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- Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!paladin.american.edu!auvm!BRANDEIS.BITNET!BURT
- Original_To: BITNET%"MBU-L@TTUVM1.BITNET"
- Message-ID: <MBU-L%92122311104107@TTUVM1.BITNET>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
- Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 12:08:00 EST
- Sender: "Megabyte University (Computers & Writing)" <MBU-L@TTUVM1.BITNET>
- From: BURT@BRANDEIS.BITNET
- Subject: RE: Standardizing sections of composition
- Lines: 18
-
- I had a fair bit of faith in my staff in the nine years I was a WPA
- (they just ended in September), and I did a lot of handholding and reasoning
- with my staff as they worked out their syllabi. We also for the most
- part had a common philosophy of composition and a common taste in readings
- and exercises. I found that as long as they had to provide a reasoned account
- of what they did (and had to defend it to their peers) that my staff's instincts
- about what to do in their classes were pretty trustworthy, and that the
- slightly different flavors of each sections were not bothersome either
- to me or to the students. Quite the reverse--I was able to use them as a
- laboratory to try out ideas on a pilot basis. We enjoyed relatively
- good esprit d'corps (sp?) here, and one of the reasons was that comp. teachers
- could follow their bent, as long as they could make their bent make sense
- to me. What I was most proud of, however, my institution may not have seen
- the same way, however. At least the new curriculum which will be imposed on the
- program over my already dead body is being justified on standardization
- grounds.
-
- John B
-