HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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Date:         Sun, 4 Oct 1992 15:22:58 --500
From:         "David E. Schwalm" <IACDES@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Wyoming Resolution

 *** Reply to note of 10/04/92 10:17
 Jim, what is the public attitude toward universities in Louisiana? AS you make
 your plans for dealing with budget cuts, you might look at the July/August
 issue of Change, which contains articles about the public loss of confidence
 in universities. The upshot of the articles is that we need to become more
 student centered (not news to composition folks) and our arguments for funding
 must be couched in terms of quality undergraduate education. If small class
 size is viewed as a way of giving faculty more time for research, look out! At
 our campus, which is nowhere near in as bad a situation as campuses in
 Louisiana, we are dong some serious soul searching about our commitment to
 undergraduates, looking to see if research really does feed into high quality
 undergraduate instruction and curricula, and so on. At the same time we are
 trying to develop "stories," anecdotes of faculty professional life that
 counteract the myths that kill us in the public mind--from Mr. Chips (both the
 good cop and bad cop versions of the teacher who devotes 110% to students--the
 bad cop version doesn't like students) to the arrogant research professor
 whose research is largely irrelevant and who nevers sees students. We rae
 trying to figure out ways to get the public and the legislature to understand
 what faculty and universities actually do. And we have to do it anecdotally.
 To reverse the old adage--die by the anecdote, live by the anecdote. One other
 suggestion. It is not necessarily wise (I have discoverd the hard way) to
 embarrass the institution. The trick is to reveal the bad situation at your
 school in the context of the innovative and creative ways you are attempting
 to deal with financial difficulties. The public sees us a whiners. Whatever
 difficulties we face, we have some of the most secure jobs in the world, and
 we are reasonably well-paid. People whose grasp on a job is tenuous at best,
 who are living on the edge financially, don't have too much sympathy for our
 difficulties--unless we can convince them (of what is true) that our
 difficulties are their difficulties.

 -- David E. Schwalm, Assoc. Provost for Academic Programs
 ___Arizona State University West
 ___4701 West Thunderbird Rd.
 ___Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100___(602) 543-4500
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1992 22:19:55 ADT
Comments:     <06OCT92.23428490.0185.MUSIC@UNB.CA>
From:         Russ Hunt <HUNT@UNB.CA>
Subject:      jazz withdrawal

Jim Layton says:

     I have difficulty understanding how jazz music has become
     the focal point of this network.  I enjoy jazz, music, and
     composition.  However, as a result of the quality of the
     traffic on this network I must withdraw. . . . Would some
     kind person on the network provide me with directions--I
     tried, but failed. . . .
                 Thank you,

I considered signing off myself, but I have found some things on
MBU so valuable that I simply can't (the flood of information on
class size limitations, for instance, is extremely valuable).
I'd thought of sending individual offline messages to the
participants in the discussion of jazz and New Age music
suggesting they carry on their discussion off line, but I
haven't, because I thought perhaps it was merely my own problem.

     I came back after three days at a conference to find
196 messages waiting, and it irritated me so to find a
substantial proportion of them completely irrelevant to the
networks they were posted to (perhaps a quarter; this isn't a
problem local to MBU) that I've almost broken a keyboard.  Each
message, at 1200 baud, takes about 15 or 20 seconds to identify
before I can delete it as irrelevant.  After half an hour, a
message saying simply, "Thanks, Fred," or a discussion on MBU of
whether New Age music is worth listening to, does not render me
ecstatic with delight and interest.

     Please . . .

                                    -- Russ
                                _~|__
Russell A. Hunt            _~|__)_ __)~|__   Learning and Teaching
Department of English      )_ __)_|_)__ __)     Development Office
St. Thomas University        |  )____) |        EMAIL: hunt@unb.ca
Fredericton, New Brunswick___|____|____|____/  FAX: (506) 450-9615
E3B 5G3   CANADA          \                / PHONE: (506) 452-7700
                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Date:         Tue, 29 Sep 1992 12:33:18 CDT
From:         Don Langham <DLANGHAM@ENGLISH.AS.UA.EDU>
Subject:      Interchange?

Would someone provide me with information for obtaining
the program _Interchange_?  I'd appreciate it greatly.  Thanks.

--Don Langham
  University of Alabama
  DLangham@English.as.ua.edu
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Date:         Fri, 2 Oct 1992 21:21:25 -0600
From:         "(Michael Day)" <mday@SILVER.SDSMT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Basic writing, again and again

Bob C:

We have (We?) I guess we *had* a course like that in the rhetoric
dept. at UC Berkeley.  I even got to teach it, once.  We concentrated
on oral interpretation and memorization as means to internalize the
suasive functions of language.  But the dept. required them to write
analytical papers based on their oral interpretations -- not what you
had in mind.  It was great fun, and from time to time we even listened
to and (rarely) *imitated* the greats (Pound, Elliot, Williams, Stevens,
Roethke. etc.) readings on _The Poet's Voice_ Harvard readings series.

I should add for all (and especially you, Jeff, because I have gotten
so much out of your recent postings), that as one trained in classical
rhetoric and renaissance humanism, I heartily subscribe to the notion
of using imitation from time to time in writing classes.  That is, I
agree with Dave S. Bob C. Martin and others that memorizing and copying
can have a significant impact on one's ability to articulate and improvise
upon cognitive structures and the corresponding linguistic "riffs."

Never, though, to the exclusion of *invention*, with emphasis on process,
heuristics, and other mad brainstorming!

Michael Day
mday@silver.sdsmt.edu
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1992 15:14:43 EDT
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From:         BAHUOT01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU
Subject:      Re: Writing Program Size

At University of Louisville (27,000 urban mission) we have 26 in Eng 101 & 102,
15 in basic writing (last year budget cuts were cited to bump it up to 20, but
the furor was intense and we were allowed to keep it at 15 for now), 20 in
advanced composition courses (up from 17 due to the budget cuts of last year)
and 24 in writing intensive courses in the College of Arts & Sciences.In
other writing intensive courses used to satisfy the writing requirement of the
university's general education program, there are no enrollment limitations.

Brian Huot
University of Louisville
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Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 19:28:02 HST
From:         James Shimabukuro <JAMESS@UHUNIX.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: A Check

Like Bill Wresch, I've been wondering about the silence from MBU.

Jim Shimabukuro  jamess@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu
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Date:         Fri, 2 Oct 1992 15:33:51 EDT
From:         "(JOHN JOHNSON-EILOLA)" <jeilola@MTU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Basic writing, again and again
              "RONRON%USU.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu" at Oct 2, 92 8:55 am

RONRON%USU.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu writes:
>
> Jeff Galin -- one reason why imitatio would work is based in schema
> theory.  Imitating writing of a certain type and style allows us to
> build schemata for that type of writing.  Writing is acquired inductively
> and unconsciously, best from examples. The overy presentation of
> principles doesn't seem to be necessary to it.  This is far different
> from the "rote memorization" you mention. We are problem-solving
> mechanisms.  Imitatio is an effective way of standing aside and letting
> the mechanism work.  Ron Shook
>
Ron--doesn't the construction of schemata require more than a letter-
by-letter or word-by-word memorization? The problem with imitatio,
as I've normally seen it practiced (actually, as I've practiced
it as well) is that student attention is so tightly focused on the
copying of the microstructural material that macrostructural relations
are ignored. Or are you only suggesting imitatio as a micro-level
heuristic? In that case, I can see the sense of it, for poetry
especially. But the imitatio I've seen seem to rely on the student
making, through brute-force repetition, the jump from rote memorization
to mastery.


--

- Johndan Johnson-Eilola                                  jeilola@mtu.edu
  Humanities Department                              jeilola@mtus5.bitnet
  Michigan Technological University
  Houghton, MI 49931
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Date:         Thu, 1 Oct 1992 09:41:52 CDT
From:         Don Langham <DLANGHAM@ENGLISH.AS.UA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Basic writing, one more time

> >Dave Roberts has done me (and, I suspect, most if not all of us) a real
> >service by forwarding his letter.  I don't know how many times recently
> >that I've been forced to argue and reargue this old but important issue; but
> >I do know how often I'll avail myself of Dave's brilliant and telling
> >summary of trends and research.  Again, Dave--thanks heaps.
>
> Yes, double thanks--that letter is an important statement about
> the role of grammar in writing instruction.  Is it published
> anywhere? If not, it should be--in a publication that will
> reach as many writing teachers as possible.
>
My sentiments also.  If it's okay, David, I'd like to print this and
share it with some friends in the Education school here at Alabama.


--Don Langham
  University of Alabama
  DLangham@English.as.ua.edu
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1992 10:19:41 CDT
From:         Wes Chapman <WESCHAP@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Class size
              5 Oct 1992 20:38:46 PDT from <Paul_J_LeBlanc@CUP.PORTAL.COM>

At Illinois Wesleyan (not a similar institution), Expository Writing courses
are capped at 17, Frshman Seminars (mor or less "advanced" 1st year courses) at
14, and upper level creative writing courses at 15.  At Cornell, freshman
writing seminars were capped at 17, and I think (not sure about this) the
upper level courses were capped at 15.
  hang in there,
  Wes Chapman
  Illinois Wesleyan University
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Date:         Sat, 3 Oct 1992 14:57:05 -0400
From:         Lili Velez <lv08+%ANDREW.CMU.EDU@CARNEGIE.BITNET>
Subject:      Re:Imitatio and Leeches

Jeff, there's something really neat about your choice of comparisons
there:  leeches and imitatio were used ages ago, and not always
appropriately.  Many people died from the former, and perhaps many died
of boredom due to the latter.  But physicians now are relearning the
usefulness of leeches -- there articles describing their appropriate
uses (they are invaluable in post-operative therapy for limb
re-attachment patients).

So perhaps in the case of imitatio, too, there are appropriate occasions
for the ancient practice.  The trick is to know what qualifies as an
appropriate occasion.

What I'd give for an all-purpose kairos-meter....!

Lili
Rhet in the Blue Linen Labcoat
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Date:         Sat, 3 Oct 1992 16:59:00 CDT
From:         Fred Kemp <YKFOK@TTACS.BITNET>
Subject:      no mistake

Locke Carter reports that that most generous of universities, the
University of Texas at Austin (and in some ways it is), calls
my being granted BASIC and Turbo Pascal as a second language
requirement "a mistake."  What they told me at the time, in their
confusion about how to handle my request and Jerry Bump's support
(I and Locke Carter and Paul Taylor and Jerry Bump and John Slatin
and Wayne Butler and Hugh Burns and Stuart Moulthrop ((briefly))
have repeatedly confused that English department by trying to make
it face the 20th Century) was that because I had been a Korean
linguist during my Army service and given 12 hours of credit by
the U. of Cal system for my 12 months at the Defense Language
Institute in Monterey, Cal, and had been a classics minor with
mucho Latin and Greek as an undergraduate, I was allowed computer
languages to substitute for my second language.  In other words,
they presumedly let me use computer languages because of my major
natural language linguistic experience, etc. etc., which
nevertheless existed outside of their official recognition.  My
arguments that the way my career was going (and has gone) would
be MUCH better supported by computer languages and an entrance
into the computer "culture" than resuscitating my 20-year-old
latin studies fell on dead, really dead, ears.

In my subsequent travels and discussions, I have never found
anybody at the graduate level allowed to substitude computer
languages for a natural language requirement.  That should be
"anybody else."  I understand that.  It's the "I did it, you
should too" phenomenon that will eventually bury English studies
if it continues, for it privileges the 30-year-old experiences of
senior people over the world as it exists now.  Back in the "Mr.
Chips" days we could jolly well sanctify hundred-year traditions,
but such intractibility will eventually cause English departments
to shrivel and die.  Fred Kemp, Texas Tech
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Date:         Tue, 29 Sep 1992 22:11:49 CDT
From:         Bob Boston <S2.RSB@ISUMVS.IASTATE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Writing vs. Computing

Eric, despite what I said about wanting to teach writing rather than computer
proficiency, I do agree with your statement that "Most [students] learn on
their own what they absolutely have to know, but the interaction with the
machine remains more of a lop-sided battle than it has to be. I can't help but
think that frustration at their own inability to make the machine behave has
some negative impact on their writing."

Walden Miller, one of graduate student monitors, made exactly the same point
to me about two weeks ago, saying that he'd observed students treating the
computers like typewriters, hitting return at the end of each line, or trying
to add spaces at the beginnings of lines to produce hanging indents.  And I've
seen people trying to format resumes for hours, when they could produce the
same (or better) layout in a few minutes with a little more knowledge of the
word processor. There is no doubt that for these people the computer is
interfering with writing rather than making it easier.

I keep coming back to the same answer as Lab administrator-- somehow I must do
a better job of teaching the teachers and the monitors how to teach the
students so that computer training and teaching composition are better
integrated in our classrooms.  Unfortunately, I haven't yet found an effective
way of doing so.

Bob Boston
Iowa State University
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1992 14:52:24 EDT
From:         Bill Condon <USERLCBK@UMICHUM.BITNET>
Subject:      Keys?

And I'm a pretty good pianist, as long as I stick to one key. ;-))
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Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1992 19:38:06 EST
From:         "(Gary Beason)" <bubba@MACE.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Jazz and New Age
              92 12:29 pm

>
>
>                You're right. I was playing fast and loose with personal
>                preference.  I hate New Age music: I experience their
>                performances as a kind of aural hostess twinkees.
>                I mean, listen to Winston, and then listen to Chick Corea's
>                piano improvisations, or Kohln Concert by Keith Jarrett,
>                or John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders Live in Seattle, or
>                John McLaughlin's My Goals Beyond, Miles'In a Silent Way,
>                even Pharoah Sanders and Leon Thomas'"The Creator Has a Master
>                Plan", or even the early Paul Winter Consort with Ralph Towner,

mer and bob

At first I disliked New Age music, but then I gained a lot of respect
for Winston as I read his liner notes.  He has a great of jazz
knowledge.

Then, again, I'm intrigued by the binary (ahhh!) of simple vs.
complex, not unlike the poetic distinction between the obvious and the
subtle.

And, again, I like Les Paul's comments (a man who knows his notes too
well)--he said that complex music is admirable but that music which
can be sung or hummed--in short, remembered--is very signficant.  He
didn't much more, but I thought that interesting.

I appreciate jazz as well as classical music, but it sometimes lacks a
certain simpleness I find elegant.


---------

Gary Beason		         bubba@mace.cc.purdue.edu
Purdue University, English       bubba@expert.cc.purdue.edu (Eudora)
From: rselfe@MTU.EDU
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Subject: Re:
Date: 6 Oct 92 14:10:18 GMT
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Dickie not
>only gives consultants control over lab policy, hours, layout, environment,
>etc.--he puts our money on the line--somewhere around $30,000 a year, in
>fact.

Thanks for the kudos.  I posted your entire note to 'hucons' the list for
our consultants.  I'll foreward their responces if they seem noteworthy,
unless, of course, you would like to receive that mail directly (about 4
messages per day on average)?

tonight at 5:30 in the garage?
Dickie Selfe              rselfe@mtu.edu
Humanities Dept.          906-487-3225
Michigan Technological U.
Houghton, MI   49931
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Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 09:37:17 CDT
From:         Rockie Beaman <S1.RJB@ISUMVS.BITNET>
Subject:      Invitation to an IRC

To all Megabunnies who are interested in an IRC conversation:

On Thursday night, at 9:00 p.m. (CST), a few megabunnies will be gathering
from across the country to discuss Carol Berkenkotter's article "Paradigm
Debates, Turf Wars, and the Conduct of Sociocognitive Inquiry in Composition"
CCC Vol. 42, No. 2., May 1991.

We invite all of you to join us in a fun and enlightened discussion.

If you need to know how to join the IRC conversation, Eric Crump, our
resident IRCster, will be glad to supply you with all the magical commands.
His e-mail address is C509379@mizzou1.bitnet.

Rockie at Iowa State
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Date:         Thu, 1 Oct 1992 00:28:07 CDT
From:         "Michael S. Hart" <HART@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Newsletter addendum

P.S.  We understand why the Plain Vanilla ASCII of NUSIRG was not easy!!!!

We did not get the NUSIRG files into 80 column format by midnight tonight.
The versions posted will have very wide (150) margins, and we should have
a 65 column version ready in a week or so.

Therefore be prepared to read wide margins when you read nusirg10.txt.
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Date:         Sat, 3 Oct 1992 17:20:19 --500
From:         "David E. Schwalm" <IACDES@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Imitatio

 *** Reply to note of 10/02/92 09:39
 THe difference between "pedagogical technique" and "part ofthe the
 curriculum"? Once we recognized that learning to write is a developmental
 process, there has been a tendency to re-enact the entire developmental
 process (18 years' worth) in the 15 weeks of a first year composition course.
 How many syllabi reflect the developmental pattern that Moffett identified?
 But Moffett was describing a K-12 curriculum, not a writing course. So we find
 that copying or memorizinghas helped students learn to write? Hell, throw a
 little copying into the course. That's what I meant by pedagogical technique.
 But if students did a bit of copying in each of their academic courses from
 the time they could read and write, the technique may have its wonted effect.
 Some folks seem to think that because students "can't write" when they get to
 college, we have to take them all the way back to square one in the
 developmental process. What we really need to do is to start thinking in terms
 of a coherent 16 year curriculum. Sure.

 -- David E. Schwalm, Assoc. Provost for Academic Programs
 ___Arizona State University West
 ___4701 West Thunderbird Rd.
 ___Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100___(602) 543-4500
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1992 08:04:38 EDT
From:         mer <MROSE01@UKCC.UKY.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Basic writing, again and again
              5 Oct 1992 17:22:08 CDT from <WESCHAP@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU>

Wes:

              I'll say this once.  Michael Hedges *is* a good guitarist.

                                       As long as he sticks to one key ;-)

                                                      mer
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Date:         Tue, 29 Sep 1992 20:34:12 --500
From:         SLATIN@UTXVM.BITNET
Subject:      Campus-wide e-mail

I've recently begun talking with people from the Computation Center about
using their staff to open up our facilities in the evening hours-- we're
located in the same building that houses the undergraduate library and the
computation center's main public access facility, and I see no reason why we
shouldn't open up our rooms for access during the evening hours when the
building's stll open, so long as we retain firm control of classroom time
between 8 AM and 7 PM. Am I making a Big Mistake?

John Slatin
UT Austin
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Date:         Tue, 29 Sep 1992 13:46:00 EST
From:         MARY JANE SCHRAMM <01MJSCHRAMM@BSUVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Basic writing, one more time

I suppose the best argument I have heard for actually teaching writing
instead of grammar in a basic writing course is that the best way to
improve as a writer is *by writing*.  Research shows that basic writers
already have an internalized writing process when they enter the
college classroom (Sondra Perl 1979).  A study by Hjelmervik and Merriman
("The Basic Reading and Writing Phenomenon:  Writing as Evidence of
Thinking."  _The Writer's Mind_.  Ed. Janice Hays, et al.  NCTE, 1983)
reveals that after a semester of intense writing, their BRW (Basic
Reading and Writing) students came to see "writing as thinking, and as
a process in which they can participate effectively" (105).

When Linda Hanson took over our basic writing course in 1985, the course
was designed to focus on grammar and mechanics.  Since that time the course
has changed to a portfolio based course with most of the classroom time
focusing on _writing_.  What grammar instruction does occur happens in the
context of the students' papers during their revision processes.  These
changes happened because of studies which "concluded that teaching formal
grammar had no effect on the quality of their students' writing"  (Meeker,
Linda Hanson.  "Pragmatic Politics:  Using Assessment Tools to (Re)Shape
a Curriculum."  Journal of Basic Writing. 9.1 (1990).)
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