First Things First
“I have taught many students whose SAT scores exempted them from the writing requirement, but a disheartening number of them couldn’t write and an equal number of them had never been asked to. They managed to get through high school without learning how to write a clean English sentence, and if you can’t do that, you can’t do anything.”
—Stanley Fish, New York Times columnist and professor,
Florida International University, 2009
Florida International University, 2009
Editor’s Note: And how do they get into Congress?
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A local college requires all students to present a portfolio of papers reflecting senior level writing ability. The portfolio must pass muster before the student is allowed to graduate.
ReplyDeleteMost students use papers written for various classes. I work as a tutor for some of these students who are preparing their portfolios, and sometimes am appalled at the writing professors have, by their silence, deemed acceptable. The students may be able to spit the subject jargon back at a professor, but often the writing is so garbled as to be unintelligible.
Is it laziness on the part of professors who don't want to deal with the intricacies of language and so grade only on whether some semblance of the subject comes through the mangled verbiage? Do professors fear that, if they give the grades the papers deserve, they will be seen as incompetent teachers? Or is it that the colleges themselves, fearing loss of revenue, are reluctant to tell supposedly adult learners that they have failed in an area? Or is it just that not many people think writing is important anymore?
Scary.
I'm grateful for a high school english and writing teacher that forced me to write until I hoped I had never seen a book or essay again. Her influence and teaching probably influenced me to go into journalism in the first place. To this day, whenever I edit over a paper and find a fatal error in my writing, I still think, "What would Mrs. Allsop-Day have to say if she saw this?" I, for one, got a good writing education in high school, and plan on using it for a good long time.
ReplyDeleteGood questions and concerns, Anne.
ReplyDeleteI would say that it's not laziness so much as too much remediation required by the time some students get to college. Many of us are working too hard but simply can't turn back the writing incompetence that we inherit.
Is it the fault of their K-12 education? Maybe, but that's too easy, too. Too many students read too little, and that, I think, is not unrelated to their abilities in writing.
And let's not talk about critical thinking and curiosity about the world.
Love your editor’s note
ReplyDeleteAnd one might add.....English department faculties
Betty...
Ted,
ReplyDeleteThey get into Congress because there are so many voters who also cannot think, read, or write.
David