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Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing
by Mina Shaughnessy. New York: Oxford UP, 1977. 311 pp.
In 1977 when Mina Shaughnessy wrote Errors and Expectations for teachers of basic writing, very little had been written about the basic writer. Few textbooks were available for developmental writing students or written on a level accessible to them. In the last twenty years, authors have written numerous texts, studies, workbooks, and ancillaries aimed at teaching the basic writer. However, Shaughnessy's book continues to provide valuable information, advice, encouragement, and challenges for basic writing teachers.
Although educational theories have changed and the world has changed, the basic writer is essentially the same, except, perhaps, we now have more older students and nonnative speakers than Shaughnessy and her colleagues had. No matter what the demographic profile, the basic writer still misspells words, misuses the comma, creates awkwardly structured sentences, and finds it difficult to write more than five to ten sentences on a single subject. Thus, Shaughnessy's advice in Errors can help today's teachers meet the continuing needs of basic writing students.
To help the instructor...