Re: one's own students and everyone else's too

[Margaret Clark <clark@uhdux2.dt.uh.edu>]

Chari, hi from another Houston outpost. We're at the Downtown campus. Your
post reminded me of how many of my students in my developmental courses
say that they got A's in high school English and are stunned to be in a
non-credit course; they really do not get it that college English is
something quite different than anything they've done before. I think we
have a lot of fine writers with fine minds in these pre-fyc classes who
haven't a clue to what's being asked of them in academic writing. 

Two disclaimers here, please; I am not, repeat not trashing high school
writing instruction. Believe me, I'd never do that.  

Also, I'm uncomfortably aware that I'm assuming that there is such an
animal as "academic writing."  I've heard a lot of the issues snapping at 
the toes of this puppy and have a hearty respect for the frailty of a 
definition. 

Nonetheless, the guys I get in my classes often know nothing or right next
to it about expository writing, or the concept of forming an original idea
and supporting it. And that, more than punctuation or grammar god knows,
is why I think beginning writers need to be hooked into the lab in any way
possible. What they don't know about college writing -- and critical
reading and thinking -- can hurt us all, big-time. So I'm for requiring
token visits of folks who are as busy at UH-D as yours are at UH-V (is
that a legal abbreviation?).  Any start is better than no start at all. 
We have so much to lose if we don't jump over our hypothetical ivied walls
and make contact any way we can. 

Margaret Clark
clark@dt.uh.edu