[Milton-L] Off topic of Milton but relevant to the larger discipline of English

[Cristine Soliz]

It sounds as though your school wants to use the Current Traditional
approach to composition in the first course where the focus is on the
product only. I personally think this is misguided because I think the
how-to part needs to work with interpretive skills, the thinking skills, and
I believe this is how Milton would see it, judging from his discourse on the
"word" and how problematic knowledge and discourse are. When you focus on
the how-to of writing only you ignore this about language and don't see that
writing is an heuristic process (which is what Milton is all about) and you
also ignore genres, and hence the audience.
Sharon Crowley _Methodical Memory_ has a good argument against this. If you
are from Richmond, isn't this a liberal arts college that should know
better?

Cristina 

_______________
Cristine Soliz
PhD in Comparative Literature
Faculty in English, Diné College
Faculty Association President
Project Director, NEH Grant
http://dchumanities.org/
Area Chair Historical Fiction, SW Tex Pop Culture and Am Culture Assoc
Associate Scholar, Center for World Indigenous Studies
http://csoliz.com
csoliz at csoliz.com
 



> From: Robert Wiznura <WiznuraR at macewan.ca>
> Reply-To: John Milton Discussion List <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
> Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:26:50 -0600
> To: John Milton Discussion List <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
> Subject: [Milton-L] Off topic of Milton but relevant to the larger discipline
> of English
> 
> Currently, my department is shifting the focus of first year English from a
> literature course to a writing course. Our current course consists of 70%
> literature and 30% writing instruction and is a full year. The new "proposal,"
> which will come about no matter what I have to say about it, will divide the
> course into two half year courses. The first course will consist only of
> writing instruction while the second half will consist of literature (but
> still will require 20% writing instruction). I know that many out there
> already live within this division and my question is simple: does such a
> division actually improve the reading and writing skills of students?
> 
> 
> 
> Dr. Robert Wiznura
> Grant MacEwan College
> CCC 6-266
> (780) 633-3919
> wiznurar at macewan.ca
> 
> 
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