By Scott Patrick

While in community college, I had a class that required I do 40 hours of observation in a high school classroom. It was my first time back in a high school classroom since I’d graduated. I sat in on a number of classes, but by far one of the most interesting experiences I had was observing a remedial English class for freshmen. It was called “English G,” the G standing for “general.” Looking back, the name of the class only reaffirms the idea that remediation is deficit-focused, because the non-remedial English class is called “English CP,” for “college prep.” The very fact that a student is separated from their peers because of some perceived deficiency in knowledge can cause a loss of self-esteem, and calling the course “general” instead of “college prep” clearly conveys the idea that the remedial students’ future is not as certain as the college prep students.

The 20 or so students in the class were, at least from my perspective, totally capable of doing the assignments offered to them, but their way of approaching an assignment might not have fit into the class’s rigid structure. The largest portion of writing in the class was answering questions at the end of a text in their textbook. I’ve despised those end-of-text questions my whole schooling career. I didn’t mind reading, but the way we were asked to prove our understanding of the text (through the dry, unprovocative questions in the back) wasn’t my style. There are better ways of demonstrating that a student read the text than drilling them on questions that have nothing to do with critical thinking or unpacking major ideas. I think that the strategy of “skills and drills” is far too common in remedial classrooms, as if those who create the curriculum think that the more boring and difficult something is, the more the student will be forced to learn. Drilling students on comprehension is painfully slow and boring, as well as causes students to associate reading with boring classroom exercises. It seems that remediation works against itself, the students leave it often less interested in the subject than they were when then began it. It’s almost analogous to our prison system, where we send many wayward youth with ignorant hopes of “reforming” them, when in practice people in the judicial system often leave prison no better than when they entered.

By Scott Patrick

In the activity theory article, Russell analyzes the current situation in writing composition classes. He claims that the most detrimental aspect of GWSI is that it teaches writing without any context or activity system following it. He says that a contradiction has grown inside comp classes, because “it must attempt to teach writing without teaching the activities that give writing meaning and motive, those of other activity systems.” I agree with this analysis of comp classes, and because writing is taught without any context, it feels like a meaningless, painful exercise in the classroom.

Russell notes that in almost every other discipline, the introductory courses always lead to an activity system, and you’re given specialized tools to mediate your objectives. What’s learned in English comp isn’t even necessarily useful in an actual English class. Writing in the English major is developed by simply using it in the context of English classes, and this rule exists for other majors as well. GWSI can’t be categorized in any specific discipline because no discipline uses the skills or tools learned only in English comp.

Our reading this week, “The Novice as Expert: Writing the Freshman Year,” opens up with a story about the freshman experience at Harvard University, and some advice the President of the university, Neil Rudenstine, has for the incoming students. He says, encourages them “to write a great deal… and experiment with different kinds of writing- because experimentation forces one to develop new forms of perception and thought, a new and more complex sensibility” (Saltz and Sommers 3). President Rudenstine believes that when a student becomes familiar, comfortable, and confident in their writing, their ability to feel or perceive emotion grows.

When President Rudenstine says that writing students will “develop… a new and more complex sensibility,” he’s saying that they will be able to better understand their own feelings. Writing can be a tool that can put your thoughts in order, improving their clarity. In a learning community it is important not only to be able to translate your thoughts into words on a page, but to understand what others are saying when they write.

The idea of experimenting with different kinds of writing is a great idea, and one that has been discussed in class and in our readings. If students are exposed to several types of writing, the subject might not seem so compartmentalized and confusing. Just getting students to not dread writing the in first place is obviously the goal, and maybe if we introduced it to them differently the exercise of writing wouldn’t be so strenuous.