ABSTRACT
Mike Rose’s contributions to writing studies encompass a wide scope, but his overall message has been clear: American democracy demands equality in education. In his famous multigenre book, Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America’s Educationally Underprepared (1989), Rose draws on personal narrative to demonstrate that those often labeled “remedial” do not lack innate ability but lack the environmental conditions and socialization for college preparation that others take for granted. Rose shows that these students bring diverse knowledge and intelligence that is usually subdued in “developmental” courses. In “Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University,” Rose employs historical deconstruction to demonstrate how institutions use labels such as “remedial” and “illiterate” to keep students in “scholastic quarantine,” when in fact literacy levels in America have risen dramatically over time. Rose offers us a reminder that the classroom can be a place of rich dialectical opportunity and that diverse students can truly enrich intellectual endeavor within the academy.
