to take them where they are." 

It was one of those moments when the correctness of the answer was only obvious after it had been spoken, but then it was so obvious that it was greeted with an embarrassed silence. 

That lesson has shaped the way I think about placement and pedagogy to this day. Our job in FYC is to open the door of higher education for the students the institution has admitted. And if I'm abiding by my values, I am pushing the institution to open that door as wide as possible. And yeah, that means the skill level of students entering is not where it was 20 or 40 years ago - or even 5 years ago. I don't see that as a failure. 

But I do acknowledge it as a challenge. 

Because the goals we pursue in FYC remain. I think of it this way: We work to foster the writing development of students so they can, in time, compose texts that will give them a voice in the academic, scholarly, professional, social, and civic communities they join.   

Or, as we put it in the Sac State Writing Program mission: In the Sacramento State University Writing Program, we engage students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds to develop reflective, analytical, and collaborative literacy practices, empowering them to communicate effectively.

It's a bold set of goals that requires a network of support capable of reaching across multiple classrooms and learning resources. 

At and since CCCC, I've heard from a number of people describing how those goals might be too bold for the network of support we have to work with in FYC. 

The most public expression of that concern came during the Opening General Session at CCCC. Joanne Baird Giordano was delivering the greeting from the Two-Year College English Association (TYCA). It was a brilliant address that called on the conference to recognize the impact and importance of the labor and expertise present in two-year schools and open-admission four-year institutions. It's a call I will work to heed. There was, however, one part of the call that complicates my understanding of "Take them where they are." 

Giordano called on us all to "recognize that some writing and developmental education reforms imposed on community colleges by legislators and state systems are austerity measures masquerading as equity." 

This was a clear reference to, among other things, the end of remediation in the Cal State system and the California Community College system. And I'm not sure how I feel about Giordano's critique. 

On one hand, I agree that many students need additional support for their writing development when they start college. And often that support should take the shape of additional instruction. We move in the wrong direction if (and when) instructional resources are lost or defunded in the name of reforms to higher education. I agree with that and I think that's what Joanne Baird Giordano was getting at.

The end of remediation, however, doesn't have to result in the loss or defunding of instructional resources. It should mean the reshaping and reconfiguration of such resources. 

I get nervous when I hear people argue that ending remediation is a failure to support our students. The argument is a messy one.

With the right amount of nuance, I do support the argument. For example, I'm all in on this version: Ending remediation without providing new forms of support to replace what's being removed is a cynical way administrators tell composition faculty to 'Do more with less' while quietly accepting lower standards for our students.

When policy is getting made, however, arguments like this one are rarely allowed that level of nuance. They typically become a version of this: Ending remediation is administrators telling composition faculty to 'Do more with less' while quietly accepting lower standards for our students.

That's the argument used to support mandated remedial courses for students who perform poorly on a test (or a different set of measures) as determined by administrators like me.

And I don't agree with that argument. I support the end of mandated remediation as it has been implemented for decades: As a gate-keeping tool that excluded people from a college education based on a set of criteria developed by patriarchal institutions that center a limited kind of whiteness, a hate-based take on sexuality, and a profoundly exclusive understanding of socioeconomic status.  

That deeply problematic use of mandated remediation needs to be rejected along with the chorus of arguments about good intentions that support it: "We're just thinking of the future challenges these students will face," "Some kids just aren't made for college," "Students can't be held responsible for past teachers' failures," "Admitting students who aren't ready is cruel because they will just fail later after being told they could succeed."

The research and practices compositionists engage in should not treat certain students as people who require a remedy. A remedy is something provided to set right an undesirable situation. The students we work with in FYC are not in an undesirable situation. They are first-year students at a university that will serve as the setting for a years-long endeavor to grow and learn. That shit is dope and deserves to be celebrated.  

The criteria used to argue for mandating remedial courses must be removed from the deeply problematic history they inhabit. 

But we also need to acknowledge the circumstances that generated those criteria: A diverse population of learners needs a diverse set of resources to support their development as writers. And yeah, those resources require investment in our institutions. We need space, experts, and buy-in from everyone who serves our students. 

The required courses are not enough for some of our students. It is therefore our obligation to provide additional resources that students can utilize to support their own writing development. And we are also obligated to make sure students have access to and understanding of those resources. 

• Writing Centers with specialists
• Credit-bearing and non-credit-bearing access to peer tutors
• Accessible and inclusive writing prompts and syllabi
• Representation of diverse student identities reflected in the faculty
• Representation of diverse student identities reflected in the readings
• Stretch sections of composition
• Multilingual sections of composition
• Low-stakes assessment moments that serve as advising tools
• Antiracist and inclusive assessment practices
• And this list is not exhaustive!

And then there's an additional challenge once these resources get put in place. Faculty, staff, administrators, advisors, and peers need to understand this network of support so they can navigate it or guide others. 

It's a lot, but it is also the work required to enact the values of our discipline.