RETHINKING THE BASIC WRITING FRONTIER: NATIVE AMERICAN STUDENTS' CHALLENGE TO OUR HISTORIES

<p>The authors contend that Native American students have too often been marginalized in Basic Writing research. Asking why this may have been the case, they call attention to the discipline's unwitting allegiance to images of "territory," "mapping," and "Western frontierism." They also note that since much early research on Basic Writing has emanated from East Coast institutions, Basic Writers of the Southwestern United States have perhaps understandably received far too little attention. Contending that this lack of research may potentially result in a further "othering" of Native American students, they note that we must work against 1) a somewhat narrow, even racist conception of who Basic Writers might be, 2) the continued invisibility of Native American students as well as our collective lack of knowledge about how the cultural functions of tribal life impact writing skills, and 3) the unspoken mythology in our scholarship that the Basic Writer is largely an urban phenomenon - the student who can be heroically rescued from violence, crime, and poverty rather than the student who risks losing tribal and cultural affiliations by coming from the reservation and assimilating to the university environment. In response, each of the authors speaks of her own experiences working with Native American Basic Writing students from Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, making assertions about what can be learned from these experiences. The article concludes with tentative suggestions for future research concerning Native American students and Basic Writing.</p>