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

[gilliaca at jmu.edu]

.>
>Currently, my department is shifting the focus of first year English from a literature course to a writing course. ... 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?

 Back to the future! That was how freshman English was in 1971 when I came to [then] Madison College. We used anthologies of essays 1st half, and a literarure anthology the 2nd, during which we taught the research paper. English dept faculty taught these courses.  Then, maybe a dozen years ago, the university established a Writing Program to teach freshman English, renamed General Studies Writing, or GWRIT.  It quickly went from 2 semesters to one, with all teaching done by writnng and rhetoric people ,.. and a LOT of adjuncts, as the univesrity could not/would not fund enough tenure track lines for that program. In addition, the university began exempting freshmen from even that 3 hour course on the evidence of SAT verbals, AP, etc - with mixed results. 

The students who take the 3 hour coure also come through with uneven skills. Some will have rewritten the same paper several times for ever higher grades - some will not have written anything impromptu in class [so they complain about essay exams] - some will have written a fair number of papers but had them largely edited and graded by peer groups [blind leading blind, IMHO] - some will come through with quite decent skills.

Of course, this is not all the fault of the writing program, as students come from public schools largely untaught in writing except for the 5 paragraph essay.  Most will not have studied a foriegn language in any depth [I lucked out and learned BOTH English and Latin grammar in 4 years of Latin].

Do I want to go back to teaching 2 sections of freshman comp every term? No. But it seems to me your school is in fact going in the right direction given the wonders of 'no child ever challenged.'

C

Cynthia A. Gilliatt
English Department, JMU
JMU Safe Zones participant
"You have made God in your own image when God hates the same people you hate." Fr. John Weston