THE TIDY HOUSE: BASIC WRITING IN THE AMERICAN CURRICULUM

<p>I want to use this paper to think about basic writing as a way of naming (and producing) a curriculum, an area of study, a type of writing and writing practice — as a way of organizing (and producing) that version of the social world represented in our colleges and universities. Hence my two epigraphs: I would like, for the moment, to be a nominalist; as best as I can, I would like to think about the history of the term "basic writing" and the role of the intellectual (and the culture and its institutions) in its production.</p>