Teaching students to think: j
Writing remains central
to liberal arts education
By Melissa Martin
Of the Emerald
Many students just want to get through their
writing course — never realizing that a writing
department is the cornerstone of a liberal arts
university.
Program officials say they want students to think,
and write argumentatively when they finish the pro
gram's first year and continue their education.
"We want to direct writing toward the process of
inquiry and other disciplines, so we are giving
students better academic preparation through
writing," says |ohn Gage, composition department
head.
"I overestimated the mechanical aspects and
underestimated the maturity of their thinking," adds
Richard Schwartz, a composition professor. "They're
really becoming good thinkers.
"My job is to keep the students up' and jelled'
and to promote the desire to write. I want to make
them understand their writing does matter," he says.
Learning to write at the college level is not a "mir
ror skill," Gage says, adding that composition should
be taught in relation to liberal arts.
"The way we teach writing will be in relation to
ideas and how to support them," he says.
To make writing a foundational tool, the entire
University needs to cooperate, Gage says. "Other
classes need to reinforce and ask for writing and
make it count as part of expected performance.
"If students aren't writing as well as they should
it is everybody's problem," he says.
Gage, who serves on the National Council of
Teachers of English, feaches a composition class so
he can keep in touch with the students. The 2,500
students taking first-year writing classes are reading,
"College Thinking," a paperback designed to help
them get the best out of college.
And along with meeting with students. Universi
ty writing teachers meet once a week to share ex
periences and knowledge, an event Gage says is a
factor in the program's quality teaching and positive
outlook.
In addition, department Graduate Teaching
Fellows must finish a training sequence which in
cludes a fall composition workshop and an appren
ticeship before they actually enter the classroom,
Richard Schwartz
John Gage
Gage says.
"I'm enthusiastic about what he (Gage) has done
with this program," says Jonathan Monroe, a com
position GTF who will complete his doctorate winter
term and become an instructor.
Monroe says he will work with students in
dividually for grammar problems but hopes to en
courage students to think critically and transfer that
to writing critically.
Monroe attended the orientation program Gage
organized and says the sessions built up morale and
prepared the teachers for a new term.
Schwartz also is excited about the composition
department's liberal arts focus.
As part of the composition department for the
first time, the former Ashland high school teacher
says the University program's goals and ideas are
making him a "much more well rounded teacher.
It's too early in the term to make generalizations
about the students' progress, Schwartz says, but he
hopes to sit down with them and find out how they
view him as a junior high, senior high and college
age teacher.
Gage keeps high school teachers informed on
skills the University expects from first-year entering
students. He says the department-sponsored con
ference for high school teachers held on campus last
summer was very successful.
This year, Schwartz says he has a tremendous
cross section of students. He says he uses materials
such as newspaper editorials to stimulate student
thought. And he enjoys reading student essays.
"Whenever I get a batch of essays I come back a
new person," he says.
Schwartz doesn't depend on student response
after his lectures to measure his effectiveness. "A
teacher can walk out of a writing class totally disillu
sioned without a response," he says.
For Schwartz, the weekly composition staff
meetings provide a good time to socialize and
discuss teaching methods.
Although GTF Maria DePriest admits to being
busy and not always wanting to attend the Monday
night weekly sessions for composition staff, she says
after the class is over she always comes back with "a
million ideas."
She emphasized the students' tendency is to be
vague in their writing and fuzzy in their thinking.
"The ideas are almost formulated while they write,"
she says.
"We are really supposed to be teaching people
to think."
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