This essay responds to Jane Danielewicz's and Peter Elbow's recent piece on contract grading in "College Composition and Communication" (December 2009). I discuss the similarities of their approach to my own contract process, finding that we share a quantitative/performative method for grading. I also explore our differences. While they guarantee…

Gives historical background of basic writing. Contends that elite language instruction has included some and excluded others. Discusses "tracking." States that formal education offers a top-down, business-oriented agenda: basic skills, vocationalism, work discipline, and citizenship. Considers basic writing a containment track below…

Argues that the "failure" of traditional writing instruction is actually its success, protecting the elite and maintaining inequality, which requires mass failure and illiteracy to preserve the unequal hierarchies now in place. Argues that bogus testing should be eliminated, basic writing mainstreamed into an expanded and untracked form of…