Wow, having attended the WPA conference this summer in Charlotte, NC
(Writing Program Administration--it was enormously helpful), I thought that
having 35 students per section of English 101 (a full-year course here at U
of Alberta, 70% literature and 30% writing instruction) was way too many.
Everyone at the conference was emphasizing guidelines from professional
associations like CCCC and NCTE and MLA that writing classes should be
capped at 20, certainly no more than 25 students per section. I think I'd
better count my blessings! (although this fall, last-minute enrollments
are causing many sections to slip up to 36 or 37, at least it's not a huge
lecture situation--and at least it's a full-year course). Last year was my
first-year here, though, and I found myself overwhelmed trying to teach
writing in two first-year classes of 35 students each. While John wants to
know how many Canadian universities are trying to teach writing in a
lecture situation, I'd love to know how many have class sizes of 20-25.
I'm teaching the first graduate course here in Composition and Rhetoric
Theory this fall--I'd also love to know about anyone else teaching a
similar course this year. Thanks--Betsy Sargent
At 12:52 PM 2000/09/10 -0400, John B. Killoran wrote:
>Colleagues, it's that time of year again when Brock University's rather
>naive English dept dreams up unusual things to do to its young writing
>program, and so I need your help with a couple of questions about Canadian
>1st-year writing courses:
>
>1) Do any Canadian universities or colleges offer 2-course sequences in 1st
>year? I know these are common in the US, but general ed requirements are
>also common there. I'm not aware of any such Canadian offerings (correct
>my ignorance please) and I'm hoping Brock sees the wisdom of doing one
>course well rather than two courses poorly. Writing is not required at
>Brock, so students here drop out of the second-term course after surviving
>the poorly designed first-term course. (Of course, Brock's English dept
>blames everybody but itself.)
>
>2) How many/few campuses attempt to teach writing courses partly out of a
>lecture hall? Aside from Brock, I'm aware of only 5:
>+ Toronto: Engineering program
>+ Waterloo: English and Math depts (shame on my alma mater)
>+ Ottawa: English dept (??? is that correct?)
>+ Carleton: English dept (??? is that correct?)
>+ Saskatchewan: Commerce program
>Are there others? I need to argue that only 5 (or whatever) other
>universities are attempting this, while the other 1000 or so North American
>universities and colleges don't presume to lecture students into becoming
>better writers.
>
>Ironically, one of the latest proposals the dept floated is for an
>upper-year undergrad course on writing pedagogy. Maybe some of the English
>faculty here will consider taking it.
>
>Thanks for your help,
>
>
>All the best,
>John
>----
>
>John B. Killoran, PhD
>Assistant Professor
>Dept. of English Language and Literature
>Brock University
>St. Catharines, Ontario
>L2S 3A1 Canada
>(905) 688-5550 ext.3886
>[log in to unmask]
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M. Elizabeth (Betsy) Sargent
Writing Coordinator
English Department
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB T6G 2E5
(780) 492-0457
Office: Humanities Center 3-79
Office Hours: T-Th 2-3 p.m.
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