Interview with Nan Miller, MA in English from NC State(!), teacher of composition and literature for 18 years at Meredith College and for 8 years at NC State(!!), on what's terribly wrong with today's college instruction in writing. If you have the time, I recommend her paper. She uses examples from UNC-Chapel Hill and from NC State (!!!). An excerpt from the conclusion (p. 24):

If college administrators take a hard look at writing programs in their own institutions, they will find that the pedagogy du jour is fraught with contradictions. It puts walk-on instructors in charge of a pivotal course, then leaves them to stand on unfamiliar ground. It responds to a drop in correct usage among college freshmen by dropping grammar instruction from English 101. It responds to a growing sense of entitlement among college students by inflating grades and downgrading instructor authority. It operates in the midst of specialists in literature but thinks literature would "inhibit," "intimidate," or "silence" an ordinary freshman. And finally, it responds to insider criticism, whenever possible, by seceding from the English Department altogether and establishing its own little fiefdom. A college administrator, made aware of these contradictions, might conclude as SUNY professor Thomas Bertonneau concludes: "fostering literacy is not, in fact, the intention of the postmodern curriculum." [footnote omitted]

Tangentially, let me expound for a minute on a gripe I've had since high school about English courses (and based on what my parents and my children told me, the problem has persisted for at least three generations): unlike courses in almost any other subject, English courses seem to presume that every student will become a literature specialist. But, obviously, almost none will. This single mistake leads to four problems.

1. Instructors spend too much time discussing issues more appropriate for specialists such as symbolism, archetypes, and historical context. They should, instead, focus on the issue, "Why is this book/short story/essay good?" And they should also highlight "What can the student learn from this piece to improve his or her own writing?"

2. Too much time is spent on long novels. Assigning a few novels is fine. But if an important goal is to help student write better, short stories and essays can serve just as well. I got nothing out of the tedious Great Expectations; my parents complained, years later, about having to read Moby Dick; one of my daughters was frustrated by A Wizard of Earthsea.

3. Nothing should be read solely because of its importance in the development of literature or because the instructor was forced to read it. Joseph Andrews wasted my time; Beowulf wasted my parents'.

4. With an exception or two, students should only be asked to read works written in straightforward modern English. No dialect, no Olde English, little Faulkner. My high school English teacher delighted in having the class read aloud from The Canterbury Tales. To what end, I have no idea. (I'll except Shakespeare and maybe Tom Sawyer.)

Comments

[dearieme]

No need to exclude Chaucer (or Burns or Dunbar) as long as modern English is taught too. To teach Chaucer instead of teaching English grammar is daft, of course.

[kyle8]

There should be a long list of important and influential prose classics then the students choose from among them and write their reports. I read For whom the Bell Tolls, in seventh grade and it was a big of a stretch for me at the time, but it increased my vocabulary and awareness of history.
BTW I was rooting for all of them to die the whole time since they were dirty communists.

[aralls]

Beowulf wasted my time, too, and I'm only 25. Can't remember if we read Canterbury Tales aloud or not, but I wasn't thrilled with that one, either.

[JorgXMckie]

My wife can still recite too much of the intro to the Canterbury Tales, even though she liked them.

I didn't learn to love Shakespeare until I got really good profs in college. One of my HS English teachers wasted a whole week making us listen to Carl Sandberg read his poetry on 78s. I learned to like his poetry later, despite this. We didn't even read the frickin' poems.

I did, however, get a pretty decent grounding in writing clear English. In the Air Force Academy this was re-inforced. Rule #1 was: "Any order than can be mis-interpreted will be mis-interpreted." We were graded on 5-page, typed papers with a curve of 93= A, 85 = B, 78= C, etc, and we got a one-half point deduction for each mistake in grammar, usage, spelling and so on. Most cadets got pretty good a technical proficiency pretty quickly.

I typically will get 5-10 partially technically proficient writers in an intro class of 95-100. That's just sad. I don't even downgrade for bad writing, since that would lead to a failure rate approaching 90%. I *do* usually note in red ink as many mistakes as I come across. It bothers my students that I even make note of their mistakes. I also point out that 'bad writing' leads to misunderstanding of the writer's points and thesis and conclusions. Some get it, most don't.

[Rick Caird]

I don't know about this. I still remember some Beowolf from 1962. The part about "cracked the bones and crushed the sinews" appealed to us adolescent boys. We thought football.

Rick

[gahrie]

For several years, I taught a combined 7th grade Social studies/Language Arts class. In my ignorance as a social Studies teacher, I concentrated on writing and grammar in the LA portion. The 8th grade teachers could all tell who my sudents were they told me, because all my syudents wrote with compound sentences and could use semi-colons and colons properly.

[JorgXMckie]

I am in favor of teaching students not to use semi-colons at all, slnce almost all of my students who do use them use them improperly. Once, after complaining about this in class, one student anonymously placed in my mailbox a copy of a stylebook (I forget which one) rules for using semi-colons and said that she/he used them correctly. The next day in class, I put up on screen *all* the uses of semi-colons from the last writing and challenged the class to show which one(s) was properly used. Since none were, no one spoke up. I'm pretty sure they were all amazed that I'd gone to the trouble of copying all the papers before handing them back, too.

Of course, most of them also regard commas much as most folks regard pepper. Sprinkling a little of both here and there improves the flavor.

[aralls]

Since there are so many English teachers reading this blog, I have one request on behalf of future generations: no more poetry. Or make it optional, at the very least.

[Suzi]

High school English isn't just about grammar and writing. It is also about an introduction to the literature which ties most English-speaking people together in history. Literature shouldn't be covered without grammar and writing, but it needs to be covered.

I used to keep all the comic strips and cartoons I found that had literary jokes in them. You'd be amazed how many there were. I told my students they wouldn't even understand the COMICS, if they didn't know some literature.

[John Anderson]

My ownn personal unfavorite (going back to the late Fifties) was, I think, The House of the Seven Gables, which I threw in a corner and refused to pick up again when it spent over a page describing the blackness of a kettle. I might have been a tiny bit more forgiving about having been told to read it if just one of the teachers of my fourteen years in school had stopped calling it such great literture and admitted that stuff like that description was deliberate padding to squeeze out an extra penny from the cheapskate publisher's per-word rate.

I did not care for Shakespeare until, in High School, the publisher ran out of the standard paperback edition of Hamlet we were supposed to buy and treasure and sent us the annotated version. Not only was it made more interesting, it underscored what no teacher (in class, anyway) ever said - ol' Bill was writing to be sponsored by the upper classes, but make money by entertaining the rest of us. And still can, if you have an annotated version ("Hoist by his own Petard" is more fun if you know it was used to mean a fart!).

Poetry. Not until third-year college, except perhaps Ogden Nash. Or at least stop asking a sixteen-year-old to answer "What did the poet mean" when half of them, in common with Arthur Clarke's comment about his "2001: A Space Oddyssey", admit they themselves don't know what the heck it means. I fear I still dislike poetry: if you want to say something, for Pete's sake SAY IT! Why else do we still enjoy The Odyssey while letting dust gather on e.e.cummings? Heck, I'd rather re-read "Archie and Mehitabel" (sic)

[Matt]

I've always thought that the term "English" should be dropped entirely. You could have a section for grammar and mechanics and one for literature appreciation. The way it was taught when I was in high school (and apparently to this day) is the equivalent of a shop teacher pontificating about tne glories of the '69 Cuda for an entire semester without ever teaching his students to change the oil.

Thanks for the post. It's always nice to get a decades old grievance off one's chest.

[Linda F]

I am old enough (55) to have been taught English by teachers who understood the grammar, and knew how to teach it. The few younger teachers, who tried to be "with it", were the worst. They wasted the time they had, and nothing they taught had lasting value.

I learned Shakespeare the best way possible - my school, Lakewood High (OH), hosted the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. From 7th grade through 12th, we attended 2-3 live performances a year, generally 1 comedy and 1 tragedy. Nothing in class could match that experience for excitement, and we all developed a lifelong love for live theatre.

[class-factotum]

I hated "Great Expectations" in 9th grade. I loved it when I was a sophomore in college. Someone must have re-written it after I graduated from high school. Now Dickens is one of my favorite writers. It's Faulkner we need to get rid of before he hurts anyone.

As far as punctuation -- perhaps if we had grammar police who could fine businesses on the spot, we would not see such horrors as "apple's, 99 cents/lb."

[rightwingprof]

I'm confused. Are you talking about writing courses, or literature courses? And you are confused. Writing programs were taken away from English departments because of years of faculty complaints that students were not being taught academic writing.

As for literature courses, you support the very destruction of the canon of English literature that is plaguing education. Yes, Beowulf should be taught, for historical reasons. Yes, Shakespeare should be taught for the same reason. There is a canon for a reason. Whether you like reading it or not, or feel it's a waste of your time or not, is irrelevant. Education does not exist just to give you what you think is relevant to you.

That mindset is why English teachers are now teaching ebonics and slang.

[David]

Hear, hear!!!

"As for literature courses, you support the very destruction of the canon of English literature that is plaguing education. Yes, Beowulf should be taught, for historical reasons. Yes, Shakespeare should be taught for the same reason. There is a canon for a reason. Whether you like reading it or not, or feel it's a waste of your time or not, is irrelevant. Education does not exist just to give you what you think is relevant to you."

Well said, rightwingprof!

Craig writes: "Instructors spend too much time discussing issues more appropriate for specialists such as symbolism, archetypes, and historical context. They should, instead, focus on the issue, 'Why is this book/short story/essay good?'"

Symbolism, archetypes, and historical context are some of the things that can make a book a good book. If you got nothing out of reading literature, on what grounds do you rule out the value of symbolism, archetypes, and historical context?

Your tangential point #4 is a sad statement. Francis Bacon, one of those old-fashioned writers you would evidently heave overboard, once offered this advice: "Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider."

I don't see much weiging and considering in your post, but rather the sorts of poorly informed opinions I would expect from undergraduates.