The Wasteland (part one)

"Freshman English is also frequently invoked as an empty space notable for its various lacks, as an absence. According to Crowley (1986), 'When teachers of English write about the course in their professional journals it is to complain about it: its teachers' lack of training and motivation; its students' ill-preparedness and lack of motivation; its low status; its lack of intellectual integrity' (11). Crowley, herself, remarks on the [sic] 'the intellectual poverty' of 'the ordinary unproductive vineyards of freshman English' (14-15). For Stade, freshman English is 'singularly devoid of either the profitable or the playful,... has no content at all... [and] is not a subject' (144-145). Moreover, Greenbaum argues, freshman English is a course designed 'to develop in the student an overwhelming sense of his own inadequacies.' It is, he writes, the place 'where a person learns that he can't write,' and it thus serves as 'the crown on thirteen hapless years of composition education that has taken expressive children and molded them into wordless adults' (186)."

Heilker, Paul. "Freshman English." Keywords in Composition Studies. Ed. Paul Heilker, and Peter Vandenberg. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc., 1996. 108-109.

A quick note to my fellow T.A.'s: if you haven't yet read the keyword article on freshman English, do so. It contains a brief overview of scholarly writing on the phenomenon of freshman composition courses. Most of the statements are very negative, like the above quotation, but they illuminate some very real problems with the perception and process of these classes that can interfere with or even undermine the benefits we hope to impart. These criticisms demand a frank evaluation of our curricula, our teaching philosophies, and our expectations for our students, and they similarly demand an intentional response in our practice as teachers of writing.

I selected the passage above because it seemed to me the most damning of the whole article. Freshman English is most notable as a rhetorical void, a course of study that has no content but demands a product; its products, even if structurally sound, are empty of content, significance, and meaningful self-expression. Its classroom is characterized as a gathering place for apathy, inadequacy, and intellectual barrenness (or even dishonesty). Worse, it is part of a larger educational framework whose end result is to quash expressiveness and real rhetorical literacy.

This is why I think we should suspend all 1301 and 1302 classes immediately.

Wait, what was that? Graduate assistantship? Darn.

What I mean to say was that it bears examination whether our classrooms individually or the Texas Tech composition program as an institution fosters the sort of rhetorical stupor that Crowley, Stade, Greenbaum, and many others identify with freshman writing classes. The one thing we absolutely cannot control - not without convincing the university to gouge the enrollment, which doesn't really solve anything - is the quality of our students, or, more to the point, the quality of their education in composition to the point they enter our classrooms. We know that the most exceptional students will generally test out of 1301 and 1302, but that still leaves us with an incredible range in student aptitude. Some will enter deservedly confident of their writing skills and may be skeptical that we have anything to offer them at this level. Others will essentially need remedial training to bring their verbal skills up to college standards.

I think the greatest source of strength in Texas Tech's approach to freshman composition is the high degree of specific, individual attention it fosters. How? By placing assignment commentary on a similar level of importance to the classroom instruction itself. The two cannot be separated; they are both integral parts of our students' education, and each serves the other intimately. This is why it is so crucial that our classroom instructors and document instructors stay on the same page regarding their points of emphasis and standards of evaluation. It also means that we must take our role as commentators at least as seriously as our role as graders. We must demonstrate to our students that we truly do care about their progress as writers and that such progress is attainable, or we cannot reasonably expect them to care.

I was going to address the content of our classes as well, but this post is becoming an essay, and I have other things to do this morning. Perhaps I'll save that for a later post. My purpose here, more than anything, is simply to provoke some thought, reflection, and criticism; I certainly don't think that I can solve or even fully understand the many problems pursuant to freshman composition programs. But the greatest danger for us teachers, as I see it, is an unreflective approach.