Since Marcy is one of the people who often understands what I've
said better than I do, it bothered me that she seemed not to
understand what I was proposing about linked courses. Probably, I
infer, hardly anybody did. Let me try again. She says:
> I don't think collaboration will follow, especially not if you link
> first and tell the writing person later. ("Oh, by the way, we've
> linked your course with a particle physics course. Can you bone up
> on the literature and make it relevant in your class?") Or you
> could end up with a situation like we have here, where the Honors
> Humanities classes are linked with writing courses . . . and the
> humanities profs tend to think of the writing class as the place
> where they (the humanities profs) can assign all the reading they
> didn't manage to get to in *their* part of the link . . . almost
> irrespective of what the writing person wants to do.
I think it wasn't clear that I wasn't talking about courses which are
linked in the terms she's suggesting here (though, with proper
preparation, they're a good idea). I was talking about two classes
which are linked by nothing but the fact that they enrol the same
students. A freestanding writing course, and a freestanding particle
physics course. The instructors _know_ they're linked (I can't
imagine, but maybe it's because of my protected environment here at
St. Thomas, an admnistrator linking your course without discussing it
ahead of time . . . maybe that's just a failure of imagination,
though), but no one suggests that anything follows from that except
that the students will share a discourse.
In _that_ case, it seems to me, collaboration will follow, but it
doesn't have to. There'd be no expectation, (even covertly, though
there might be hope), that the writing prof would do anything
directly for the other prof, or that she'd make particle physics
relevant. It's about creating a situation where the students have
an opportunity to form a community (and maybe even to make some
connections for themselves between the two courses; we often, I
think, presume that the connections have to occur between two
courses in the institution, where what we really want is for the
connection to occur in students' minds).
The reason I'm proposing this model is that it seems to me there's a
chance to implement it . . . and that it's the thin edge of a wedge.
-- Russ
__|~_
Russell A. Hunt __|~_)_ __)_|~_ Aquinas Chair
St. Thomas University )_ __)_|_)__ __) PHONE: (506) 452-0424
Fredericton, New Brunswick | )____) | FAX: (506) 450-9615
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~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.StThomasU.ca/hunt/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
