I'm still struggling with our current discussions about what the end of composition is and how we get there. As good as ttopic is at getting so many students through the compostion classes, I can't help but wonder how effective it is with so little class time and so little face-to-face interaction and feedback. Are we trading off effectiveness for efficiency?
As a grader and future instructor for the course, I'd really like to be in complete support of the course, but, what with having gone to Tech for undergrad. and having friends who have taken one or both of them and having worked at the Writing Center and had clients taking them, I've just heard so many complaints-- and logical and reasonable ones at that. I would like to believe that the courses teach students how to write to a universal audience, but do students actually learn those lessons? Or do they just do what they think each assignment is asking for and hope for the best, never knowing if they are, in fact, doing assignments correctly or satisfactorily enough to get the grade they're aiming for? From past discussions with friends and/or clients, from a student's perspective, it's like a game of chance.
I think the program has made progress by dividing C.I.'s and D.I.'s into small grading groups, but, as Elizabeth and I have verbalized in class, even those small groups don't negate the misinterpretations or micommunications among group members.
So, while I'm very appreciative of my position as a D.I., I still feel ill at ease with the program as a whole.
2 comments:
Me too! I've written about this in my own blog -- the fact that this standardized assessment doesn't make room for nonstandardized students and instructors. Each CI has a different approach to classroom instruction and each DI has a different approach to grading. As much as we try within our groups to standardize our processes, we're still dealing with the personalities and preferences of at least six different people. It seems, in an attempt to make freshman comp the same for everyone, we're cheating everyone -- CI's, DI's AND students -- out of something important.
I concur with your assessment of TTOPIC. Unfortunately, I can think of now better way to handle the large number of students who have to take freshman comp. courses. At least, not without drastically increasing the English Department's budget. As far as the end of composition, I question if there is or should be an end. Perhaps we as teachers (both current and future) should look at composition more as a journey than a destination.
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