Tania wrote:
>
> The RPW stream sounds to me like a great idea. I believe that if I had had
> the choice, I may have taken an honors BA in an RPW program. Does the
> program have writing courses for every year of study, in a more advanced
> level each year? (does your dept. have the info on a website yet?) Is
> there any cross-pollenation going on, so that students focusing in one of
> these streams need to take a few courses in the other two?
The RPW option does allow English majors to mix and match, and, yes,
we are looking at the following sequence of writing courses:
English 110 (first-year comp)
English 229 (business & professional writing)
English 301/302 (intermediate writing)
English 308 (personal writing)
English 309 (writing in the disciplines)
English 310/311 (Classical & contemporary rhet/comp theory)
English 478 (scholarly editing: in the year 2000, we'll introduce
students to editing practices using our journal, _Textual
Studies in Canada_ as a vehicle)
and an English 307 (Studies in Rhetoric/variable content).
>
> Interesting. Does your university have a journalism program? I have always
> thought of journalism as a type of professional writing degree. I wonder
> if there will be some sort of tension or competition between Journalism
> programs and this type of program.
UCC just started a BA in Journalism, and the RPW option was worked
out in consultation with that new program (with Journalism students
taking some of our courses for elective credit, and English
students allowed to take selected Journalism courses as space allows).
We also give full program credit to specified courses taught in Philosophy,
Theatre, and Anthropology.
>
>
>
> Who will do the teaching of the courses? Do the faculty feel that anyone
> among them can teach writing and rhetoric courses just as well?
>
Our preferred option is to hire a rhetoric/composition specialist. We
do have Department members, however, who feel they might be able to
cover some of the courses. I'm always (ie., continually) surprised
how often one needs to argue the benefits of hiring someone whose
research interests & training relate directly to what she or he
might teach.
I suspect that, locally, we'll work things out. My point in
raising this example is to suggest that the relative absence
of Canadian grad programs in rhetoric/comp, and the relative
emphasis on reading rather than writing, necessitates an
ongoing rearticulation (perhaps even reinvention) of the
discipline to suit local circumstances. Will
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