Review of "the Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University" by Mike Rose

Remedial Response

The overall English learning system from elementary through college is corrupt almost to the point of no return. Hold your horses just a moment. Corrupt. Just this one word can change the aspect of a sentence that it creates a negative atmosphere. When I hear that word I immediate think of politicians, cops, government employees, and so forth. The situation here though is that the word corrupt is mostly defined as guilty of dishonest practices. But corrupt has another meaning; to reduce in quality or value. I can only assume that most you associated the first definition of corrupt with my opening statement. And that's perfectly fine. Without prior knowledge of that word, I would make the same assumption as well. The premise behind that statement is to provide an example of what Mike Rose conveys in his article, The Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University. I also want to show that I agree with Rose and what he states in his article.

I do feel that all throughout my education until I reached college that I was merely taught specific rule and guidelines to follow when it came to writing. There was never a proper chance for me to mold myself in my writing and be unique. It was always a specific format that I needed to go by and that there were no exceptions. Don't get me started on spelling; it was just as bad, if, worse. The problem I see behind this is that the overall education systems only see the basics of writing as tool that everyone should learn in order to become efficient writers , if not, scholars. This can cause writing to be seen as a simple skill or tool to be used after high school, i.e. college, work.

I believe and agree with Rose with this statement "So to reduce writing to second-class intellectual status is to influence the way faculty, students, and society view the teaching of writing. This is a bitter pill, but we in writing may have little choice but to swallow it" (348). By doing reducing writing to a second-class intellectual status devalues a person's literary capabilities and that person in turn will feel "substandard compared to others. By this I mean that if you believe that writing is basic knowledge and assume that everyone should be smart enough to know how to write, imagine how other people feel that have never been able to grasp to concept of writing or were never taught how to properly write. It's just as bad when a person in school is required to take a remedial course as a prerequisite in order to continue his or her education. What really makes the idea of taking a remedial class seem negative is the word itself; remedial.

We can define remedial as providing remedy; moreover associate remedy within the medical field of providing remedy for an illness, disease, or injury. The following statement from Rose will provide a point of what I want to make; "Certain areas of the brain were not defective but underdeveloped and could be corrected through "remedial effort" (350). Rose applies the same aspect of the word remedial in an academic aspect with his statement, "So one starts to see all sorts of reading/writing problems clustered together and addressed with this language" (351). I believe that Rose means that by of providing a remedy for improving a person's literary capabilities, we are associating remedial courses, with an attempt to remedy an illness or disease. I can't speak for everyone but that's how I feel about remedial classes.

Before I joined the Army, I was taking advanced math classes in high school.