Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/06/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Karen et al, Pardon me for wading into a discussion into which I've not been invited explicitly, but my sense of the situation is that your academic overseers are about 180? off the mark in having each academic discipline teach outcome-directed basic writing skills. If we, as caretakers of the academy, continue to ignore the practical value of getting our student bodies to a least common denominator core set of prerequisite knowledge and skills, we are very likely to wind up producing state-of-the-art specialty communities whose members are unable to communicate with one another beyond their community in any manner other than conversational, social discourse. That result produces misunderstanding, error and distrust - not good for the maintenance of the social contract. The idea that each discipline deserves to teach its own set of exclusive basic skills, rather than having a basic core set taught to interdisciplinary standards by a general-purpose faculty, sounds like a not-so-subtle land-grab by power-hungry, budget-starved deans against an ineffective senior administration. If I were teaching in such an environment, you better bet I'd be making all kinds of noise at faculty colloquies about such a wrong-headed strategy. Then again, this is just my opinion; I could be wrong! :-) Len -- -----Original Message----- From: lug-bounces+ljkapner=cox.net@leica-users.org [mailto:lug-bounces+ljkapner=cox.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Karen Nakamura Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 9:42 AM To: Leica Users Group Subject: Re: [Leica] declining quality of writing >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/ _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information