D'Angelo and Shaughnessy

After reading D'Angelo and Shaughnessy's articles this week, I was most interested in how experience affects one's writing and the teacher's grading. For example, Shaughnessy discusses that in 1970, due to NYU's open admission policy, students of a different kind entered college for the first time. Shaughnessy states that these students were "strangers in academia, unacquainted with the rules and rituals of college life, unprepared for the sorts of tasks their teachers were about to assign them" (388). In addition, many of these students spoke English as their second language and were from poor areas of town that unsatisfactorily equipped them in education. Personally, I believe these facts should be taken into account by a teacher when both teaching and grading. For me, one of the most frustrating aspects of being a grader for 1301 is that I do not know any of the students, but I am expected to grade their work anyway. I am not arguing that a teacher should lower their expectations for their students or teach easier material. However, like Shaugnessy aruges, I believe the teacher should look at a student's work holistically instead of focusing on every single grammatical error. In addition, I believe it is important to not only show them what they need to work on in their writing, but praise them for the improvements they make over the semester, however small. We discussed in class the idea of who gets a better grade - the student that submits "A" quality work the entire semester but does not improve or the student that starts out with poor quality work but makes great improvement? The first student obviously deserves an "A" for meeting the standards; however, I would not give them a higher "A," such as a 98, because one can always improve one's writing and this student did not. As for the second student, I would not automatically give them an "A" because they have made great improvement over the semester; however, I do believe that effort and improvement are important. Therefore, if the student had a 78 or 79, I would round it up to an "B." Obviously, a teacher needs to be careful of being too subjective when grading (such as grading underprivileged students easier); however, I think we must remember that students are not just a piece of writing but people with varied experiences.

Macrorie and Crowley

After reading Macrorie and Crowley this week, I was most intrigued by the concept of "Engfish." It made we wonder if I have ever written "Engfish" before and if I still do. Because of the mixed message we get as students, I think it is very likely I wrote "Engfish" in high school. From a student's perspective, it often seems that "Engfish" is what teachers want and as students we try to mold our writing to every teacher's preference or whim. We do not notice that our voices have been completely lost in a piece of writing, that we do not know the meaning of half of the words we used, or that our writing sounds nothing like the way we speak. We simply hear the teacher say "write formally" and we translate that to mean "write Engfish." Also, as Macrorie points out, many textbooks use "Engfish" and students copy what they see. Luckily, somewhere along the way I found my "voice" in writing and am able to write formally and simply at the same time, while still sounding like myself. Overall, I found this article very interesting and plan to use some of Macrorie's tactics in the classroom to help my students avoid writing "Engfish."

Brereton and Kitzhaber

In Brereton's article, I was most intrigued by the section on Fred Newton Scott. I do not comprehend how four professors could teach English to 1,200 students! Scott's tone of frustration is very understandable. I liked his idea of the English classroom being like a lab. English is more complex than other subject areas, for example, history. It is far more than pure memorization of dates or formulas; therefore, it makes perfect sense that students need individual attention like the kind they receive in a chemistry lab. In addition, Scott is convincing when he argues that he does not expect literature or beautiful style from his students, but instead simply that they "think straight-forwardly" and "express themselves clearly and connectedly" (105-6).

The main idea from Kitzhaber's article that resonated with me was the question, "who's to blame?" Although he does not really follow through with the thought later in his article, he raises a good point when he states that college English professors always blame high school teachers for not preparing the students adequately for college English courses. However, after reading the article and seeing the vast differences in college syllabi, it is not surprising that high school teachers are receiving a mixed message on what they should be teaching. I am personally interested in this topic because after earning my M.A. I want to teach high school English. Based on these syllabi, it is unclear if I should focus on grammar, literature, rhetoric, linguistics, logic, semantics, public speaking or try to teach a little bit of everything. It seems freshman composition courses across the nation should either come to an agreement on what is the most important skill for students to come to college with, or if they cannot agree, at minimum they should stop putting all the blame on the high school teachers.

Parker & Horner

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the readings this week! I learned a lot of interesting things about the history of teaching English composition that I would have never thought of otherwise. For example, I found Parker's metaphor of oratory and linguistics being the mother and father of English to be intriguing. The connection between linguistics and English seems obvious; however, I had never really thought about the link between written and spoken word. I assume the reason why I never considered it is because they value different characteristics. For example, elocution seems to be of a different field than the act of writing in a formal manner. In addition, I knew about the long history of learning to read and write Latin in English universities; but I guess I always assumed that they were studying English as well. To me, it seems crazy that they would value a degree in a dead language so much, but not study the literature of the language they spoke everyday. Finally, I thought it was fascinating that American universities structured their education, specifically the study of English, based on the Scottish model. The Scottish were quite modern and progressive in their idea that everyone deserved an education, despite their social class, and I am quite surprised that they do not receive more credit for being the foundation of our education system.