At the University of Calgary, writing courses are capped at 30, which is
still too big. We did have some large lectures as adjuncts to our
writing courses but dropped them as unproductive in 1978. We replaced
them with a one-to-one writing centre.
We did have
"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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--
Dr. Doug Brent
Associate Dean (Academic)
Faculty of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary
2500 University Drive N.W.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
Voice: (403) 220-5458 Fax: (403) 282-6716
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dabrent
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the annual conference, and publications, go to the Inkshed Web site at
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