What Should Colleges Teach?
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What Should Colleges Teach?
A few years ago, when I was grading papers for a graduate literature course, I became alarmed at the inability of my students to write a clean English sentence.
They could manage for about six words and then, almost invariably, the syntax (and everything else) fell apart.
I became even more alarmed when I remembered that these same students were instructors in the college's composition program. What, I wondered, could possibly be going on in their courses?
I decided to find out, and asked to see the lesson plans of the 104 sections. I read them and found that only four emphasized training in the craft of writing. Although the other 100 sections fulfilled the composition requirement, instruction in composition was not their focus.
Instead, the students spent much of their time discussing novels, movies, TV shows and essays on a variety of hot-button issues - racism, sexism, immigration, globalization.
These artifacts and topics are surely worthy of serious study, but they should have received it in courses that bore their name, if only as a matter of truth-in-advertising.
As I learned more about the world of composition studies I came to the conclusion that unless writing courses focus exclusively on writing they are a sham, and I advised administrators to insist that all courses listed as courses in composition teach grammar and rhetoric and nothing else.
This advice was contemptuously dismissed by the composition establishment, and I was accused of being a reactionary who knew nothing about current trends in research.
It's hard to quarrel with this list; the quarrel and the criticism have been provoked by the criteria that accompany it.
These criteria are stringent and narrow and have been criticized as parochial and motivated by nostalgia and politics; but in at least four of the seven areas they make perfect sense. Credit for requiring instruction in mathematics will not be given for linguistic courses or computer literacy courses because their 'math content is usually minimal.'
Credit for requiring instruction in the natural or physical sciences will not be given for courses with 'weak scientific content' or courses 'taught by faculty outside of the science departments' (i.e., the philosophy or history of science).
Credit for requiring instruction in a foreign language will not be given for fewer than three semesters of study because it takes that long to acquire "competency at the intermediate level."
본문에 나오는 주요 단어와 발음청취
invariably
부. 불변하게, 항상, 예외없이
variety
명. 다양함, 다양성; 다양한 것을 모은 것; 종류
hot button
명. 감성적으로나 정치적으로 흥분된 이슈
sham
형. 허위의, 거짓의; 가장하는, ...척하는
rhetoric
명. 수사학, 수사, 효과적인 말하기와 쓰기; 웅변술; 과장된 언어의 사용
contemptuously
부. 경멸적으로, 오만하게
quarrel
동. 싸우다; 언쟁하다, 말다툼하다; 충돌하다; 불평하다, 흠을 잡다
provoke
동. 화나게 하다, 짜증나게 하다; 자극하다, 도발하다; 유발시키다
stringent
형. 엄중한, 절박한, 임박한; 속박하는, 얽매는; 돈이 부족한
parochial
형. 교구의 (종교); 속좁은, 편협한; 지방적인
nostalgia
명. 향수; 과거를 그리워하는 마음
competency
명. 능력, 유능함; 적절함, 적격; 적절한 임금; 자격 (법률)
