Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom

The decision to exempt certain freshman seminar students from General Education is a healthy experiment. In a step towards decentralizing instruction in freshman composition, approximately two thirds of the 180 students enrolled in seminars are fulfilling their composition requirement through their seminar writing.

The seminar experiment, coupled with the present policy of releasing sophomore standing entrants from Gen Ed A and the newly instituted trial of intensive, short-span composition instruction, is indicative of a new approach to the problem of teaching freshman to write.

When Gen Ed A was instituted, the founders felt that all incoming students--no matter what their writing ability--could profit from a course in composition. The faculty's present attitude is one of preserving the original aims of the course--the development of coherent, lucid exposition--while recognizing that this objective may be obtained by several methods.

There is a danger, however, that the ultimate objectives of the course may be obscured under the exemption plan. Seminar leaders who offer to supervise the writing work of freshmen must be prepared to pay more-than-ordinary attention to students' writing. They must do more than grade and discuss paper as exercises within a specific discipline; they must work to develop students' general prose ability as well.

Exemptions from Gen Ed A must not become a matter of form. Gen Ed A administrators must insure that those who serve as their vicars do not neglect their students' writing as writing. Otherwise the original purpose of Gen Ed A will be sacrificed to the new goals of seminars.

Whether accomplished through seminars or Gen Ed sections, the teaching of prose exposition must include as much individual consultation between teacher and students as possible. Present sections often fail in this respect. While it may never be possible to institute individual conferences instead of sections (Harold Martin, Director of Gen Ed A, stresses that the number of personnel that can be recruited is limited) there is need for more individual consultation than now exists. Perhaps experiments in decreasing the number of sections per term in order increase time for student-instructor conferences would help strengthen teaching.

Clearly, the General Education A program is in a state of flux with its changes reflecting the transformations in the Gen Ed program as a whole. Nevertheless, the objectives of the course must be preserved no matter under what form instruction is administered. The experiments with different methods of teaching are beneficial; the Gen Ed office, though, must insure that the ideal of instructing each individual student in developing logical and forceful prose is preserved.