Does College Teach Students to Write?
I attended a public panel discussion not too long ago on the subject of curriculum reform sponsored by the Society for the College, an organization for which I happen to serve on the board. A particular point of contention among faculty was whether or not there should be some sort of writing composition requirement, something that both the Society and panelist Michael Poliakoff of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni support.
Poliakoff's criticism was not welcomed by the faculty who were at this meeting. The faculty, as well as Teresa Longo, our Dean of Educational Policy, insisted that writing was taught by "embedding" it in the instruction of other courses. Instead of completing a Writing 101 type class as students used to some decades ago, today's students complete a Lower Division Writing Requirement- typically in the form of a freshman seminar- and an Upper Division Writing Requirement in the form of a senior colloquium. Students are apparently supposed to absorb this writing ability throughout their coursework without taking a specific writing class.
There is, of course, a tiny snag with this whole setup. It doesn't work. I have had maybe one professor actually take serious instruction time to teach us about quality writing, and his advice boiled down to "read Strunk & White." Sure, the quality of my writing has improved over the last three years, but only because I have figured out what works and what doesn't. If professors are teaching us how to write, they are so brilliantly subtle that no one has noticed. To be honest, I don't want history professors to teach me how to write; I would much rather that they teach history.
No matter how tedious it may be, a lot of students would probably benefit from some kind of composition requirement. If we assume that writing skill is important, it is far better for it to be taught on its own than for professors to awkwardly cram it in next to their research interests. Both my freshman seminar and my upper level seminar were quite writing intensive, and were taught by good professors, but apart from consulting on the content of our papers, we were never given advice on good writing. I suspect a large part of the problem is getting people to spend two and half hours per week teaching composition.
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Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
In my opinion, college students should have a pretty solid grasp how to write by the time they enroll, not learning how to do so when they get there. Unfortunately though, that's not necessarily the reality.
My high school spent a lot of time focusing on writing, and while I almost thought it was too much at the time, I'm grateful for it now. When I read a lot of my classmates' works, I'm often times taken aback by some basic composition skills that their works lack. I don't mean to sound hoity-toity by saying that, but there is a significant disparity between where I expected the standard of writing to be among my peers and where it actually is.
Perhaps my sample size is too small to base that off of, but I think my point remains: college students should already know how to write before they set foot on campus. They don't need to be the next great American essayist or novelist, but have enough of a foundation to structure an argument using correct grammar and a diverse vocabulary.
*Crossing my fingers that this comment I just wrote meets that standard :)*
Sep '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
You may want to read this.
Aug '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
You're SUPPOSED to learn how to write from kindergarten to grade 12.
Jun '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
Yes, true, but as someone who learned to write in this way via intense rigor, I still took the Writing 101 class in college and still learned a great deal. I don't think it's appropriate at all for history teachers, etc., to waste their time correcting grammar when they're supposed to be grading the merit of the students' arguments. Writing 101 shouldn't be considered a step back so that dumb students from high school can catch up in college. It should be a standard part of writing formation that college students should continually hone. The university system should not shirk from this responsibility.
May '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
Agreed. Though the reality is that intermediate schools and high schools aren't doing their jobs, colleges should not adjust to that failure or it will take pressure off pre-collegiate educators to adequately instruct kids.
I can recall a college course in which a research paper was supposed to constitute 30-40% of our final grade. Our teacher said he couldn't even understand some of the papers. Foolishly, he absolved those students of the need to learn by drastically reducing the grade's significance.
That's the core problem: the self-esteem movement and the politics which demands that all students pass. The standards of public education are ever lowered. Liberals have a corrupted understanding of compassion.
Dec '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
To chime in on Andrew's comments...
I received my elementary-HS education in Canada prior to enrolling at the U of Oregon (this was many moons ago - 1977). Always a C to C+ student in high school English, I was a little nervous when I took the Test of Standard Written English prior to my enrollment. When I received my first registration packet, it showed "TSWE 60+ See Adviser". With no small amount of trepidation, I went to the Adviser who informed me that I had aced this test and did not need to take Writing 101.
The Canadian system back then was old school - hammer the grammar and sentence structure at them, hoping something sticks. I guess in my case it did. I was able to make some decent money on the side editing my frat brothers' papers.
My kids have both received excellent composition instruction in high school through the AP classes they've taken. Sadly, I think that is far from universal.
Dec '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
If they don't learn it at the College level, they'll be in for a shock at the graduate level...
Aug '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
I think if universities turned down any applicant that cannot write properly, k-12 schools might start teaching kids how to write. Incentives matter. If universities don't demand that all freshmen already know how to write, then why should k-12 schools bother teaching kids how to write.
If writing isn't a requirement for colleges, then it won't be a part of the college prep curriculum.
Aug '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
Giving students detailed feedback of the type that develops their writing is enormously time consuming. In practice this means that you can only do it with small class sizes, preferably smaller than 20. I haven't taught an undergrad class that small for years and even my TAs' sections are bigger than that. You can't realistically expect a TA who has 75 students to teach writing. The only thing I like about the TA union is that they've been pushing back against faculty who try to make the sections even bigger (a lot of my colleagues add another 15 or 20 on top of the 75). When I was in grad school I had between 40 and 60 students and it was a completely different situation.
My advice to parents and teenagers looking at colleges, pay close attention to class size (and waiting list size).
Aug '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
Will they? Will they, really? If schools are pumping out undergrads that cannot write after four years of university, why wouldn't the rot continue on into grad school? Why would we expect that grad schools won't also lower their standards to meet the abilities of their students?
Dec '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
Misthiocracy
Will they? Will they, really? If schools are pumping out undergrads that cannot write after four years of university, why wouldn't the rot continue on into grad school? Why would we expect that grad schools won't also lower their standards to meet the abilities of their students? · Oct 31 at 9:45am
Not for a long time. Our k-12 school system was garbage for years before colleges starting lowering their standards. It will be the same with graduate level work.
To answer the question no, no, no, a thousand times no. Have you ever tried to proof read their essays? Most college papers I had the misfortune of reading were written exactly as the person spoke. There is also very little chance that a college student will do more than one draft of a paper before turning it in. Most kids in my class couldn't write and the kids after us were even worse.
Apr '11
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
The current POTUS with a law degree, lectures us by his speeches, on economics, math and public speaking by example.
Do you not feel enlightened?
A new entitlement from the president to the students whose vote he is trying to buy....speech writers for all!
May '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
I think the best writing class is offered here at Ricochet U. I blogged for years before joining, but I never worked so hard to polish my prose. That competition for comments is a great motivator.
(I'm sorry if y'all don't see much evidence of my efforts.)
Oct '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
Misthiocracy
Will they? Will they, really? If schools are pumping out undergrads that cannot write after four years of university, why wouldn't the rot continue on into grad school? Why would we expect that grad schools won't also lower their standards to meet the abilities of their students? · Oct 31 at 9:45am
Because professors are far more invested in graduate students: time, money, prestige. After about a year of coursework, graduate school is much more like an apprenticeship than college. At the undergraduate level, a professor has hundreds of students that he will likely never see after the final exam; that same professor has at most a handful of graduate students, and these students will be with him week in and week out for several years. Professors are incredibly protective of their time, and so do not waste it on students who will not at least contribute to the field, if not the professor's own area of interest.
More below...
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
At the Stanford Graduate School of Business (where I teach), we instituted a course called Critical Analytical Thinking that is required of all first-year, first-quarter MBA students. The objective was to "confirm" the student's ability to deliver a cogent argument, both in written and oral form. My experience was that one-third of the students ranged from good to excellent in this basic skill, one-third were between mediocre and fair, needing a lot of help on everything from punctuation to rudimentary construction of a logical argument, and one third were...poor at best.
This is at the (objectively) most selective of all MBA programs in the world. I imagined that this was a function of the "type" of student; one might think that students interested in management were less likely to be able to write than other "types," but a conversation with a friend (whose name I will shield) who had served in a very high administrative capacity at one of our elite universities suggested that the general run of liberal arts undergrads at his institution had similar problems.
Yes, this is something that should be learned in High School. And, No, it isn't.
Jun '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
Wow! After reading this, I'm so thankful for the good teachers I had 1-12, especially "Cookie" in the 12th grade. (Yes, in the 70's, we had teachers with names such as "Cookie.")
Now, I try to teach young students how to write, and it is next to impossible. They don't even know people who speak conventional English. Perhaps if students could speak English well by the time they got to college...just dreaming.
Oct '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
... continued from above.
Professors are also protective of their field. If you really want to become one of them, they expect you to sound like them. (Yes, this does have a dark side. Fortunately, in Mathematics, there is little of this!) This means that even if you get past the admissions committee, you have to pass quals (qualifying, comprehensive, etc. exams). You fail, you are out. No "passing them along", just to get them out of your hair, because passing them means keeping them in your hair!
And then, you still have to convince a professor to take you as a student. I know of programs where they "fail" people at quals because nobody is really excited about taking them on as students. And there are only so many professors in any department to ask.
Bottom line, academics are extremely protective of their title, time, and field. This feedback loop prevents universities from just churning out graduate students with little regard to quality.
More below...
Edited on October 31, 2011 at 6:34pmOct '10
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
... continued from above.
One counterargument... the terminal "professional" masters. These are becoming very popular, especially in technical fields. I am wary of these. It seems like going back and learning what you were meant to have learned in your junior and senior years. These programs make lots of money (no department support), and far less demand on professors, compared to full blown doctoral students. Without that feedback loop, I expect abuse.
Edited on October 31, 2011 at 6:39pmJan '11
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
The jaundiced view is who needs spelling and syntax when kids today do most of their social communication with two thumbs on a virtual keyboard. Sadly, these kids go to college and are perplexed by professors who demand compliance with proper English. After all, in keeping with the spirit of today, why bother with standards of dead white men when making oneself understood is the goal and who cares if it's sloppy?
I will beat this dead horse once again to declare that public school education, in general, is woefully inadequate, colleges of education are farcical, and parents of this generation are unprepared to correct, much less tutor, their children in proper English. But, isn't it interesting that children of late 19th, early 20th Century immigrants who had little or no English, developed better language skills than today's children.
A change of values, perhaps?
Re: Does College Teach Students to Write?
If Young is correct that comp is just another form of leftist indoctrination, then this is bad news. The problem remains, however, that we have undergraduates at good universities with inadequate knowledge of punctuation and sentence structure. Yes, this should be remedied long before matriculation, but as it happens, it isn't. A thoughtful, well-done remedial writing course should be seriously considered.