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Thanks to Ben's response, I now know that the <i>New York
Times</i> article I circulated went out anonymously -- as was not my
intention. I strongly agree with Ben that all posts should bear
markers from their senders. From now on I will simply preface all
forwarded articles with my name.<br><br>
I also agree with the gist and most of the details of
Ben's post. The main point I think we should consider is that
"on demand" writing is arguably one of the most important kinds
of writing we should be teaching, and that not enough of that type of
writing is being done. I think many people in the university and
beyond would be willing to testify that a good deal of their writing --
probably most -- is "on demand," including high-pressure
reports, grant proposals, letters, most memos, and so on. By their
nature, such assignments tend to have inconveniently early deadlines, if
anyone has the leisure to set a deadline. Engineers spend half
their time writing. I doubt that the process is typically paced to
the convenience of the writers, or that they routinely have the time to
let drafts sit for revision after the weekend. If such assignments
require collaboration and rewriting as a result of consultation, most
students, let alone folks in the wider world, know that the deadline has
a way of routinely becoming more urgent than is convenient. In such
circumstances, revision is often extensive and, given the chronic
shortage of time, amounts to writing on demand. <br><br>
If I am wrong in my assumption about the
amount of on-demand writing being assigned for significant part of the
grade in humanities courses (in composition and beyond) -- an assumption
that partly derives from the survey I sent out a few weeks ago -- I would
be delighted to be proven wrong.<br><br>
Again, I don't think that the lack of instruction and
practice in on-demand writing is unique to the composition program.
One need only give a final exam each quarter to notice that most of the
other classrooms in the building are often empty. If I am not
mistaken, we seem to be in an interesting phase of higher education in
which we are increasingly reluctant, as instructors in the humanities, to
give exams and other kinds of timed writings that carry significant
weight. But are we doing our students justice if we are not, like
good track coaches, sending them out to a meet on a regular basis?
<br>
To change the metaphor slightly, shouldn't we requiring our students to
swim on their own <i>across the pool in "real
time"</i>?<br><br>
I am distrustful of a principle (i.e., that
writing tests are unfair and so at best should be accidental contributors
to the final course grade) that dovetails too nicely with my
convenience. Why so we not all routinely hold a final exam when the
faculty handbook continues to specify we do such things -- in the
eleventh week? What is a take-home but another paper? (Again,
I'm hoping to be proven wrong -- to be convinced, for example, that
take-homes can better than a conventional final because they are better
examples of writing on demand.) Let us not adopt a principle that
assures high-mindedness while encouraging laziness. Without
claiming that anyone else is lazy, I am merely observing that my own love
of freedom and ease, which emerges with powerful claims on my imagination
in the eleventh week, can hardly withstand such a principle unless at the
beginning of the quarter -- every quarter -- I resolve to assign such
kinds of writing. If enough of us assign significant on-demand
writing, including final exams in the eleventh week, perhaps we can have
a good effect on an unfortunate trend.<br><br>
John Briggs<br><br>
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