🚀 go-pugleaf

Joel
The summer pre-college (remedial-developmental) writing course I teach
for enrollment "rejects-but-hopefuls" requires about 20 pages of writing.
I don't think the problem here is our focus on the student's voice.  In
fact, most of us look at individual voice as a small component of writing
instruction.  The problem, as I see it, is the stubborn insistence of
many departments on teaching literature and grammar and calling it writing.
Students can learn in any number of ways.  I sincerely believe that good
teachers will teach and students will learn regardless of the level of
traditional or innovative pedagogy, but students will rarely learn what
ain't taught.  Every day I hear English faculty pissing and moaning about
the need for a pure grammar course and more literature in composition.  As
a result, we're moving back into that comfortable old sofa, and our students
are writing less.  Let them write; then beat them, massage them, bribe them
into a better understanding of grammar through that writing.  How much
grammar is enough?  That depends.  Frankly, I'm much more interested in
grammar now than I was 20 years ago, and I was a relatively proficient
writer (of course, I had the benefit of Sister Emerita Joseph's seventh
grade English class).
I'm frustrated by this debate, and I'm frustrated by the comp lit
people around me who profess to be professors of writing.

Ralph Wahlstrom            rwahlstr@hp.uwsuper.edu