Kim Brooks, in Salon, bemoans the state of her Freshman comp students' writing abilities and lays the blame at the high school English teacher's classroom door.
My father, who ran Temple's comp program not so long ago and taught lots of lower-level classes until retiring...well, this week, I guess...has said many many of the same things about the writing skills his students lack.
How do we get students to do things that are hard--like writing--if we can't demonstrate that doing something hard thing--like teaching writing--is worth the effort?
