I'd like to add a word here, if I may... There was a presentation at the
last CATTW conference, in which the presenter raised questions that
EAP/ESL teachers assigned to teach courses in technical writing face.
One of CATTW senior members responded to this presentation questioning
the practice of assigning ESL/EAP teachers to technical writing classes.
I completely support this CATTW member's view, that is, hiring people
from another filed who have had no training in or exposure to
discipline-specific writing may be dangerous.
I know that people with all possible backgrounds are hired to teach
disciplinary communication courses: people from English, Philosophy, EAP
and so on. Why are we doing that? Because we can't find people who would
COMBINE disciplinary knowledge and understanding of rhetoric. I once
thought that the solution would be to ask disciplinary professors to
teach discipline-specific writing courses. Alas, few of them have a
desire to do it and even fewer have a clear understanding of rhetoric,
and therefore, tend to teach "the way it's done in such and such company
where I used to work" or "the way I do it" without raising questions
"why was it done this way" or "why do I do it this way." This kind of
teaching results in students' views of (engineering in my case) writing
as a set of templates and rules to follow. On the other hand, hiring
somebody who has no idea of the (engineering) discipline but understands
rhetoric may also result in a disaster. I think the ideal would be for
disciplinary professors to devise writing assignments in collaboration
with a rhetoric person WHO SHOULD UNDERSTAND demands of a particular
discipline either by virtue of having a degree in this discipline or
through an exposure to the discipline as a writing consultant, for
example, and then respond to students' writing as a team. I have doubts,
though, about the feasibility of such a set-up.
My colleague has developed a new version of the Engineering
communication course we teach at Carleton specifically to accommodate
instructors with a limited knowledge of the discipline. Wendy, if you
are interested, please let me know at [log in to unmask]
Natasha
Russ Hunt wrote:
>
> I think Rob describes the situation and the challenge perfectly.
> I've not seen it stated so clearly.
>
> One thing I'd add . . .
>
> > Note that a discipline-based course will need to be taught by
> > someone in the discipline, rather than by a writing person
> > parachuting in. Only from within the discipline will the
> > values of the discipline be truly apparent.
>
> Yes, and one of the real dangers here is that WI courses will be
> taught by people parachuted in from somewhere _in_ the
> discipline. The real challenge is to make sure those courses
> are taught by the regular faculty, and that the regular faculty
> get the training and support they need. (Our writing program
> here, back at the dawn of time, faced this challenge:
> departments wanted to hire in their own part-timers to do the
> writing stuff, rather than seconding faculty. Not many people
> understood the real lasting benefit of the program, which was
> that it potentially changed the teaching of the regular faculty
> dramatically and forever.)
>
> -- Russ
> St. Thomas University
> http://www.StThomasU.ca/~hunt/
>
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--
_____________________________________
Natasha Artemeva
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
K1S 5B6
Tel.+1 (613) 520-2600 ext.7452
Fax +1 (613) 520-6641
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.carleton.ca/~nartemev/index.html
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To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to
[log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties,
write to Russ Hunt at [log in to unmask]
For the list archives and information about the organization,
its newsletter, and the annual conference, go to
http://www.stu.ca/inkshed/
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