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Unlike the advanced composition >course >you posit, I don't have to fabricate advertising, or grant proposals >because there is >a real discourse, the discourse of a discipline, just waiting to be >tapped. Wait a second. How is the writing assigned in Engineering courses more real that that assigned in technical writing courses? Also I don't fabricate genres or assignments. My students write job applications, journal articles, instructions for real tasks, and assignments comissioned from private industry. >I know that in an hour of writing conference, I can >teach a >student more than a comp course can. (I've had students say so). I teach technical writing to classes of 24 and have hours of personal contact with them. They *also* have access to writing centre specialists in technical writing. It's >not some >second-rate substitute to account for the weakness of the Canadian >system, it is a >superb pedagogical strategy supported consistently by research (mostly >done by >people who teach comp courses). Shouldn't we all be working together toward an ideal in which English departments teach writing, run writing centres, and are involved in writing accross the discipline programs? Wouldn't it mean more jobs for English graduates?