Wendy,
I attended the Graff session and yes, to our national shame, Canada
appeared on his list of a dozen literacy related "signs of the times"
under the heading of "punative literacy" by which he was refering to
Ontario's new policy of requiring individuals to pass a literacy test in
order to be eligible for social assistance. Yikes! What next? Maybe we
should propose a test of compassionate intellegence in order to
establish eligibilty to stand for election to public office?
Pat
>That's just wonderful. I've heard anecdotally that some profs have been
>restricting their assignments more and more because of their dread of
>plagiarism, and I'm not really surprised that some are eliminating
>take-homes altogether. I doubt very much that this is a purely Canadian
>phenomenon. Neither, I suspect, is the stop-em-at-the-gates theory of
>testing, though maybe our less egalitarian tradition makes it easier to
>justify this.
>
>I've always thought that fear of plagiarism really goes too far when it
>starts preventing people from doing what's right for their students..
>
>I'd like to know if anyone heard Graff on literacy tests on welfare. I
>missed this presentation.
>
>Wendy Strachan wrote:
>
>>
>>Hi Doug,
>>
>>The WPA list is having a great time with this message that appeared in the
>>Calgary Herald...
>>
>>Wendy
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Writing Program Administration [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>>Jane V. Nelson
>>Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 2:47 PM
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: eliminate writing to combat plagiarism
>>
>>And we heard from Graff at the C's about the interesting scheme of requiring
>>literacy tests to receive welfare, and I think he said this scheme is being
>>proposed in Canada, although I might not be remembering correctly.
>>
>>Jane Nelson
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Nick Carbone [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>>Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 3:24 PM
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: eliminate writing to combat plagiarism
>>
>>I'm not making this up. To combat plagiarism, professors at some Canadian
>>universities are only doing in class writing assignments -- short essays and
>>essay exams. They're dropping the research paper assignment and take home
>>exams.
>>
>>But . . . this at a time when there's growing concern about student's
>>ability to write well and their literacy levels. One school's solution on
>>that score -- don't let in students who aren't already literate enough.
>>Sound familiar? Fix literacy in college by limiting who attends based on
>>literacy.
>>
>>Sigh.
>>
>>Here's the link:
>>
>>TERM papers axed to obliterate plagiarism Calgary Herald -
>>Calgary,Alberta,Canada
>>
>>The dreaded end-of-term research paper is becoming the latest victim of
>>plagiarism on university campuses -- just as administrators are bemoaning
>>the writing ...
>><http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=849ee48c
>>-7aae-4551-9cc9-7ad274743c4c>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Nick
>>nick_carbone at hotmail.com (to email, replace at with @, and close the
>>spaces)
>>http://ncarbone.blogspot.com and/or
>>http://ncarbone.blogspot.com/TeachingWriting
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>All the action. All the drama. Get NCAA hoops coverage at MSN Sports by
>>ESPN. http://msn.espn.go.com/index.html?partnersite=espn
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>--
>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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