Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/06/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>Your comment above caught my eye. This is a very strong statement, >perhaps you meant something weaker? I may have led a sheltered >academic life, but I am utterly baffled by this concept. How on >Earth can anyone teach basic writing and fully cover their own >course syllabus at the same time? Something is very wrong with this picture. Yes, it's a bit nuts and I'm not particularly in favor of it. It's made worse by the lack of a unified curriculum for freshman writing -- we don't all share the same textbook (Zinnser is recommended but not required). The administration might give all sorts of pedagogic reasons* for doing it this way, but the reality is that it's because the English department doesn't want to teach basic comp. unless they get a major infusion of faculty, which isn't what the rest of the faculty want (since this is the era of zero-sum faculty hires). So we all share the burden of teaching basic writing. Karen * One excuse is that each discipline has its own writing styles: anthropologists write ethnographies, political scientists write briefing papers, and computer scientists write comprehensive and understandable C++ comments. So each discipline should teach to its strengths. Right. -- Karen Nakamura http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/