Adult Language & Literacy: Summary Assignment:Teaching Critical Literacy

In her article, "The Need for Conceptualizing at all Levels of Writing Instruction,"Marilyn Sternglass argues that it is not enough to teach students in remedial classes the linguistic forms of Edited American English and the writing conventions, such as spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and paragraphing. She says, “These conventions need to be taught within a larger conceptual framework” (88). In order to be ready for college level work, Sternglass argues that remedial students need to be exposed to, and gain increasing mastery of, academic cognitive skills such as summary, compare/contrast, and analysis. A summary of this article which appears in the Journal of Basic Writing (8.2 (1989): 87-98) can be found in the link below:

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AejvYXPv3HOaZGY5N2RucXBfNjVmbjI2bTZjdw&hl=en