Her first thought was that the dean wanted to continue an unpleasant conversation that had unfolded a few weeks earlier. In those days before computer scheduling, students could choose composition sections for the second semester by placing their names on sign-up sheets, one for each section, scotch-taped to the counter outside the Dean's office.
As the WPA, Elaine had made sure that each section had a red-line indicating a maximum of twenty students in each section. But the students cheerfully ignored the red-line and continued to add their names, with no limits at all, to the sections of the most popular instructors.
Elaine's high-tech solution to this imbalance in section enrollment was to use scissors to cut the sign-up sheets away from their scotch tape when the number reached twenty. Alerted by the snip-snip—and the protests from students literally cut off from their section of choice—the dean had emerged from his office to demand, "What are you doing with my sign-up sheets!?!
Elaine responded that she was protecting the reputation of Beaver College as an institution that kept sections of English composition at a manageable size. But the December summons was not—at least not directly—connected with the scissors adventure.
As soon as Elaine walked into the Dean's office, something came flying at her. She safely caught the missile, which turned out to be the "Why Johnny Can't Write" issue of Newsweek. Elaine momentarily considered a career in baseball, although that was another area like university life where women did not compete on an even playing field. But before she could take full satisfaction in her skills as an outfielder, the dean demanded to know what she was going to do about the article.
It turned out that this encounter actually did lead to both local and national change. It was the beginning of writing across the curriculum at Beaver College—an initiative that would lead to a fully integrated institutional WAC program that would become a laboratory and model for other institutions.
But she was determined to go. If that is so, the class I was in was full of our future teachers. If the future teachers of American cannot write, how can we expect them to teach our children to write? I am worried about the future…Will the literacy crisis of today turn into a literacy emergency tomorrow?
Post a Comment. What strikes me about those samples is that the errors offered as evidence are accessible to a general audience—misspelled words, misplaced prepositional phrases, and convoluted prose. Yet, grammar, punctuation, and usage errors can be found in many pieces of writing.
I doubt errors in semi-colon usage would get readers as interested as the samples provided by Sheils. On the cover is Johnny—white, middle class, and on his way to college. He obviously represents the establishment, but the images included with the article show quite different faces.
Here, for example, we find images of white children watching TV and attentive African American high school students with their white, female teachers. We never see Johnny in the classroom. Why do we never learn the fate of Johnny?
Posted by Mya Poe at PM. Newer Post Older Post Home. Subscribe to: Post Comments Atom. Literacy study: 1 in 7 U. ABC News: Il literacy at what cost?
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