I'm not convinced, as Guy is, that writing must be severed from English,
though it certainly seems a convenient option. What is required, if
writing is to remain in English, is for a general faculty acknowledgment
of expertise. Rhetoric and composition, or professional writing, or
technical writing, are areas of expertise as legitimate as Shakespeare
or Byron or Chaucer. If the department is willing to acknowledge that,
then it follows that experts should determine appropriate class size,
pedagogical approach etc. Otherwise, there is no expertise, and that is
not something that I think any traditional literary scholar is willing
to give up. If there is expertise, then presumably the compositionist
is the one to determine such issues as course content, class size,
teaching approach etc.
Now, of course, an individual faculty member cannot be allowed too much
control, because we would expect him/her to want to get away with tiny
classes. We have, say the bean counters, to be administratively
responsible. That is why the pedagogy argument is so important. We have
ample evidence on the side of small comp. classes, whatever English
depts might allege.
You might even propose a study. Have one instructor who believes in
large lectures teach a large lecture writing class, and another who
believes in small classes teach a small class. Then measure 1. student
satisfaction and their perception of worth of the course, 2. student
improvement using rhetorical and linguistic indicators of improvement to
analyze papers over a term or year. My guess is that you wouldn't need
to do the study because no one would dare take on the larger class. We
all know that small is better, only sometimes people don't want to admit
it for whatever selfish reasons (like departmental head quotas etc). If
someone did take on the impossible class size, you'd wind up with the
evidence you want anyway. We haven't codified it here at U of T, but we
certainly get it anecdotally as students compare ENG 182 (the monster
tech writing course) and APS 185 (the 22 max. tech writing course for L2
students).
good luck.
Rob Irish
**********************************************
Dr. Robert Irish
Director of Language Across the Curriculum
Applied Science and Engineering
University of Toronto
416-978-6708
**********************************************
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