Composition Forum 49, Summer 2022
http://compositionforum.com/issue/49/

From Tacit Myth to Explicit Lurking: Using Discourse-Based Interviews to Empirically Confront the Mythologized *Standard English Eel

Sarah Johnson

Abstract: Scholars in writing studies have positioned numerous critiques of the tacit myth of Standard English (*SE) and its use as an unquestioned communicative norm. While these critiques reflect the overlap of the field’s translingualism and anti-racist writing assessment movements, they also reveal an empirical need surrounding the writing instructors who must actually grapple with the *SE myth in their teaching and grading practices. Following Asao Inoue’s identification of the *SE myth as a slick eel that remains an assessment problem, I conducted a qualitative study using concept clarification interviews and discourse-based interviews (DBIs) at a large, diverse, four-year university in the U.S. to empirically confront the *SE myth and make the potentially tacit presence of *SE in instructors’ rubrics and grading practices explicit. Based on the results of these interviews, I advocate for a shift from seeing and critiquing *SE to performing Synergistic English Work (SEW) in the context of grading rubrics and assessment policies, making the absent presence of *SE visible, open to disruption, and more actively combatted.

Introduction: Myth, Eel, Fiction

While Standard English (*SE){1} has been critiqued in a number of ways by writing studies researchers, Asao Inoue’s identification of *SE as a “slick eel” perhaps best captures, metaphorically, the issue with this myth-based ideology. As he puts it in his article “Theorizing Failure in US Writing Assessments,” teachers and programs that use only a local Standardized Edited American Academic English (SEAAE) “live with the fiction that they can capture the slick eel of SEAAE with little harm done to students” (335). This reification of *SE as a fixed linguistic ideal works against the dynamic, ever-changing nature of language and, when it is imposed on students as a singular writing standard, further “reifies multilingual students and their writing as failed writing from the start” (335).

More recent critiques of *SE reveal just how slick and difficult to disrupt this mythologized eel is. Following Bruce Horner and John Trimbur’s identification of the field’s tacit policy of unidirectional monolingualism, Paul Kei Matsuda examined what he called the “myth of linguistic homogeneity,” the widespread assumption that student writers are full-fledged, native *SE speakers and writers. This normative positioning is exacerbated by instructors’ “rhetorical constructions of SEAE as linguistically neutral” (Davila, Indexicality and ‘Standard,’ 130) and white American society’s perpetuation of *SE as an equal-opportunity tool for success (Greenfield). These tacit, rhetorical positionings of *SE as normative, neutral, and accessible further obfuscate the systemic racism responsible for linguistic inequities as well as the raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores and Rosa) embedded in *SE wherein students will be judged based on how they look and sound long before their words may even be understood or heard (Baker-Bell). The problem with *SE in writing studies, then, is not just one of myth, eel, or fiction but also of racial elision whereby tacit, mythical language norms quietly supersede students’ real linguistic identities and needs. As Andrea R. Olinger succinctly puts it, “the fact that ‘standard language’ and ‘academic writing’ are constructs of white language supremacy make them especially inured to disruption” (19).

The tacitly-layered mythologized eel of *SE remains an assessment problem that, as Inoue clearly states, “unevenly affects social, ethnic, and racial populations other than the local dominant White one” (Theorizing Failure 335). As the group responsible for ultimately and often automatically grading students’ writing, instructors must grapple with this *SE assessment problem on the ground—while also confronting the field’s numerous critiques of *SE, many of which stem from or are fueled by the translingualism or anti-racist writing assessment movements. While this scholarship offers an overwhelming number of strategies and theories surrounding *SE and linguistic equity, there remains a need to, as Bethany Davila puts it, “study the language that both reveals writing studies’ reliance on standard language ideologies and perpetuates standard language ideologies within the field, undermining our efforts to challenge SEAE’s position” (Indexicality and ‘Standard,’ 128). Particularly given Catherine Prendergast’s 1998 identification of race as an absent presence in scholarship via its subsumption as stranger, other, and basic writer (36), the legacy of this absence presence in the *SE assessment problem creates an additional impetus for this area of study.

Given this empirical need, I conducted a qualitative study using concept clarification interviews and discourse-based interviews (DBIs) at a large, diverse, four-year university in the U.S. While both interviews were part of a larger dissertation project (Johnson), this article focuses on the DBIs and this *SE assessment problem. Developed nearly 30 years before Matsuda’s identification of *SE as part of a tacit policy of monolingualism, DBIs were originally conceived as a procedure that “enables a researcher to formulate generalizations about the kind of knowledge and strategies that are used by writers when they compose in occupational contexts” (Odell and Goswami 5-6). Put simply, DBIs are a qualitative method that can probe writers’ tacit knowledge and, as Zak Lancaster explains, can “assist researchers and participants to probe the rhetorical bases of writing performances and judgments” (121). I see the use of DBIs to uncover writing instructors’ tacit knowledge and navigations of *SE in their assessment and grading practices, especially their rubrics, as a natural fit. In this article, I build on Davila’s identification of the need to study the perpetuation of standard language ideologies while also helping to operationalize scholarship from different areas of writing studies research. In doing so, I seek to answer the following questions: In what ways does *SE traffic in these writing instructors’ classrooms and grading practices, specifically their rubrics? How does making the tacit about *SE explicit speak back to the field’s translingual and anti-racist approaches to combatting *SE in the writing classroom?

As I found, *SE was sometimes “lurking in the dark,” as one instructor put it, in those rubrics. I share two particularly illustrative examples to show how *SE was operative as an absent presence. By synthesizing the results of the DBIs with current anti-racist and translingual scholarship, I highlight grammar-related language on rubrics and move beyond only advocating for grading contracts or letting students choose the amount of their grade that comes from grammar. I advocate for what I call synergistic English work (SEW): visibly and explicitly acting on the existing synergies here and in writing studies scholarship to combat, disrupt, and dismantle the tacit *SE myth at its eel-like roots. Moving from *SE-ing to SEW-ing not only visibilizes the mythologized *SE eel as a white, normalized, devaluative discourse but also operationalizes translingual and anti-racist approaches to combatting this myth.

Background: From Overt Codification to Slick Eel

Part of what makes *SE such a slick eel is its entrenchment in American society as a fixed ideal whose correctness is contingent upon not just dictionary definitions but rather tacit assumptions and beliefs about language. The *SE ideal continues to be propagated by public education (Zoltan); characters on popular television shows (Lippi-Green); manuals of usage (Hickey); handbooks (Bex and Watts); and the general public (Milroy). More specifically, *SE is often perpetuated via related terms, such as error{2} (Anson; Kynard), correctness, and grammar. In short, what writing studies scholars have acknowledged, both empirically and anecdotally, is the preference for writing that is academically organized (Ball), grammatically correct (Shaughnessy; Elbow; MacNeil and Cran), and that, thus, conforms to *Standard English (Raimes and Miller-Cochran; Davila Indexicality and ‘Standard’).

As numerous scholars in writing studies and sociolinguistics have also pointed out, however, this valuation of *SE as correct, unchanging, and superior marks an ideologically based reality. *SE exists via tacit assertions, assumptions, and beliefs about language, most of which function without the term *“Standard English” because they are ideological in nature. Rosina Lippi-Green likens defining standard American English (SAE) to describing a unicorn (57), identifying *SAE as a “mythical beast” and adapting the practice—as I have done in this article—of using “an asterisk to mark utterances which are judged grammatically inauthentic” (62) when discussing *SAE. This is a means of visibilizing its ideological nature and thus calling attention to the ways individuals and institutions in power decide what and whose language gets counted as correct, acceptable, and educated. These notions of correctness are also embedded in notions of whiteness and linguistic superiority that further explain the entrenchment of this tacit *SE myth. April Baker-Bell uses the term White Mainstream English (WME) “in place of standard English to emphasize how white ways of speaking become the invisible—or better—inaudible norm” (3).

The multi-layered, tacit entrenchment of *SE is partly what makes it so tricky—and yet important—to empirically research. There is a need for more empirical research surrounding the operationalization and trafficking of *SE in writing instructors’ grading practices. Many theoretical rejections of *SE and its accompanying discriminatory views on language and linguistic diversity{3}, “often remain fairly abstract or philosophical” (Slinkard and Gevers). For example, Asao Inoue explains that using SEAAE as the single standard to judge student writing against is not fair and is, in fact, racist because writing assessment can “define ‘good’ writing in standard ways that have historically been informed by a white discourse, even though we are working from a premise that attempts fairness” (Antiracist 18). What he advocates for, instead, is a focus on assessing students’ writing efforts rather than their written products by using labor-based contract grading. Similarly, Jerry Won Lee suggests instructors let students dictate the portion of their grade that comes from grammar/standardized language use or use reflective essays to assess students less on proficiency and more on development. While Inoue’s anti-racist approach both labels *SE as unfair and re-focuses attention on labor rather than product, Lee’s translingual approach provides an opportunity for dealing with *SE and grading more directly.

One of the few studies that asks writing instructors to reflect on *SE—using those exact words—is Chris K. Bacon’s 2017 Dichotomies, Dialects, and Deficits: Confronting the ‘Standard English’ Myth in Literacy and Teacher Education. Through surveys and written reflections, Bacon asked beginning teachers, all enrolled in a university-level sheltered English immersion (SEI) course, to reflect on *Standard English before, during, and after their participation in an intervention module centered on discussing and problematizing *SE. Surveys asked if student writing that did not conform to the conventions of *SE should receive lower grades than student writing that did. Before the module, 76 percent of participants expressed either agreement or uncertainty, while after the module, that percentage dropped to 21. Instructors’ written reflections also demonstrated significant changes. Instructors defined *SE before the module through terms like proper, correct, and academic and focused on structural features of English to further shape *SE. After the module, however, instructors began to acknowledge race and class in their reflections on *SE as well as question its very existence.

Although this study is not an intervention like Bacon’s, it does seek to extend the work he did by interviewing six writing instructors well-established in their teaching careers who all had significant experience teaching multilingual writers, and by adding the context of instructors’ writing assessment practices—including their rubrics—to uncover not only instructors’ understandings of *SE but also the tacit, mythical characteristics of that linguistic ideal. This study shifts the focus from theoretical calls about combatting *SE to an empirical understanding of how *SE is already being negotiated and navigated in order to better understand that myth, uncover its complexities, and offer empirically-grounded steps forward for writing instructors and administrators navigating their way through this slick *SE myth in their classrooms, writing programs, and grading practices.

Methods & Methodology

To empirically uncover how writing instructors are actually dealing with the slick *SE myth in their assessment practices, I used qualitative interviewing as my method and a sociolinguistic framework (Pennycook) grounded in a feminist epistemology as my methodology. As a feminist researcher, I applied Marjorie L. DeVault and Glenda Gross’s warning to every stage of my research process. As they put it, the “feminist researcher who takes the work of active listening for granted risks producing data, writing up her or his findings, and responding in ways that are colonizing rather than liberating because they reproduce dominant perspectives” (182). Particularly because I did not want to reproduce *SE as a standard of writing assessment, I was careful to actively listen every step of the way—from writing to interviewing to analyzing and back to writing. In using concept clarification interviews and DBIs as my methods, I set out to make the tacit about *SE explicit and really listen while doing so. I also sought to, as DeVault and Gross state, focus my desires on making change or producing “material results” (190), a point to which I return in the conclusion.

This study’s focus on *SE in grading practices and rubrics is a reflection of Pennycook’s ontological take on language. In tracing the traffic of *SE in these six instructor’s rubrics, I set out to uncover *SE as not just product or tool but also as action, as doing, as meaning.

Empiricism & Positionality

I understand empirical projects as DeVault and Gross do, that is, as “projects in which researchers engage with others (in the flesh, or less directly) to produce new knowledge” (176). My positioning of this project as empirical, however, is not simple because, following Dana Lynn Driscoll, I approach empiricism skeptically so that “researchers are not concerned with proving anything as ‘Truth’ but instead use their own observations to construct a better understanding of the world around them. They do this while always maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism in all areas of knowledge building—most especially in their own work” (203). I see my engagement with participants as the means by which knowledge is produced as I critically attend to my own observations and analyses.

I also maintain an acute awareness of my positionality, after Sondra Harding and Rosina Lippi-Green. To be clear, I am a young, white, middle-class-emergent educated woman, having recently graduated from a Writing and Rhetoric PhD program. By acknowledging the identities I embody, I aim to acknowledge their intersections—I have racial and linguistic privilege, although I am also a young woman still navigating my way through the academy. I am thus careful to interrogate the linguistic, privileged experiences I bring to this study, especially my analyses of instructors’ understandings and negotiations of the *SE myth. The last thing I want this study to do is reproduce the very linguistic norms I aim to interrogate.

My whiteness, however, stands out most in relation to my data because of the ways it permeates my body, mind, and experiences. I admit that, even while I acknowledge my whiteness here, that work has not always been easy. For example, at the end of an interview, an instructor asked me about race and the makeup of other participants. In that moment, I recognized I had not included a question on instructors’ racial identities in my interview protocol, and felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. I had overlooked the very element—race and whiteness—I was hoping to visibilize. In other words, I had to, as DeVault and Gross frame the listening feminist researchers do, “acknowledge the ignorance our own privileges may have produced before we can hear what others wish to tell us” (183). During that interview, I admitted to that instructor that talking about race is difficult—even writing this, now, is uncomfortable, but that is part of the point of this work. I felt and feel uncomfortable because, as a white woman, I often do not have to account for my race as people of color do. I recognize the need to confront these sorts of blind spots or gaps that remain in my research because of my own whiteness and my omission of that information from the interview protocol. At the end of this article, I take up this work more visibly as I call for making the invisibly entrenched role of whiteness in *SE—itself an entrenched ideology—more explicit in research, in assessment, in the classroom, and in the field.

Interviews, Participants, & Site

The concept clarification interviews allowed for a more focused exploration about what meaning *SE may have for writing instructors in the context of writing assessment. As Herbert Rubin and Irene Rubin explain, exploring a particular term and its meaning describes what they call a concept clarification interview, whose goal is to “explore the meaning of [a set of] special, shared terms” (5). In this kind of interview, the researcher might probe what a particular word or phrase means as participants use or understand it: here, *Standard English, followed by grammar, grammatical correctness, and error (see Appendix 1). The DBIs used text-based conversations to examine instructors’ linguistic and rhetorical choices surrounding *SE on their rubrics and grading tools. I followed Odell and Goswami’s method of presenting alternative language in texts writers had composed and asking writers about their reasons for accepting or rejecting the alternatives. In this study’s DBIs, I presented instructors with alternative language (that I composed based on my own research on the *SE myth) to the phrases and words on their rubrics surrounding language, grammar, and *SE in order to uncover the rhetorical choices behind their original language, which made the tacit about *SE explicit. I also asked instructors about their language choices surrounding terms like error, correct, edit, and proofread because of *SE’s connection to those terms. Since concepts of correctness and error can play crucial roles in fueling *SE’s invisible, mythical existence, I set out to understand the role and function of those terms in relation to *SE in instructors’ rubrics and tools. The goal of these DBIs, following Star Medzerian Vanguri’s work with rubrics and style, was to provide insight into participants’ “actual beliefs” (342) about *SE and its operationalization in their grading practices.

After conducting the first set of concept clarification interviews, I scheduled the second and final interview—the DBI—and asked each instructor to email me one of their grading rubrics or tools representative of their approach to grading. I briefly analyzed each rubric or tool and generated the majority of the DBI questions from those artifacts, considering language, grammar, and formatting (see Appendix 2 for a sample DBI). Each interview lasted 20-50 minutes and contained a total of 10-11 questions. I completed the final DBI in September 2020.

Participants & Site

While this study was part of a larger dissertation project (Johnson) that involved twelve sets of interviews with six writing instructors, in this article I focus on the second set of interviews—the DBIs. After receiving IRB approval in 2020, I conducted both interviews via WebEx with writing instructors at a large and diverse university in the United States whose faculty and student population are both large and diverse, representing a range of socioeconomic, linguistic, and ethnic backgrounds. The composition program at this university is also quite large, serving students both within and outside the United States. In addition to its location in the US, the program also has an international location that contains its own writing program connected to the US-based one. In recruiting participants, I worked with the director of the writing program to generate a list of instructors teaching one of the program’s introductory or first-year composition (FYC) courses, interested in examining *SE, and using a grading rubric or tool in their assessment work. It was important to talk with instructors who already had given *SE some thought because of its invisible, ideological nature and because I was interested in having conversations that could push back on conversations surrounding *SE. Of the eighteen faculty who were emailed, six responded, completed the consent forms, and were included in the study.

Altogether, the instructors I interviewed had nearly 60 years of experience teaching FYC. Three out of six came up with their own pseudonyms, and I created pseudonyms for the other three (see Table 1 below). I asked instructors about their language backgrounds, positions in the university, and their familiarity with research on translingualism and language diversity. Half the instructors I interviewed identified as speaking and writing English only while the other half identified as speaking additional languages or being multilingual or trilingual. Instructors held a range of positions within the university, from assistant professors to directors of other writing programs to adjuncts. Two participants were teaching writing in the program’s international location while the rest were teaching in the United States. Every instructor was teaching remotely due to the pandemic, including at least one introductory or FYC course. Table 1 provides a summary.

Table 1. Instructors’ Backgrounds

Background from Interview #1	Years teaching university writing; courses{4} for fall 2020	Language background	Experience teaching multilingual students	Familiarity with research on translingualism and language diversity
Cynthia, term assistant professor, in international location	3-4 years; FYC for multilingual writers	English only; knows a few Korean words; former back-ground with Spanish; does not consider herself multilingual	Writing center training; currently teaching all multilingual students	Familiar with terms but not a lot of knowledge in general
Erin, term assistant professor, in international location	14 years; FYC and FYC for multilingual writers	English only	All teaching has been with multilingual students	Familiar with language diversity research but not translingualism
Michael, adjunct instructor, in United States	2-3 years; FYC for multilingual writers	English; studied German for 12-13 years; speaks a little bit of Spanish and a “little tiny bit” of French; studied Latin; considers himself multilingual	Has taught English language learners “across the spectrum”; English as a Second Language (ESL) specialist for a writing center	Familiar with research on both
Sophia, term associate professor and associate director of composition for multilingual writers, in United States	16 years; FYC for multilingual writers	English, Arabic, and French; considers herself trilingual; knows Greek but says she is losing it	Significant experience; has designed and re-designed courses for multilingual students	“Very, very, very familiar” with research; considers herself a translingualist
Susan, term assistant professor; assistant coordinator for international program, in United States	14-15 years; FYC, intermediate composition, English for Academic Purposes (EAP)	English and “a little bit of Spanish.” Studied Chinese and Latin; does not consider herself multilingual	Spent most of her career teaching classes designed for multilingual students	“A little” familiar with research; has studied critical race theory
L. Baldwin, instructor and writing project director, in United States	15 years; FYC	English; took 16 years of French; does not consider herself multilingual	A lot of experience at current university	Some familiarity with both—is “getting there”

Data Analysis & Coding

With the DBIs, I used primarily a deductive approach, especially in the design of those interviews. In this study’s DBIs I only focused on specific language related to *SE (like grammar, correctness, and error) in each instructor’s rubric in the interviews themselves and then analyzed each instructor’s response, coding for themes and patterns that related to *SE as well as this study’s research questions. In the data reduction phase (Smagorinsky), I performed three rounds of manual coding using primarily In Vivo coding, wherein a participant’s words are taken directly from what that participant has said and placed in quotation marks (Saldaña 3). As I edited the automated WebEx transcriptions, I was careful not to change or edit the grammar of instructors’ responses. Such editing would have been somewhat antithetical to this study’s articulation of correctness, as it is tied to *SE, as construct. After pre-coding the interviews, I performed Eclectic coding, which Saldaña explains as a process of refinement used to narrow down the highlights and choices made in initial rounds of coding. I began to look for how instructors were re-making *SE, what elements they were negotiating surrounding *SE and grading, and how their unique negotiations of this mythologized *SE assessment problem spoke back to the field’s translingual and anti-racist writing assessment movements.

I used a case study/profile hybrid to structure the interview data since the case study captures the messiness of responses while the profile creates structure to contain complexity and allow readers to navigate it more easily. For example, the case-study element of the discussion, which includes “the need to be centrally focused on defining a ‘case’” (Yin 65) and generating “knowledge of the particular” (Schwandt 28), captures messiness; the profile element makes room for the unique approaches instructors took to navigating *SE in their rubrics.

Data & Results

Interviews revealed the way *SE trafficked through different degrees of “lurking,” or as a sort of absent presence, both in instructors’ sample rubrics and their courses. While the words *Standard English themselves were absent from every instructor’s rubric, except for one, it operated through their assumptions about language, their definitions of terms like error and grammatical correctness, or their conflicts surrounding equitable language and writing assessment practices. When asked about the potential presence or value of *SE in their rubrics or courses, most instructors expressed a level of uncertainty about its explicit use in their courses and interactions with students. At the same time, when asked to define *SE, instructors actively languaged it: they re-made it, re-defined it, and even re-named it. Instructors’ efforts and desires to actively combat *SE as a mythologized, tacit norm perpetuating white discourse varied—even those who were more familiar with research on language diversity and translingualism felt conflict surrounding what to do with *SE, particularly in their interactions with international students.

In the following sections, I explain how *SE trafficked in every instructor’s course and rubric, then present two case study/profile hybrids that offer a deeper examination of Erin’s and Sophia’s responses in the DBIs. Beginning with the table below, I have organized instructors’ responses in interviews to show how, while they all heard of *SE, they defined it in different ways, from Erin’s identification of it as correct English to Susan’s denial of its very existence. Each instructor also defined grammatical correctness and error differently, although Erin equated *SE with grammatical correctness and Michael acknowledged the connection between error and *SE while at the same time troubling both terms. Finally, the words *Standard English were not explicitly used in any instructor’s classroom, except for perhaps Susan’s. However, Sophia and Cynthia both pointed out the potential value of using those words explicitly in their instruction in order to problematize and combat it.

Table 2. Overview of *SE traffic in instructors’ courses and rubrics

Instructor profiles & familiarity with research on translingualism and language diversity	Familiarity & definition of *SE	Definition of grammatical correctness & error	Presence of *SE in course and rubric
Erin, not multilingual, familiar with language diversity research but not translingualism	Heard of *SE; defined as correct English; questioned how much “we value one type of English and then that goes, like, if that’s connected to class or race?”	Defined as *Standard English; error as mistake or incorrect	Konglish (Korean+ English) recognized in classroom but doesn’t say standard; said her students “want standard”; rubric says “you use standard US English grammar”
L. Baldwin, not multilingual, some familiarity with research—is “getting there”	Heard of *SE as a basic term not standing for much; an oxymoron but also guiding rules for speaking and writing in English; what’s part of *SE is subject to change	Having a good sense of how the English language works; error as misstep that makes the writing ineffective, like punctuation marks and capitalization	Doesn’t use *SE in course but doesn’t know why, though it sounds off-putting; assumes English taught is standard; no *SE on rubric but assumes what students write will be a standard English
Cynthia, not multilingual, familiar with terms but not a lot of knowledge in general	Heard of it; unfairly associated with intelligence; agreed-upon form of English but more of a concept than a term; the thing you need the terms to define but no perfect definition so everyone defines it differently	Difficult question; grammar as official rules of the language; error as something that doesn’t make sense; unintentional misrepresentations; doesn’t like the word	Never used term in course but thinks it could be useful tool to break down and discuss; still teaches it in class but thinks there are problems with it; says *SE is not in rubric because she did not put it there; still feels pressure to teach it
Michael, multilingual, familiar with research on both	Heard of *SE; associated with register, grammar, vocabulary, correctness; variety of English considered the norm; used to devalue other forms of English; a creation	Correctness as contingent, depends on correct for whom; he sometimes requires students to do things that aren’t grammatical; error as getting into *SE; an issue when a student doesn’t try to figure out what’s going on, not correcting mistakes	At some point may have been on a rubric; people he works with luckily would recognize that as problematic; would not intentionally put *SE on a rubric now; didn’t include *SE on sample rubric but wasn’t sure that was a conscious choice
Susan, not multilingual, “a little” familiar with research, has studied critical race theory	Familiar with it; standards or standards of correctness; problematic term; no *Standard English but rather the language spoken by certain class of people, which ties into socioeconomic status and race	Defining them is an issue; gets into debate with students; need to value different written and oral accents; prejudice causes people to think this is correct; focuses more on errors of thinking; doesn’t use the word error; linguistic etiquette	Probably does use in course but would use air quotes; tries to problematize it; talks about grammatical accuracy but isn’t sure that’s better; sample rubric from 2012, so that course was teaching *SE, but it’s being debated more; doesn’t grade grammar anymore; international students might need SAE for academic audience
Sophia, trilingual, “very, very, very familiar,” considers herself a translingualist	Familiar; associates with racist, imperialist, construct, access; an arbitrary standard perpetuated through systemic racist institutionalized structures; entrenched and unconscious; said it is “lurking in the hidden spaces because it’s an entrenched language ideology”	Correctness as construct; error as classically a deviation from *SE; error as construct; error as communicative glitch that make it difficult to succeed in the genre	*SE isn’t discussed in course as much as she wants it to be now that she’s in a language justice frame of mind; talks about without actually naming it; helped to change writing program’s first-year learning goals because *SE was in language; hopes that *SE is not on sample rubric; does have a conflict when reading international students’ writing if they want to be fluent in Standard Edited English (SEE), a term she used

These varied responses reveal how *SE traffics as a sort of absent presence in these instructors’ courses and rubrics—while it is very rarely (if ever) spoken aloud in their courses or written in their rubrics, it is “assumed,” as L. Baldwin put it, or what students need, as Susan and Erin both recognized. In other words, *SE is present even though those words themselves are absent. The raciolinguistic ideology embedded in *SE, however, showed up in almost every instructor’s reflection on *SE, from Erin’s questioning of how it is connected to race, Cynthia’s identification of it as unfair, Michael’s criticism of it as a form of devaluing other Englishes, to Sophia’s and Susan’s explicit equations of *SE with race and racism. These findings could be taken pessimistically but also optimistically—while *SE may traffic as an absent presence, “lurking” in instructors’ courses and rubrics, as Sophia put it, and continue to move as a mythologized eel, these identifications of *SE as an unfair, raciolinguistic standard signal possibility and progress. That is, for three instructors to mention race without my prompting signals the ways race and, potentially, whiteness, are being visibilized in connection with *SE on these instructors’ consciousnesses. The languaging of *SE and its related terms shows the potential to operationalize these languaged terms to synergize translingual and anti-racist approaches within writing courses, grading practices, and rubrics. This languaging also has implications for the range of familiarity instructors had with research on language diversity and translingualism.

The following two case study/profile hybrids represent two instructors for whom *SE trafficked in opposite ways. *SE was present in some way, either on instructors’ rubrics or in their consciousness, even though they combatted and critiqued *SE. For Erin, who did include that term on her rubric, there was a clear tension between acknowledging other varieties of English and preparing students for American writing expectations. For Sophia, an instructor who actively combatted *SE and did not include it on her rubric, there was still a struggle within her consciousness surrounding her work with international students and *SE. These struggles and tensions point to the need for renewed and increased attention on *SE, rubrics, and programmatic assessment policies.

Erin: Explicitly Present, Most Operative, Least Combatted

Erin, one of the two instructors teaching internationally, identified *SE as correct English and grammatical correctness in the first interview, but in this DBI centered on her rubric, connected it with a feeling as well as her own experiences with grammar. In addition, while her sample rubric was the only one that included the words *Standard English, she indicated her desire to omit the word standard from that rubric during the DBI. Her perspectives on grammar, *SE, and her rubric from her two interviews, paired with the probing about *SE from this DBI, reveal that *SE is present in and on her rubric in both visible and invisible ways through terms like grammar and language while race functions as an absence. At the same time, however, she also recognized other varieties of English and stated she did not intend to privilege one over another.

For Erin, *SE was present in a number of ways. While she has used rubrics for eight years, she added a formatting and language component from a template in her program, in part because of a previous lesson including subject-verb agreement. As she noted, errors or language issues she identifies do not affect students’ grades significantly, and in her sample rubric, language and formatting comprise 10 percent of the final essay grade. The words *Standard English were explicitly on her rubric (Appendix 2). In addition, she defined grammar and grammatical correctness as Standard English, which follows the definition she gave of *SE in the first interview. *SE did not seem to be present, however, through a term like mistake, although it could persist through a term like error since she defined error as incorrect. Taking these two definitions together reveals an additional way *SE may operate in her rubric through a term like grammar.

In the DBI, I asked Erin questions to probe her reasons for including *SE in her rubric. As she explained, while she knows there are different Englishes, she wants her students to be prepared to enter campus in the US but does not want them to be penalized like she has been. When I asked if she found herself thinking about *SE while using her rubric, she responded, “Well, again I’m not really sure I know what is standard as much as I know what feels correct or is deemed correct from what maybe I learned in school... I’m just looking for, again, what I think is correct English grammar.” *SE, then, seems to be less about what is standard and more about what she feels is correct based on her education. This feeling reflects the ideological underpinnings of *SE, particularly Lippi-Green’s point that the “rules” of *SE are anything but logical or consistent. Taken with Erin’s definition and identification of *SE as correct English, *SE traffics as correct English grammar and less visibly as an ideology.

Table 3 below shows how Erin responded during the DBI to alternative language based on the use of terms like standard US English grammar in her rubric.

Table 3. Erin’s Explanations of Select *SE-Related Language

Original & alternative text	Erin’s explanations
Original: “use standard US English grammar” Option 1: use Standard English Option 2: use English grammar	“I mean, looking at it now...I should rephrase it. I should maybe take out standard and just say US English spelling... so, yeah, I don’t find that that my phrasing necessarily reflects my intent, which may well be confusing for some students if they, for example, tried to search what is standard US, standard English grammar at times.”
Original: “grammar (incl. subject-verb agreement), spelling, and sentence structure” Option 1: grammar, spelling, and punctuation Option 2: language, grammar, and sentence structure	“...I think I’m really just trying to distinguish like the grammar points from the focus on how they’re building their sentences.... I think that could easily come under grammar...and maybe we should change it to, I’m not sure how I would change it...maybe structures do not work, construction?...so I’m really looking for complete sentences there when I say sentence structure and a variety of sentence types. So, maybe I need to think of a better way to indicate that’s what I’m looking for, if you’re asking what do I mean, maybe I need to think what do I mean?”

The explanation Erin offered for her inclusion of *SE reveals that she would omit the word standard from her rubric because it might be confusing for students and also does not reflect her intent. Her explanations of other language, like her grammar points and use of formal language, reveal that she is looking for students to use complete sentences, avoid contractions, and use subjects and verbs that agree. Overall, *SE is present on her rubric in both visible and invisible ways, most visibly in her use of the words standard and English in her “Language & Formatting” criteria. Less visibly, *SE traffics as correct English and is included as a means of preparing students for US-based contexts that may expect it. In addition, *SE is tied with grammar as well as formal language and complete sentences. Since the “Language & Formatting” criteria is worth 10 percent of the final essay grade, *SE could also persist in that 10 percent. Thus, even while Erin offered a potential critique of *SE by questioning its function as a form of linguistic devaluation and stated that she did not intend to privilege one variety of English over another, her reflections in this DBI mark *SE as an absent presence whose raciolinguistic ideology she is starting to question but nonetheless may still subscribe to.

Sophia: Explicitly Absent, Least Operative, Most Resistant

Sophia, associate director of the composition program for multilingual writers in the US, actively combatted and critiqued *SE in her first interview and continued that resistance in this DBI, from her re-articulation of error as “communicative glitch” to her focus on linguistic accuracy versus correctness. While *SE itself is not tacitly present as an ideology on her rubric, *SE does seem to traffic more in her mind as she grades. In addition, by connecting *SE with error, she expanded on the conflict she felt in her first interview surrounding *SE and her international students.

Sophia combatted *SE in a number of ways. While her work with rubrics has evolved, she usually has three categories on them but does not look at grammar or mechanics, like *SE, since her teaching is not accuracy-focused. Her rubrics assess both domestic and international students on their revision decisions as well as their uptake of her comments, and she performs language noticing activities for all students, too. As she explained, language noticing means looking at the “language moves that enable and enact the larger rhetorical moves,” such as looking at what verbs are used to introduce an author’s exigence for an academic paper or the phrases that help show authorial purpose. However, for domestic students, she does not mark grammar and mechanics. Her definitions of grammatical correctness and error also revealed those terms as additional sites of resistance since she defined them both as constructs. Marking a phrase like “I ain’t gonna go to the store” as error, as she explained, is a means of perpetuating racist linguistic ideology. Finally, in reflecting on error, she creatively resisted it, re-naming it as a “communicative glitch” that can make it difficult to succeed in a given genre.

The conflict she mentioned surrounding *SE, error, and her international students, however, reveals several ways *SE traffics in her mind but not on her rubrics despite her identification as a translingualist. Sophia explained that she struggles with international students because she knows they are paying a lot of money for tuition and want to learn English, but she also wants them to have a critical language awareness. When she grades, she feels conflicted about whether to write comments letting them know that, if they want to be more fluent in *Standard English, they are making a pattern of error in SEE (standard edited English). Thus, the term error as it is connected to *SE or SEE creates conflict not only with her ideological stance on *SE/SEE but also her desire to be in alignment with her department’s and program’s philosophy on language usage (i.e., linguistic noticing). When asked if she thought *SE was on her rubric, Sophia said that, while she did not see it on there, she hoped it was not, so even though she aligned herself with a translingual approach to language, she nonetheless indicated potential hesitancy or concern surrounding *SE’s operation on her rubric.

In the DBI (see Table 4), Sophia further resisted *SE by explaining that *SE did not matter at all in the context of her students grappling with complicated concepts in interesting ways—as she explained, that work is about ideas, not language. She also resisted terms like grammar and language on her rubric because she was worried that those terms would cause her students to worry and focus solely on their language and grammar rather than building rhetorical and genre awareness. Finally, she revealed a way other (not necessarily writing) faculty are perpetuating *SE, which is when they include grammar and editing on their rubrics but have not taught either of those in their courses.

When reflecting on the phrase “your tone and style is appropriate” on her sample rubric, Sophia appeared to edit or self-correct that phrase to “your tone and style are appropriate” so that her subject and verb agreed in number. While this could be identified as a “communicative glitch” that Sophia had recognized, it could also be a form of editing in relation to *SE as a target, even though neither of us identified this change as linked to *SE during the interview. Sophia’s reflection on her use of the word polish reveals that she means proofread since she wants her students to make sure they do not have any typos or formatting issues. However, she was still conflicted about that language because while she knew her students were not reading that word as grammar, she was also not sure about whether they knew what that word means. More interesting, perhaps, is that while her conflict surrounding that word remains unresolved, she seemed to practice that polishing, or proofreading, as she noted her own communicative glitch.

At the end of the DBI, Sophia and I talked about other parts of her rubric, which revealed two final means by which *SE trafficked. Combatting *SE even further, she said that in point number six, her pedagogical approach was perhaps most visible: “Like, instead of putting ‘You use a correct standard edited English,’ I’m saying, ‘You show effort and intention to apply our writing hacks.’ Effort and intention doesn’t mean you’re doing it correctly, but I can see you’re trying.” In other words, she included terms like effort and intention instead of correct SEE because she is assessing her students’ effort, not their ability to meet SEE. Finally, Sophia articulated one way *SE persists after I wondered out loud in the interview if *SE could somehow be “lurking in the dark.” As she put it in response to my question, *SE is “lurking in these hidden spaces” because it is an entrenched language ideology that students see through their lived experiences as what gets privileged. Thus, while *SE may not explicitly be present or privileged in rubrics, it is present as a form of cognitive dissonance for students. In short, then, while *SE does not traffic in Sophia’s rubric, it does traffic and persist in her mind as she feels conflict about reading past errors in *SE, deals with her own potential error in *SE, and recognizes the entrenched language ideology of *SE, all the while working to meet the program’s learning outcomes and take a translingual approach to language.

Table 4. Sophia’s Explanations of Select *SE-Related Language

Original & alternative text	Sophia’s explanations
Original: “grappling with complicated concepts in thoughtful and interesting ways” Option 1: grappling with complicated concepts, like *Standard English Option 2: grappling with complicated concepts (such as *Standard English)	“in that particular phrase I was, or sentence, I was really just trying to emphasize the ideas... I don’t think standard English matters all in that situation...Because we’re talking about ideas here we’re not talking about language.”
Original: “careful to edit and polish your final draft” Option 1: careful to edit and proofread Option 2: careful to edit and correct	“I was conflicted about that language, but... proofread is basically what I mean, really, when I say polish...Like I want them to go through and make sure that they are not having typos or like formatting issues and you can tell that they just rushed through it... I don’t mean that they’re gonna go back and like try to find their own grammatical errors and edit those... And it doesn’t make sense to assess them on editing and correcting if I haven’t taught grammar... which I think is a common problem for a lot of faculty. Not necessarily writing faculty, but across the curriculum, who often include grammar editing but have never taught it so how are students, they shouldn’t be evaluated on it.”
Original: “Your tone and style is appropriate.” Option 1: Your tone, style, and mechanics is appropriate Option 2: Your tone, style, and grammar is appropriate	“...I feel like the biggest challenge for students is recognizing how to adapt their writing and their communication for different audiences... Because again, it doesn’t matter if you’re like, making errors in your standard English usage. That’s whatever. What matters is that you’re able to understand how to adapt your tone for a specific audience... when you boil it all down is rhetorical awareness... So when that comes on the rubric, and it says your tone and style are appropriate. Oh, I should say your tone and style are appropriate.... [Laughs] So that’s funny. [Laughs] But anyways, so they should understand what I mean...”

In sum, while the words *Standard English were mostly absent from instructors’ rubrics and courses, they still operated through terms like error and grammatical correctness, assumptions surrounding language, or external pressures from student and faculty expectations. Instructors recognized the problematic nature of *SE, and its constructed, oxymoronic, and even racist presence, even though the term was often discursively absent from their rubrics and courses. Despite instructors’ general familiarity with research on language diversity and translingualism, *SE maintained a sense of tacit power (as an absent presence), particularly because those words were absent from their rubrics.

Conclusion & Recommendations

Instructors’ reflections and responses in these interviews mark a number of opportunities for further combatting *SE and synergizing translingual and anti-racist approaches to deconstructing and destabilizing *SE. Sophia’s and Michael’s identification of *SE as a creation or construct, for example, reflects scholars’ critiques of *SE as a myth, thereby visibilizing *SE’s tacit, ideological status. Susan’s, Erin’s, and Sophia’s explicit mentions of race in connection to *SE, while done without my prompting, mark an opportunity to deconstruct *SE as a white, discursive, mythical norm. As Davila suggests, because “the act of naming has had a profound effect in other areas,” we should begin there with *SE (“The Inevitability of ‘Standard’” 143). Finally, there is potential in easing the externalized pressures some instructors interviewed in this study felt between combatting and commenting on *SE.

First, while I am not advocating for or against the use of rubrics, more attention could be paid to rubrics as a potential means of both combatting *SE and also examining how *SE may operate as an absent presence on those rubrics. For example, it could be possible to include not just the words Standard English but rather white *Standard English (w*SE) or white Mainstream English (wME) on rubrics where the language, grammar, and/or style criteria are typically found so that the whiteness of *SE can be made visible and destabilized as a linguistic norm. I also believe it could be particularly helpful to add language to rubrics or grading policies such as “You will not be judged against your ability to meet w*SE/wME since that standard is unfair, mythical, and paradoxical” or “If you would like for me to comment on your grammar and language, I will do so, but I will never penalize you for your language use or practice.”

Second, as Susan explained in her interviews, the debate about form vs. content plays out in talk with students and in rubrics as well. Thus, there may be value in more closely examining the dynamics of those debates. There is also potential with the ways language about language is positioned on rubrics. Taking Susan and Sophia’s languaging via their introduction of terms like linguistic etiquette and communicative glitch, discussing those terms in class, and adding those terms to rubrics could initiate a means of deconstructing, challenging, or complicating *SE. Finally, there may also be value in instructors asking themselves a revised version of the question I asked in each DBI: to what extent might *SE be assumed or valued on this rubric or in this course, particularly as an absent presence?

Third, there is a need for additional programmatic, policy-based support as well as greater attention to rubrics and the role *SE plays in them. Because *SE trafficked in a number of ways in instructors’ rubrics, their courses, and their minds, I believe creating and implementing language policies developed by writing programs, their WPAs, and their faculty could give additional guidance to instructors as they navigate and deal with *SE in their assessment practices and classrooms. As Sophia put it in her interviews, *SE ideology is everywhere. However, if instructors have program-backed policies that take an explicit stance not only on *SE but also on *SE’s role in assessment, then the pressure they experience dealing with *SE in their grading practices might be eased.

To be clear, these kinds of policies are already being created in some writing programs. While that work is valuable, my fourth recommendation is adding an explicit focus on *SE and writing assessment. That language might look something like:

Actively look for and reflect on the ways in which current assessment practices, including rubrics, may invisibly promote *Standard English as the single standard against which student writing is judged; facilitate open and explicit conversations with students about the linguistic expectations and standards for their writing in order to then challenge those standards, including *SE, together.

Another option might be:

While we [this writing program] recognize the ways a white *Standard English (w*SE) is privileged in different contexts, we will never require students to be assessed or measured against w*SE unless that is their conscious, deliberate choice.

Such language could acknowledge translingual and/or anti-racist approaches and scholars directly. The purpose of these additions is, first, to encourage instructors, from a top-down, programmatic level of commitment, to reflect on how their assessment practices, including their grading tools and rubrics, may be invisibly promoting *SE and then to do something about that reflection by having explicit and open conversations with students about the invisible presence of *SE. The second purpose is to provide explicit guidance and material support for writing instructors that connects *SE with their writing assessment practices and, in making it clear that no instructor should be forced to assess students against *SE, ease the pressure instructors may feel to do just that. These additions also make *SE, its ideology, and its connections to assessment more visible and more explicit, marking one step towards shifting the power of *SE so that it no longer “lurks in the dark” but rather is challenged and resisted in the light as the mythologized eel that it is.

What these four suggestions have in common, I argue, is the need for Synergistic English Work (SEW) with rubrics, translingualism, and anti-racist writing assessment. While I have synergized the levels to which *SE persisted in each of the above rubrics, I now advocate for synergizing those findings with the work done in translingual and anti-racist scholarship surrounding rubrics and grading.

From *SE-ing to SEW-ing

At the end of her DBI, Sophia made an interesting point about cultivating and assessing rhetorical awareness of *SE:

But I think it can be assessed, for example, if they’re writing, I don’t know, like, I mean, we need to dismantle all standard English, but if they’re writing something that’s, like, for like a white paper, I guess. I’m just giving a random example, and they’re code meshing with Spanish. But, like, the audience are only English speakers, then great that you’re breaking and dismantling, like, linguistic imperialism, but it’s like, they’re not gonna be able to understand what you’re saying in this code-meshed version. So that is not meeting the course objectives, because it’s not rhetorically aware. So, you know, that the choices they make with the English they want to use are rhetorically sound, I think that can be assessed.

In other words, it may be possible to assess not against *SE but rather around it, centering the assessment on the student’s rhetorical awareness of *SE. This rhetorical awareness of *SE may be one way of operationalizing a synergized translingual/anti-racist approach to *SE in the context of assessment. That is, assessing students’ awareness of *SE represents a shift from *SE to SEW since instructors can raise students’ awareness of *SE as a form of raciolinguistic discrimination and then assess students’ rhetorical awareness of their linguistic choices rather than students’ ability to meet or not meet *SE.

Translingual and anti-racist scholarship might also focus on the relationship between rubrics, *SE, and grading in more explicit ways. For example, what would be the effect of explicitly including language on rubrics that labels *SE as w*SE (white *Standard English) or wME (white Mainstream English), defining w*SE/wME, and specifying that students will not be assessed on their ability to write in w*SE/wME? In addition, how might a translingual approach that advocates for letting students choose the portion of their grade that comes from *SE or grammar on a rubric account for the ways language minoritized students may be judged based on how they look or sound before they can be understood? Finally, how might an anti-racist approach that advocates for labor-based grading contracts deal with international students, for example, who are concerned about matriculating and meeting externally-imposed standards of language accuracy?

The nature and practice of this SEW-ing is a means of remaking, a call to action, and a synergistic push to bring all of this *SE-related work together so that writing instructors, scholars, and administrators might move from *SE-ing to SEW-ing and begin to push their way forward through this *SE assessment problem, through a number of many steps taken in a number of places and spaces. SEW-ing is about collaboration, about taking small steps in classrooms, in policies, in research, in assessment, about staying in the complicated, in the grey space of this *SE myth. SEW-ing means there is not one simple answer to this assessment problem and myth but that there are many places and spaces to start somewhere and produce “material results” (DeVault and Gross) by actually dealing with the slick *SE eel and sustaining that difficult, messy, but necessary work.

These questions, this article, and the work emanating from it that I continue to perform as a researcher, writer, and instructor are a starting point, a call to keep uncovering *Standard English, the terms it lives through, and the invisible ways it traffics from the writing instructors who deal with it every week, every semester, every year. It is a call for more support, a call for opportunity, a call for calling out these invisibly inscribed terms and reinscribing them on our own terms, using our own metaphors, drawing from our material realities, and building on the work writing instructors are already doing to resist this slick, tacit eel of a myth.

Appendices

1. Appendix 1
2. Appendix 2: Sample Instructor Rubrics

Appendix 1

FACULTY INTERVIEW #1: Concept Clarification Interview Protocol

Timeframe: August-September 2020

Interviewer: Before I ask you questions about language, grading, and Standard English, I’d like to talk to you briefly about the format of this interview. I would like your input on the questions I ask you, and I may ask for that feedback at different points in the interview. I’d also like to remind you that you may choose not to answer questions, stop the interview, or turn off your camera at any point. To begin our interview, then, I would like to ask you some opening questions about language and grading before we move to Standard English.

1. Is there a pseudonym you would like me to use for this study? If so, what is it?

2. What language or languages do you speak?

   1. Do you consider yourself multilingual?

3. What is your current position at [University]?

4. How long have you been teaching writing or composition to university students?

   1. Where have you taught writing or composition courses? What courses were those?

   2. What writing courses do you currently teach?

   3. How many sections of English will you teach this fall 2020 semester at [University]?

5. What experience do you have teaching multilingual students?

   1. Have you taught classes specifically designed for multilingual students?

6. How long have you used rubrics or other tools for grading your students’ writing assignments?

   1. What do those tools or rubrics look like? How detailed are they?

   2. Do those tools or rubrics include information about grammar, correctness, or sentence-level issues?

   3. If so, how important are grammar, correctness, or sentence-level issues to your rubrics or tools?

7. How would you define grammar and grammatical correctness?

   1. When you grade a student’s essay, what role, if any, do grammar and grammatical correctness play as you grade that essay?

   2. Can you offer an example of a time where an essay’s grammar and grammatical correctness played a significant role in your reading process?

8. In the context of student writing, what does the term error mean to you? How would you define that term?

   1. What are some examples of error that you have seen or marked in student writing?

9. When you grade a student’s essay, what kinds of pressures, if any, do you feel?

   1. Where do you think those pressures come from?

10. What does it mean to you to grade student writing fairly and equitably?

    1. When you think of grading students fairly and equitably, what goes through your mind?

    2. What elements, if any, are you negotiating?

11. Are you familiar with research on translingualism or language diversity?

    1. Has this research played into the way you assess or grade student writing? If so, how?

12. Have you heard of the concept Standard English?

    1. If so, what does that term mean to you? How would you define it?

    2. If not, what do you understand that term to mean? How would you define it?

13. Have you heard other terms or words associated with Standard English?

14. [Added in first interview] Do you or have you used the words Standard English in your course? Do you use that phrase?

    1. Do you say Standard English when it comes to your students? In the classroom, do you have conversations explicitly about Standard English?

15. Do you have any questions for me about Standard English?

    1. Have any other questions come up for you as we have been talking?

FACULTY INTERVIEW #2: Discourse-Based Interview Example A (Erin)

Timeframe: August-September 2020

Interviewer: Before I ask you questions about the rubric you sent me, I’d like to talk to you briefly about the format of this interview. I would like your input on the questions I ask you, and I may ask for that feedback at different points in the interview. I’d also like to remind you that you may choose not to answer questions, stop the interview, or turn off your camera at any point. We will begin with questions about grammar, correctness, and Standard English and then move to some excerpts I have pulled from the Language & Formatting row of the Analytical Summary Rubric you sent me. 

Do you find a focus on grammar, correctness, and/or sentence level issues to be important in your rubric? Why or why not?

If so, how important are any of the above to your rubric?

Do they hold a certain percentage or weight of a student’s final essay grade?

Do you see any parts of your rubric that might require students to write their essays in Standard English? 

What parts are those? Could you walk me through them? 

When you use this rubric to assess student writing, do you think about Standard English in any way?

Based on the rubric you sent me, I noticed:

That you did include the words “Standard English.” Can you tell me about that?   

Speaking of Standard English, I noticed: 

In the Language & Formatting row the phrase “use standard US English grammar.” You could also say “Standard English” or “English grammar.” Could you talk about why you said “standard US English grammar”?

I noticed after grammar:

The word “including” before subject-verb agreement. You could also say “such as” or “for example.” Could you talk about why you said “including”?

I also noticed in that list:

That you said “grammar (incl. subject-verb agreement), spelling, and sentence structure.” You could also say “grammar, spelling, and punctuation” or “language, grammar, and sentence structure.” Could you talk about why you said “grammar (incl. subject-verb agreement), spelling, and sentence structure”?

I noticed in the next sentence:

That you said “use formal language.” You could also say “formal, edited language” or “formal, proofread language.” Could you talk about why you said “formal language”?

I noticed in the next sentence:

That you said “title the paper using the article’s title.” You could also say “title the paper correctly” or “title the paper properly.” Could you talk about why you said “title the paper using the article’s title”?

Finally, I noticed:

The row title Language & Formatting. You could also use the title Language, Grammar, & Formatting or Language, Formatting, & Mechanics. Could you talk about why you said Language & Formatting?

Are there other parts of your rubric that you would like to discuss? 

Appendix 2: Sample Instructor Rubrics (PDF)

Notes

1. In the same way that Rosina Lippi-Green uses an asterisk to mark grammatically inauthentic utterances (62), I similarly use one to draw attention to the mythical, tacit eel that is *Standard English. (Return to text.)

2. This is not to say, however, that error is and always should be connected with *SE; rather, the point I am making is that error can be connected to *SE depending on how it is used and practiced. In addition, because correctness has come to be associated with *SE but operates in more visible ways than the words *Standard English themselves, that notion as well as the term error serve to operationalize *SE in ways that allow it to move and exist invisibly. (Return to text.)

3. In using this phrase, I am aware of its redundancy—as Laura Greenfield points out in her chapter The ‘Standard English’ Fairy Tale, “the term language diversity is in itself a redundancy, for language is by nature diverse” (42). (Return to text.)

4. These courses, unless specified, are first-year composition (FYC) courses that are three credits each. The FYC courses, however, are four credits, and the EAP (English for Academic Purposes) course is for graduate students. I have not identified the number of sections each instructor teaches but rather identified the types of composition courses they were teaching at the time of our interview to maintain confidentiality. (Return to text.)

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