What is basic writing

From the different sources we heard from in class on Monday night I started to get a sense of what basic writing is. Basic writing seems to be a style of English that does not focus on aesthetic or any fancy language usage. Its main focus is to be writing that communicates. Grammar and usage are important to writing, but they are not the most important. From what the GAs Janell and Ian and the video of Mike Rose seemed to be saying that getting your students to feel confident about writing is the number one thing. This makes sense if you think about it, because you can not really help someone with their writing if you do not have samples of it. I believe writing is something one becomes more comfortable with, and often better at, the more the practice doing it. So it makes sense to try to find the best ways to get students to commit words to page. Naturally this often differs from student to student. Which I believe Janell mentioned when she said certain students preferred writing about personal experiences and others preferred writing on a subject of interest to them. Another interesting example of this was the story Mike Rose told Bill Moyers on the PBS video about the young boy who was a student of his and a fan of rap music. That he was able to get the boy to start writing by using rap lyrics was great example of how there are many ways to get a student to write. Which getting the student to write in any style is the key to making them more comfortable and therefore more forthcoming with their writing. That is vital for students being able to learn basic writing.