C Schryer wrote:
>
> What I find truely perplexing, however, is that some of these (often well
> meaning) folk who advocate such mechanistic courses often have intense
> theoretical backgrounds in deconstruction, culture theory, various forms of
> postmodernism etc. These positions contradict their actual practices in
> ways that I find difficult to fathom. Do their brains turn off or what?
>
> And by the way I think it is cheaper to run a "mechanistic" course--no
> drafts, multiple choice grammar and style tests.
I was going to add to this discussion earlier, but never got around to
it, but I think the point I would have made is coming around again.
Cathy's assumption that brain's turn off is perhaps harsh, but I do
think there is an element of understanding the whole project of teaching
writing. I don't think most Canadian literary scholars have a clue
about that. I know that it was slow to dawn on me. I got my
introduction to it teaching composition at MSVU under Susan Drain, but I
didn't really understand her then. It was only as I confronted a truly
mechanistic course as a TA at Toronto that the penny dropped--and even
that cliche metaphor makes the process of recognition sound faster than
it was. I still regard myself as working at a disadvantage in this
adopted field.
Now faculty at Waterloo may be more culpable than those elsewhere--they
are at least rubbing shoulders in the mail room--but I think it is easy
to remain ignorant in a country where the discipline remains so
malnourished. (I was going to say nascent, but I think the problem isn't
the novelty, it's the lack of dietary fibre.) Further, students think
they want "grammar". I have students who want more "grammar". So a
professor who teaches mechanistically will get affirmation from
students, will be seen by them as well as by colleagues to be doing
well. Cathy's point that such teaching is easier is undoubtedly true,
and I know that that IS THE consideration in the course that English
foists on our Engineers at UT. I don't believe others are as cynically
motivated.
Rob Irish
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