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Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 16:42:04 -0700
From:         "David E. Schwalm" <IACDES@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Standard English

Geez, James, I don't know where to start. When a course is required of all
students in a university, there ought to be agood reason for requiring it,
e.g. that students will learn something that will be of use to them in the
course of their college education and thereafter. Then, given thatthe course
is required of all students, I think they have a right to expect a reasonable
degree of uniformity between one section and another. They are supposed to be
taking "the same course." In this context, each instructor doing his or her
own thing is bad. How strict we want the limits to be on that "thing" may vary
with the kinds of instructors we have. While some novices may be good writing
teachers, most are not. There are things to be known about making good
assignments; one can learn how to develop engaging and useful classroom
activities; it helps if instructors known something about rhetoric; one can
learn ways to use computers in the writing classroom. I think good teachers
can be made; relatively few good teachers are born. Yeah, I suppose a WPA in a
program like ASU's has some sort of power (but laughably little in the great
scheme of things), but in this case maybe knowledge is power. I know quite a
bit about teaching writing, and I am better qualified than most of our TAs to
judge whether or not an assignment is trivial, undoable, easy, or difficult.
James, you seem to be proposing that knowledge counts for nothing in the
teaching of writing and that I should not attempt to get what I know
aboutteaching writing integrated into our writing program. Sorry, but I do
make a distinction between our TAs and myself: I know more than they do. I
have devoted good portion of my life to gaining that knowledge. Should I just
keep it to myself? The TAs and I are a "we" in that we are engaged in the
common enterprise of trying to help students learn to write. In any case, many
of our finest instructors are people who are knowledgeable about rhetoric and
composition, who knowledgeable about teaching, and who have much experience in
the classroom. In what other field would we argue that the best practitioner
is the one with the least knowledge and experience? The subtext of a lot of
discussion on various lists these days is that many people have lost so much
confidence in their own knowledge that they are reluctant to presume to teach
others.

-- 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:         Mon, 28 Dec 1992 12:41:34 -0500
From:         ENGMYLES@UBVMS.BITNET
Subject:      Re: High school/college comp courses

well, I can think of one thing a college writing course can give that a high
school writing course can't: a college or university audience.  Maybe we ought
to let the context make more difference, or acknowledge the difference it does
make.
Myles
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Date:         Mon, 28 Dec 1992 09:07:02 -0700
From:         "David E. Schwalm" <IACDES@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      High school/college comp courses

Rhoda, you have touched on a topic in which we all should be very interested
in that more and more students are getting first year composition credit for
courses taken in high school (see paried articles by Michael Vivion and me in
a recent issue of the WPA journal). The notion that a college writing course
can offer something that a high school writing course cannot offer is critical
to my objection to giving college credit for high school courses. My main
argument is from context. I would like to hear what others have to say.

-- 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, 22 Dec 1992 19:49:44 CST
From:         Irvin Peckham <peckham@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Standard English

Regarding structuring programs:
Exactly, David.
--
Irvin Peckham
University of Nebraska at Omaha
peckham@unomaha.edu
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Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 19:45:00 CST
From:         Irvin Peckham <peckham@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Standard English

>
> On Tue, 22 Dec 1992 00:06:00 EST <MLB14@PSUVM> said:
> >but I'd really like to do something much more exciting.  Like making all
> >freshman writing courses lab courses--have the whole shootin' match done by
> >means of tutorials.
>
> I have the same fantasy, Marcy: writing development (nee instruction)
> made personal, because as you point out later in your note, students
> are not so generalizable as we sometimes make out. Their differences
> --Eric Crump
>
Un unh, Eric and Marcy.  The tutorial fosters a dependancy on the good
ol' teacher--lot of ideological implications there, practical disadvantages
as well.  Go with groups.  Let the teacher (as dominant instructor, telling
writers how to write) fade away.  She organizes and shapes group
instruction.  The whole point is to teach them how to help one
another, which is the same as teaching them how to help themselves
rather than look to the authority for correction.
Irv
(Sorry for my didactic tone.)

--
Irvin Peckham
University of Nebraska at Omaha
peckham@unomaha.edu
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Date:         Wed, 23 Dec 1992 17:32:00 EST
From:         MLB14@PSUVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Standard English

Irv,

When I said I'd like to see tutorials, I didn't mean to imply that I wanted
the students to look to the authority for correction (although that's
usually what THEY want to do.) I want a forum where I can say, "Okay,
Student, what were you trying to do here--right here, on line 35?  I don't
get it.  Judging by your peers' comments, they thought X.  Is that what you
intended?" And if the student says, "No," then I say, "well, how are you
going to change this paper so it gets the reaction you want?" Of course, I'm
assuming an audience here (maybe sn on-line audience; I don't know--I'm just
playing, here) but I am also assuming the leisure to confer with students
about their writing in a way that I rarely have the time for now.  Yes, I
hold conferences, and I DO try to make my comments on papers as non-didactic
as possible, but still.  . .although I modulate my voice, there still
doesn't seem to be enough time for feedback from the writer.

Not having that two-way interaction seems to promote the idea of Teacher as
Authority much more than the traditional classroom structure, at least in my
experience.

Marcy Bauman Penn State-Erie
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Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 22:13:00 CST
From:         Eric Crump <C509379@MIZZOU1.BITNET>
Subject:      tootering: just say no
              22 Dec 1992 19:45:00 CST from <peckham@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>

On Tue, 22 Dec 1992 19:45:00 CST Irvin Peckham said:
>>
>Un unh, Eric and Marcy.  The tutorial fosters a dependancy on the good
>ol' teacher--lot of ideological implications there, practical disadvantages
>as well.

Well, Irv, that depends on the writer and the writing assistant, don't
it? I'm afraid your assumptions about "the tutorial" may be as over-
generalized as the sometimes overgeneralized assumptions made about
students. Tutorials >can< foster dependancy, of course, but in an
ideal world (I WAS talking fantasy, so you have to grant me a bit of
utopianism) they only foster dependency on colleagues, which is a
dependency not many of us are likely to outgrow. I like small group
work pretty well, too, but one-to-one situations need not include the
same differences in authority and power that seem to permeate
traditional teacher-student relationships.

Joe Saling, if you're lurking out there, this is your CUE!
(Joe may be busy, but he has in the past had some interesting
things to say on this subject).

--Eric Crump
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Date:         Wed, 30 Dec 1992 15:33:31 -0700
From:         "David E. Schwalm" <IACDES@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Standardizing

Raul, as you can tell from my fascist penchant for structure, I really don't
have a problem with hierarchy either. I walk a hypocritical line on this (I
don;t have much trouble with hypocrisy either--it's the human condition). I
urge TAs to establish their authority (Oh, there's that stuff again) at the
beginning of the class--mainly because students expect them to do so and will
eat them alive (as they do substitute teachers) if they don't. Once the
conventional relationship is established, TAs can move toward any kind of
relationship that they and their students are comfortable with. An
authoritarian teacher and group work are not necessarily incompatible. Gotta
get a hair cut. More on this later.

-- 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:         Wed, 23 Dec 1992 22:17:18 CST
From:         Irvin Peckham <peckham@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Standard English

I was just rattling off examples of genres in that first
message.  Some people tend to think in terms of Bain's
narration, description, persuasion, exposition when you
mention kinds of writing.
Irv


--
Irvin Peckham
University of Nebraska at Omaha
peckham@unomaha.edu
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Date:         Fri, 1 Jan 1993 16:10:00 EST
From:         MLB14@PSUVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: (Fwd: *C&CD*) Do colleges require only first-year writing? (8)

Robert Royar,

At Penn State, there are only TWO courses required of every undergraduate:
English 15 (Freshman English) and Speech Communications 100.  Even Speech
Com.  100 offers students a choice: they can take A or B (I'm not sure what
the distinction is.) Speech Com 100 is required in their sophomore year,
whereas Eng 15 is required of freshmen, usually first-semester freshmen.

Of course, there are other requirements, but they all allow for choices.
For example, a student must take 9 credits of Quantification courses, but
these might be taken from an approved list including Math, Computer Science,
or even Philosophy (A logic course satisfies the requirement) courses.  A
foreign language is required, but the choice is left up to the student or
mandated by the student's major (which the student chose, I might add.)

Thus, freshman english is the ONLY mandated course that everyone takes.

Marcy Bauman Penn State-Erie
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Date:         Sat, 2 Jan 1993 20:15:52 CST
From:         Eric Crump <C509379@MIZZOU1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: apology for conferencing
              2 Jan 1993 20:05:25 CST from <peckham@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>

Irv,
No writing center? Gasp!

Isn't a school without a writing center like a day without sunshine?
Like Cheech without Chong?
Like Sonny without Cher (maybe even like Sonny *with* Cher)?
Like Aladdin without Robin Williams?

But I know what you mean, they are hard to start if they aren't
already started (he said without a hint of irony). Starting is
pretty hard in most cases (including people--take if from one
who's wife is in the eighth year of the nine-month process of
starting one). Tom Hanks' character in _A League of Their Own_
said something about difficulty. When Geena Davis quit the team,
he said of baseball: "Of course it's hard. That's what makes it worth *doing*"
or something like that.

Not that I buy that ethic. I just mention it because I remembered it.

You all ever try any collaborative teaching? The subject came up a few
notes ago in reference to helping new GTAs acclimate to teaching more
quickly. Maybe it would help alleviate some problems with incorporating
conferencing in the classroom as well.

Not that I would know from experience. Just sounds good to me.


--Eric Crump
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Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 06:30:00 EDT
From:         "Composition Digest (Robert Royar,
              Moderator)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Subject:      (Fwd: *C&CD*) Need help with F. de la Rochefoucauld research
              paper (*COMP.COMP*) (5)

Entry: 5
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 07:09:30 CAM
From: clam@huracan.cr (Carlos Lam)
Subject: Need help with F. de la Rochefoucauld research paper (*COMP.COMP*) (5)
Newsgroups: comp.edu.composition
Reply-to: comp.edu.composition <compos01%ulkyvx.bitnet@ucbvax.Berkeley.edu>



I need information on Francois de la Rochefoucauld for a research
paper that I must complete for my English class.

My paper will focus on the maxim, Rochefoucauld's tool for
getting his observations on human behavior across.

I appreciate any help you can give me. Please write to my
Internet E-Mail address: clam@huracan.cr

Thanks.

Carlos Lam
P.S. I am in Panama. Resources are limited here.


------------------------------
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Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 09:41:24 -0800
From:         "(Peg Syverson)" <msyverson@UCSD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Standard English

>>
>> OK Irv, I'll bite: if you don't put grades on your students'papers, what
>> do you put in the box labelled "grade" that your registrar gives you
>> to fill out at the end of each semester?
>>
>> Rhoda Carroll*Vermont College of Norwich University*Rhoda@Norwich.Bitnet
>>
>Rhoda:
>I put a grade.
>Oh, oh, that sounds too smart, doesn't it?  Sorry about that.  I just
>wrote a long description of how I get away with not putting grades
>on essays to someone else on the list.  I'll ask him to bounce it to
>you.  It's really a bit long, so I'll ask him to send it to you
>personally.
>Irv


NO, NO, NO, Irv, please let the list in on this.  I, too, would be interested!
Peg Syverson, msyverso@ucsd.edu
Dimensions of Culture, 0525, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093
(619) 558-1514
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Date:         Wed, 30 Dec 1992 15:55:02 CST
From:         Eric Crump <C509379@MIZZOU1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Standardizing Composition Classes

Myles:  Like you, I'm real interested in hearing more about the
possibility of incorporating collaboration into writing classrooms,
bringing the "outside" learning styles "inside." I've already started
worrying about what is going to happen to my precocious 2-yr-old when
she is subjected to formal education.  I'm afraid her voracious
inquisitiveness and her natural propensity to collaborate will be
chopped and channeled by the time she gets to 2nd grade.  Maybe
elementary school isn't like that anymore.  Hope not.

One line of your post, regarding bringing the outside learning culture
in, caught my eye, though: "Can we find and make explicit those rules
and ours?"

Normally, I would have thought that was a good idea, but something I
read last night in Shoshana Zuboff's _In the Age of the Smart Machine_
makes me wonder.  (Wish I had a copy handy. Hope I get this right.)  She
talks about the process, since the industrial revolution at least, of
persistently analyzing, systematizing, and rationalizing the functions
of work, the aim being to increase efficiency.  The result was that as
functions workers performed were rationalized, the workers were
increasingly relegated to specific parts of what used to be their whole
range of skills and intuitions about a production process.  Their jobs
were compartmentalized and they were isolated according to discrete
parts of the process.  At the other end of the hierarchy, the same
rationalization was performed on executive functions.  However, as
functions were made explicit, they were "carved away" from the
executives and handed down to middle management, leaving executives free
to concentrate on the intangible, intuitive, social functions that could
not easily be made explicit and "manageable." As Zuboff puts it, the
rationalizing process in business and industry took the best, most
rewarding aspects of their jobs away from workers and left executives
with *only* the rewarding parts of their jobs.

So now I'm wondering what happens if we, teacherly types, are able to
"find and make explicit" students' collaborative learning styles and the
social context that makes them possible.  Do you reckon we might be
inadvertently stealing something of value from students that we couldn't
replicate in the classroom environment?

--Eric Crump
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Date:         Tue, 29 Dec 1992 19:32:00 EDT
From:         "Composition Digest (Robert Royar,
              Moderator)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Subject:      (Fwd: *C&CD*) RE: Documentation/MIL-STD (9)

Entry: 9
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 92 15:23:24 -0500
From: kippi@porsche.visix.COM (Kippi Fagerlund)
Subject: RE: Documentation/MIL-STD (9)
Message-id: <9212282023.AA19566@nsx.visix.COM>
Reply-to: Computers & Composition Digest (R. Royar) <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>

Marcy,

I saw your posting -- unfortunately I missed the previous posts -- I don't
get to read this newsgroup too often and the articles weren't available at
my site. Could you forward me the information you received about MIL-ST???

Thanks!

Kippi Fagerlund

kippi@visix.com

------------------------------
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Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 20:55:06 -0700
From:         "David E. Schwalm" <IACDES@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Standard English

Gotcha. My sense of your previous message was the your students did seven or
eight different genres in one semester. Three that build upon each other (ala
the progymnasmata) ought to work pretty well.

-- 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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Organization: Samford University Writing Programs
X-Acknowledge-To: <DHROBERT@SAMFORD>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Fri, 1 Jan 1993 15:37:13 CST
From:         "David H. Roberts" <DHROBERT@SAMFORD.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: WIOLE

Eric:
I'm game.  It will be fun even if not funded.

   __________________________________________
   David H. Roberts
   Director of University Writing Programs
   Samford University
   Birmingham, AL 35229-2207 USA
   Voice: (205) 870-2964; Fax: (205) 870-2384
   Bitnet:  DHROBERT@SAMFORD
   CIS:     72630,3633
   __________________________________________
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Date:         Fri, 1 Jan 1993 01:59:00 CST
From:         Eric Crump <C509379@MIZZOU1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: WIOLE

on Thu, 31 Dec 1992 16:42:25 -0500 <ENGMYLES@UBVMS> said:
>second thought, Eric and John, and others:  it looks as if a number of
>people are thinking of the same kind fo thing simultaneously; why don't you all
>   put in jointly for a grant, a big grant, to be run at different test sites,
>testing different kinds of procedures and outcomes?  Go for a national program,
>not a local one.
>you could write the proposal by e-mail.
>Myles

I'm game. If there's enough interest, I'd even volunteer to set up a
new list specifically to develop the idea, write grants, hatch plots,
shoot the shit, whatever.

Anybody else want to start this fun new hobby? John? Karen? David T?

Myles?

--Eric Crump
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X-Acknowledge-To: <DHROBERT@SAMFORD>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Fri, 25 Dec 1992 19:20:43 CST
From:         "David H. Roberts" <DHROBERT@SAMFORD.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Standardizing sections of composition

This exchange has been envigorating.  THanks to all active participants.
And happy holidays to all, including lurkers.

   __________________________________________
   David H. Roberts
   Director of University Writing Programs
   Samford University
   Birmingham, AL 35229-2207 USA
   Voice: (205) 870-2964; Fax: (205) 870-2384
   Bitnet:  DHROBERT@SAMFORD
   CIS:     72630,3633
   __________________________________________
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Date:         Thu, 31 Dec 1992 16:42:25 -0500
From:         ENGMYLES@UBVMS.BITNET
Subject:      Re: WIOLE

second thought, Eric and John, and others:  it looks as if a number of
people are thinking of the same kind fo thing simultaneously; why don't you all
   put in jointly for a grant, a big grant, to be run at different test sites,
testing different kinds of procedures and outcomes?  Go for a national program,
not a local one.
you could write the proposal by e-mail.
Myles
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Sat, 2 Jan 1993 11:57:00 EST
From:         MLB14@PSUVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Standardizing Composition Cl

David,

Re: Technology going to the sciences.  Over here, most of our computer
equipment is purchased through grants from industry FOR the sciences, so
they ususally have access to the good stuff first.  The people in
Engineering, for example, can easily make the argument that Engineering
Graphics must be taught on computers because nobody draws by hand any more.
Although the same thing is true of word processing, the argument has been
harder to mount in the humanities.

I'd be interested to hear how others have tackled this issue.

Marcy Bauman Penn State-Erie
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