Saturday, February 17, 2007

Constrictive College Classes

The focus in this batch of articles seems to be the loss of self in college society. It's unfortunate to have to deal with the dual nature of living both in the context of college and (for lack of a better term) real life. College teaches students how to think, but a lot of that has to do with how the professors think.
I keep running over the part in "Conflict and Struggle: The Enemies or Preconditions of Basic Writing?" where students look at the statue of Perseusholding the head of medusa. One student starts off a paper by saying, "When I see this statue it is of the white man and he is holding the head of the negro." (44) There are college professors on this campus who would read this first statement, skip to the end and write "no. rewrite." at the end. The reasoning behind that is, simply, because the professor had never thought of that possible interpretation before, so it must be incorrect.
I think that a big reason why "gate-keepers" were afraid to have open admissions at colleges is because they looked out at their classes and thought, "No. not like us." These students just don't think the way we do, nor do they value what we value.
The fact of the matter is that, after some time, college students can assume what certain professors are asking for when they assign a paper. The opinions of Foucault and Freud are more valued opinions than a student's own opinions of a work. It's my opinion that the gate-keepers might have looked out to their classes and thought to themselves, "there's no possible way I can teach these students how to think like I do." And, they left it at that. How could they deal with such a diversity of thought? I mean, college students mainly come from a middle-class family. They are hard workers and did well in school. Open admissions could disrupt that homogenous demographic.
Of course, teachers who were up to the challenge of finding a different opinion, or actively participating in a dialogue with students would get along quite well with the new breed of students introduced by open admissions.

Friday, February 9, 2007

Handwriting

I know that Shaughnessy only wrote three pages on handwriting, but I was just going over the chapters we read in order to do the blog and I just don't feel like Shaughnessy should have added that section in to her book. I don't know how handwriting relates to the writing practices of a basic writer.
Shaughnessy wrote that "...poor handwriting of the sort I have been describing is not so much a cause of badwriting as an indication that the writer is not at home with this skill..." (16) That's just a false statement. I have terrible handwriting. In fact, I never achieved better than a "C" in handwriting all through Elementary school (My teachers just told me to try harder). Yet, I feel very comfortable putting my thoughts on paper. And, what about the people who have excellent handwriting, but can't write a good paragraph?
The section is rendered particularly useless since people are writing less and typing more. The days of masking spelling mistakes with blurred letters (16) and illegible handwriting (15) are just about over. We can use word processors to correct both our illegible writing and our spelling (God bless America).
And, who even thought up cursive anyway? It's stupid! Nobody can read it!
I got a little carried away, there. I just don't think that handwriting is important in the long run. There are better things we could be spending our time correcting more glaring mistakes. I mean, surely, we will have to be able to read the students' writing, but I'm not going to waste class time on explaining the benefits of pretty handwriting. It's the same as saying that good writers dress well. Obviously that student is a below-average writer; look at the way he's dressed!