NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/bit/listserv/mbul/6247

Text File | 1992-12-30 | 3.3 KB | 55 lines

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Date:         Tue, 29 Dec 1992 08:23:27 -0700
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From:         "David E. Schwalm" <[e-mail]>
Subject:      RE: Standardizing Composition Classes
In-Reply-To:  note of 12/29/92 01:05
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Ron Adams is right when he says it is tricky to get "the right balance between
standardization and enough freedom to satisfy the faculty." Ron notes that at
Kalamazoo Valley CC "the specific assignments--type, length, etc.--are left up
to the individual." This is where I have gotten the most heat with regard to
our standard syllabus. We use Rose and Kiniry's "Critical Strategies" as the
main textbook in our 101 course, and instructors are obliged to use writing
assignments from the text (or assignments modeled on assignments in the text).
The reason that I've done this is to attempt to ensure that there is some
uniformity in the degree of difficulty of the writing assignments across
sections. There are lots of assignments in the text, some are harder than
others, but all meet the minimum requirements implicit in the course goals.
That is, students must be required to do something with ideas and information
derived from reading college level materials, usually academic prose. In the
writing, students must demonstrate that they have read and understood the
materials. (Sample: the text includes a passage from a social psychologist
describing and exemplifying four stages of culture shock for immigrants to a
new country. It is followed by autobiograpical narratives written by
immigrants describing their experiences in a new culture. The assignment
either to analyze the narratives in terms of the theory of culture shock or to
use the narratives to test the adequacy of the theory.) This is fairly typical
of the assigments in our 101 course. Assignments of this sort are not easy to
develop, yet they are critical to the goals of our course. If we simply
proposed that students in our course had to write an analytical essay, we
might get a few students doing something like the Rose and Kiniry assignment,
more doing analyses of poems (usually without an explicit analytical
framework--such as the stages of culture shock), and more still "breaking
something down into its parts." If an instructor can come up with a set of
readings that produces an R & K type assigment, he or she is free to use it
(but too much of that is murder on our copying budget). The goals of our
program are very closely tied to the type and length of the writing
assignments, especially our emphasis on reading-based writing. (An interesting
aside on the R & K assignments: students are a little unhappy with them at
first because they are "hard" and they aren't "fun," but they do recognize
them soon as genuine academic writing assignments and come to respect them.
They cannot BS their way through such assignments.) Speaking of BS, this has
gone on long enough.

-- David E. Schwalm, Assoc. Provost for Academic Programs
___Arizona State University West
___4701 West Thunderbird Rd.
___Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100___(602) 543-4500