Re: Hello? Hello?

[Josie B Davis <josieb@boisdarc.tamu-commerce.edu>]

Dear Steve,
	I have just recently subscribed to this list, so you are the first
person I have decided to talk to. My name is Josie B. Davis, and I am a
graduate student at Texas A&M University-Commerce, TX. My specialty is the
field of rhetoric and composition, and I am interested in the
role that ones environment (culture, religion, class, and family
structure) plays in the cognitive development of Basic Writers (BWs). I
feel (as well as others here at A&M) that we should begin teaching BWs by
using novels in the coursework. I am a firm believer that if we use
writing or reading assignments which have little or no relevance to a
BW's personal life or experience, we get back an assignment which has
little or no relevance to what we want to know.  My main objective is to 
try to find out what role (if any) ones environment plays in the
BW's cognitive development or ability to do a deeper than surface reading
or writing. Can a BW benefit from reading a longer text or can they
benefit more from reading short (2 or 3 page) text? Or, as Mike Rose
brought out in his book, __Lives on the Boundary_, should we keep the
canon from BWs?  
On Wed, 26 Feb 1997, Steve Smith wrote:

> Dear Abyss,
> 
> I am supposedly subscribed to this list but never receive any mail.  Is
> there any life out there?
> 
> Steve "In Limbo" Smith
> 
> 
>