Back to the Future: Contextuality and the Construction of the Basic Writer's Identity in JBW 19...

<p>Gray-Rosendale continues a project begun with "Investigating Our Discursive History: JBW and the Construction of the 'Basic Writer's' Identity" (JBW 1999) in which she employed a Foucauldian archaeological perspective to trace the dominance of as well as the disruptions within the three major metaphoric allegiances of basic writing studies: developmental, academic discourse, and conflict. In this piece, Gray-Rosendale argues that three new constructions of basic writing student identity that have gained prominence in the journal from 1999-2005: the basic writer's identity constructed as in situ; the basic writer's identity constructed as a theory, academic discourse, and/or history reformer; and the basic writer's identity constructed as a set of practices in action. All are part of what she terms a "contextual" model. Identifying both beneficial and detrimental aspects of this contextual model, she calls upon basic writing teachers and scholars to work to combat some of the problematic elements within this latest metaphoric allegiance.</p>