ACTA's Must-Reads

The decline in literacy and the need for a core curriculum are unrelated issues.

Literacy -- or the ability to comprehend what one reads and hears and the ability to speak and write comprehensibly -- isn't tied to reading or hearing or writing about or speaking about "the classics" or certain core subjects. You can learn to read and write in "Advanced Feminist Theory" as much as in "Classics of World Fiction." Or as little.

If you want to increase literacy, increase the number of required composition courses. Several decades ago, Harvard required several composition classes; today, most universities require one course at most. (Ohio State is one of the few to have two required comp courses.)

And if you really want to increase literacy, reduce class sizes, move away from lecture and recitation formats, and turn all classes into seminars with an intense focus on reading comprehension, the writing process, and speech presentation skills.

(High schools should also maintain the reading/writing split we see in most elementary and junior high schools. In the latter, the subjects are often split into "English" and "reading," where English is about grammar, spelling,and writing, and Reading is concerned with literature. Once students enter high school, these subjects are all thrown together into English, and teachers have to teach vocabulary, grammar, and basic reading comprehension for the SATs as well as literature and literary history. More and more, we're seeing a positive shift toward all the high school subjects sharing the responsibility for basic reading and writing skills. But high school students would benefit from a separate Composition class. As they would from music and art history. But that's another story.)

The declining literacy discussion will never get anywhere without recognizing the increasing demographic fraction of students that comes from "historically underperforming groups". That is putting it euphemistically.

Daniel Golden, in his recent book *The Price of Admission*, argues that 60% of Harvard's spots for the freshman class are already taken by "high bidders" before the admission process truly begins.

I think it's rich people buying their children's way into college that is bringing down our literacy standards.

More at the NYTimes online book review section.

" .. 60% of Harvard's spots for the freshman class are already taken by "high bidders" ..

Not disputing Mr. Golden's research .. I guess my rural N.C. friend (U.S. Presidential H.S. Scholar), rural Mich. friend (top SAT), and ex-GalPal (lower-middle-class, divorced parents, VISTA volunteer) somehow slipped by and got into Harvard by mistake ..

If you think you're a victim -- you will be.

L.L.: No, they didn't "slip by." They are part of the 40% of the freshman spots *not* sold to the highest bidder.

This isn't about victimhood. It's about buying one's way into a college one couldn't otherwise attend given one's actual merit. And that lack of merit is dragging down the average test scores and literacy averages of college students. (And where are the hissy-fitters who complain about affirmative action?)

" .. given one's actual merit .. "

"Objectivity is subjective" -- Woody Allen.

Karen, if the U.S. is so lousy, why are you here? Why don't you find someplace better? Or find someplace, willing to have you, as God?

Your endless complaining is farcical. Nothing is good enough for you and your kind. You are an ideological rock of ages. I pity everyone around you.

Here now, I no sooner return to the ACTA blog after dusting off some whinging enemies over the last few days in David Horowitz's Frontpage Magazine than I catch Karen Elliot writing nonsense again. Very clear nonsense, that I grant. Perhaps like me, she'd rather be clear and wrong, than vague and murky. But "feminist theory" (more likely, feminist theorrhea) as a gateway to good writing? Rubbish! Good writing begins with good reading, imitation (imitatio), and the classics tout court. In Greek and Latin and mathematics, with several modern languages on the side--for a start. Read the recent work of Professor Tracy Lee Simmons on the core importance of the classics in writing instruction. Or better, read Donald Lehman Clark's "Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education" for a concise primer on what our educational system needs: a complete return of our educational system to proper classical models with classics masters and mistresses doubling as writing instructors.

More money and smaller class sizes (the constant bleat of unionised teachers) are not only unnecessary, but harmful to successful educational reform. Then we must endure yet again KE's and other comp/rhet "specialists'" pleas for "more research" which means, naturallement, more money, and so on, world without end, amen. Our nation spends more money per pupil and teacher than any other, yet the results are as predictably abysmal as the cadence of a washing machine. I'm simply embarrassed for those who fancy themselves rhetoricians or teachers of rhetoric who are ignorant of Latin at least, but also some Greek, the ancient language of those who invented or adapted nearly every branch of modern learning. And, alas, ignorance shall be their punishment as well as the punishment of their trusting students.

I see again that the work of instructor and corrector is never finished, for like the perfect composition or translation, "non e mai finita". And like the "termination man", Arnold, I'll be back.

Cheers not sneers,
Dr JA

I'm back. First let me give my nod of approval to Karen Elliot's notion that all teachers and professors mind their students' works' grammar, syntax, spelling, vocabulary and style as well as their content, argument, and use of evidence. Nevertheless, let this agreement in no way mean I endorse "writing-across-the-curriculum" programs. I've too much past experience in secondary teaching (multi anni fa) to recognise these programs as anything but cheesy attempts that comp teachers (like La Fontaine's frogs who try to puff themselves up to the size of cows) make to make, to make . . . themselves important. Better no comp at all than such programmes. Increasing the number of required comp classes best serves, naturallement, the comp/rhet nannies who preside over their chicks and who encourage, nay even require their infants
(remember the etymology of infans) to indulge in the pseudo-emotional psychobabble all too often found (along with puerile radicalism) in writing seminars (often called, lamentably, "workshops"), where no secret may remain hidden and where no sexual or toilet custom be unrevealed (KE likes litotes). Increasing more comp requirements also wastes precious time and treasure that is better spent on real subjects and real students. It's exploitative to "carry" poor writers through comp course after futile comp course and who are, as the master pedagogue Quintilian has it, "fit only for the fields" (I'll spare KE the Latin so as not to cause her more pain)

Cheers,
JA

correct the inconsistent "program" to the British sp. "programme". NB: I'm not a British citizen, though I've a British publisher, and thus I've to keep in practise, somewhat as the fine actor and gentlemen David Suchet kept his French accent off camera while he was filming "Poirot" episodes.

Karen:

Apparently nothing has changed...