[Englecturers] ELWR Instructors

[Laurie Petty]

August 8, 2007
 
 
TO:                  ELWR Instructors
 
FROM:             John Briggs
 
RE:                   This Year's CHASS Themes Reading: A Perfect Union
 
 
     We have all received a copy of A Perfect Union, a highly readable
history of Dolly Madison by UCR's own Catherine Allgor.  We have been
told that all incoming freshman will receive a copy this summer, and
that the author will participate in several orientation meetings for
CHASS students this fall.  The book is also being required in the fall
CHASS Connect program -- in the designated courses of that program,
which are outside of ELWR and English 1ABC.
 
     I have heard that English instructors are wondering what is to be
done with the book.  First, I hope you will join me in congratulating
the college office for selecting a challenging and important text for
freshmen to read before they arrive on campus.  The idea, as you know,
is to start early.  The campus is not waiting until late September to
encourage our new students to read challenging works and to begin
discussing them with each other.  In focusing on one important book,
CHASS is also restoring a venerable tradition in higher education:
inviting and indeed requiring students to read and discuss a work that
is or should be held in common because its importance transcends
disciplinary boundaries.  I am tempted to add that part of that
importance, in the case of A Perfect Union, has to do with what Samuel
Johnson called the particularly compelling nature of biography,
especially a biography about a somewhat obscure figure who earns the
reader's admiration within a social and political biography of an
emergent United States.
It does no harm to her subject that the author writes with a resourceful
historical imagination. 
 
    So what is to be done with A Perfect Union in the teaching of
composition this year?  Nothing, if we so choose.  But as members of the
college we would do well to favor it with our time and read it.  In our
own classes it might come in handy, from time to time, as a way of
introducing or commenting upon some of our own readings and writing
assignments - not as an assigned text but as part of the institution's
(we hope rising) intellectual expectations for our entering students.
Some instructors might wish to go farther and incorporate passages or
study questions in the program's syllabus, not to replace but to augment
our the program's readings and assignments.
 
    Our ELWR courses remain writing courses.  They are not surveys.
They are not literature or history courses.    But they cannot be strong
writing courses without substantial and extensive readings in and across
the disciplines.   Our goal is as always to teach academic writing with
the best aids available.  As always, we should follow our program's
curriculum.  Please use A Perfect Union as that curriculum's complement
if and when you think it appropriate.
 
 
Laurie Petty
English Department - 040
HMNSS 1102
900 University Avenue
University of California - Riverside
Riverside, CA  92521-0323
(951) 827-1384
(951) 827-3967 FAX
laurie.petty at ucr.edu
 
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