Week 2 Readings

Brereton

This article didn’t make much of an impression on me, except to note that 1) although various English departments seem to have different approaches and offerings, nobody seems to like teaching composition and 2) Professor Scott (the last one) seems really run down and tired, and I can’t blame him. The number of students to professors in this case is truly appalling. I wonder how the professors were ever able to provide adequate grading, let alone any time for students with questions. It is notable though that they seem to be designing custom courses for grad students, so that would seem to indicate that they are able to devote very, very little, if any, time to their undergrads.

Kitzhaber

The Kitzhaber article did a good job of explaining the various problems with freshman composition courses. The descriptions of various courses were enlightening, and I noticed particularly that while most of the descriptions advocated a reading component, sort of as an afterthought, one course specifically stated that reading was to be avoided because it interfered with composition. These course descriptions highlight the problems in defining the content that a composition course should cover – one of the many problems with these courses.

It is interesting that many of these courses seem to be considered almost remedial by the staff – something they don’t feel they should have to teach at all, perhaps, because the students should already come to college with the requisite skills. However, the problem is compounded by the fact that it is often taught by graduate students or new professors instead of the most experienced in the department. It is understandable why nobody wants to teach these courses, but it seems the problem will continue until the courses are made more effective by standardization, instruction by more qualified personnel, and, perhaps, more effort and background on the parts of the students themselves (although this, of course, is a “when Hell freezes over” prospect!).

Macrorie
I like the idea that children can be better writers than adults because they are telling the truth. I found the children’s writing hard to read because of the misspellings more than the grammar problems, but it is certainly more effective than the excessively wordy adult writing, and conveys a clearer message. I had never considered the idea that formal instruction in English could actually make a writer worse, but these examples do seem to show that can be the case. I really do hate the spelling errors though.