Honors 1102
What & Why
Historically...
In Western civilization, we see a long track-record of people thinking about language--how writing and speaking persuade
Plato's diaglogues
Aristotle's On Rhetoric
Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory
Augustine's On Christian Doctrine
In America...
With the skyrocketing in college enrollment after the Civil War, teachers were faced with a lot of students
&
the belief that these students struggled to write well
(we still think this about student-writers...)
Required Writing
So, this required writing class you are in...
Started at Harvard in mid-1880s
Adams Sherman Hill--English A required of all incoming freshman
Now...
97% of U.S. colleges have a writing requirement
85% of these schools fulfill this requirement through the English Department
You can test out. But research says don't.
Why needed?
· In 2003, the National Commission on Writing reported that writing instruction in the U.S. is “increasingly shortchanged throughout the school and college years” (p. 3).
In Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa (2011) chart longitudinal data of 2,322 students enrolled in American institutions of higher education. They report that 45% of the students in the study displayed “no statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills” (p. 36).
Why needed?
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicates that less than a quarter of high school seniors write at the proficient level. Fewer than 1% write at the advanced level (Salahu-Din, Persky, & Miller, 2008).
86% of corporate recruiters said strong communication skills were a priority, according to a 2011 survey conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council, which operates the standardized test for business school.
And...
Norman Augustine, former CEO Lockheed Martin
led 180,000 people
"I have concluded that one of the stronger correlations with advancement through the management ranks was the ability of an individual to express his or her thoughts in writing"
So what are we doing?
Dipping into a whole discipline that thinks about writing
how it is taught
how it is learned
how it is used
and why
Writing Studies ----> housed in English Departments with Literature
Questions we ask:
historical: how was writing taught in colonial schools?
ideology: how does school class or economic standing affect your writing performance?
process: how did author X write text B?
pedagogy: how can we best teach student-writers who spend all their free time on Instagram?
non-school: how do gang members use graffiti to signify importance?
This semester:
we'll strengthen our writing skills by reading and thinking about
writing.
Because all majors write;
they always will, and they always have.
Honors 1102
By mrifenburg
Honors 1102
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