In the Basement of the Ivory Tower – An adjunct English prof at a "college of last resort" ponders whether college is for everyone. HT: Charlottesville words
That Baesement article is good. But I end up wondering if he is using the best methods of teaching writing to these folks. Clearly they need to start somewhere different than the younger students that attend in the daytime but he seems to not really know how to do that. Not that his points about the general characteristics of this group are not valid, but he seems to have decided that literature is inherently interesting and is then baffled with how to teach it to folks that don’t share that premise.
The economics of higher education is a whole other kettle of fish. Smelly fish.
JoVE, that thought struck me too. He wants to teach a straight-up Comp 101 course. Sounds like what most of those students need is a remedial English course. I respect that he’s trying not to strip the meaning from a passing grade, but I wonder if he could take a more proactive approach with his bosses (and why DON’T they care that more than half of his students are failing, anyhow??) to change a course track that clearly isn’t meeting the needs of the students.
I attended a community college in high school and was required to take Writing 101. However, at this college, you had to take placement tests for reading, writing, and mathematics. There were like five different test levels you could chose from for each area. You were given descriptions of the basic content and were told to choose appropriately. Then based on the results of your tests, you were sent on to Writing 101 or to remedial writing and/or reading classes, etc. There were even several classes (that did not count as college level transfer credits), depending on how much remediation the student needed. That way the student was actually PREPARED for Writing 101. I thought the article was interesting and well-written, but there definitely appears to be flaws in his college’s administration (and his lack of speaking out!).
I read that article on an airplane this weekend.. and I was really angry at the professor for caring so little about teaching and teaching so poorly that people can take his course multiple times and fail. I won’t rehash all of the things that bothered me… but I wrote a rather long rant on my blog: http://itinerant-oak.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-spout-off.html
(A roundup post with links to my notes and reviews)
Hey, what happened to all those booklists you used to have in your sidebars at the old blog?
They're still accessible at melissawiley.typepad.com, where this blog lived from January 2005-March 2008. You can also find all my Lilting House posts there, or try the search bar here. All my previous Bonny Glen and Lilting House posts have been imported to this site.
Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.
(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
—Victor Hugo
Twitter Updates
“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?
Oh, funny — I just posted a link to the Basement article yesterday, too. Atticus had read it and sent it on to me. Great piece. But sad.
Posted on June 4th, 2008 at 5:22 amThat Baesement article is good. But I end up wondering if he is using the best methods of teaching writing to these folks. Clearly they need to start somewhere different than the younger students that attend in the daytime but he seems to not really know how to do that. Not that his points about the general characteristics of this group are not valid, but he seems to have decided that literature is inherently interesting and is then baffled with how to teach it to folks that don’t share that premise.
The economics of higher education is a whole other kettle of fish. Smelly fish.
Posted on June 4th, 2008 at 6:11 amJoVE, that thought struck me too. He wants to teach a straight-up Comp 101 course. Sounds like what most of those students need is a remedial English course. I respect that he’s trying not to strip the meaning from a passing grade, but I wonder if he could take a more proactive approach with his bosses (and why DON’T they care that more than half of his students are failing, anyhow??) to change a course track that clearly isn’t meeting the needs of the students.
Posted on June 4th, 2008 at 7:08 amI attended a community college in high school and was required to take Writing 101. However, at this college, you had to take placement tests for reading, writing, and mathematics. There were like five different test levels you could chose from for each area. You were given descriptions of the basic content and were told to choose appropriately. Then based on the results of your tests, you were sent on to Writing 101 or to remedial writing and/or reading classes, etc. There were even several classes (that did not count as college level transfer credits), depending on how much remediation the student needed. That way the student was actually PREPARED for Writing 101. I thought the article was interesting and well-written, but there definitely appears to be flaws in his college’s administration (and his lack of speaking out!).
Posted on June 6th, 2008 at 3:55 pmI read that article on an airplane this weekend.. and I was really angry at the professor for caring so little about teaching and teaching so poorly that people can take his course multiple times and fail. I won’t rehash all of the things that bothered me… but I wrote a rather long rant on my blog:
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 5:34 amhttp://itinerant-oak.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-spout-off.html