Eliminate Mandatory Expos

Expository writing at Harvard is broken. For many years, class after class of disgruntled students who have been forced to jump through the hoop that is Harvard’s mandatory freshman writing course have come to this conclusion. This week, a Crimson investigation revealed that students are not alone; many systemic problems are festering within the Expository Writing program, from dissatisfaction amongst preceptors to a lack of interest on the part of faculty and administrators to a dearth of funding.

These problems are too large for quick fixes and stopgap measures. Instead of pursuing reforms such as changing the program’s leadership, increasing funding, forcing indifferent professors to pay attention to the program, and reducing class sizes, the University should reevaluate Expository Writing altogether. Specifically, we hope that Expository Writing will be radically downsized and required only for those who fail to demonstrate competency on a placement test.

Part of the recent gush in the program’s wounds is due to the lack of attention given to the teaching of writing by faculty and administrators alike. This is largely a symptom of the fact that the program is extra-departmental and thus outside the main corridors of power of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). For instance, the Committee on Writing and Speaking has a paltry three tenured professors on it, one of whom is on sabbatical this fall (the other two will leave in the spring).

Similarly, the most important recommendations of the Curricular Review committee that reviewed Expository Writing—which issued its report in January 2006—have yet to be taken up, and those on the inside say the reforms are at best several years off. These reforms, such as reducing the class size to 12 from about 14, increasing the funding of the program so that teachers are of higher quality, and involving professors in the program, will require attention and energy from the administration. Yet University Hall seems to care little about Expository Writing.

Given the status quo, it’s not surprising that many preceptors The Crimson interviewed identified a lack of communication between the program and the rest of the University as a top concern. We see no way that Expository Writing in its current form could be anything less than a second class program within FAS. Consequently, we hope Expository Writing will be discarded and replaced by a new system designed from the ground up.

We hope that the defining feature of this new system is that it would be mandatory only for students who fail to demonstrate basic competency on a beefed-up writing placement test given during freshman week. Most students who stake Expository Writing in the spring do just as well in writing-intensive classes before taking Expos as afterwards, and anecdotal evidence suggests that students get more out of writing in classes they enjoy and are passionate about than writing in Expos. Consequently, students who pass the writing test would be better served by taking a different writing-intensive class.

Those students who need the course should be given it in the fall, so that they are not left to struggle at Harvard for a term. This course would be similar to Expository Writing 10, “Introduction to Expository Writing,” which is given to students who do poorly on the placement test.

This system would require the scrapping of the preceptor model. Most preceptors’ salaries have remained stagnant—a symptom of tightened spending within the program’s budget—meaning preceptor quality has waned. Reducing the number of students taking Expos would allow Expository Writing to hire fewer, better teachers (for instance, there are only 109 students enrolled in Expos 10). Placing only this small group of students with demonstrated writing need under the tutelage of trained writing professionals would bring every student at Harvard up to a standard writing level.

The preceptors for expository writing would then serve as writing tutors part time in the fall and full time the rest of the year, providing a professional and expanded staff for the currently-underutilized Writing Center. Those students who no longer have to take Expository Writing would be encouraged to visit the Writing Center to get writing help on essays for classes they actually care about. The rest of the funding for Expository Writing could be disbursed to departments to improve the teaching of writing across the curriculum.

Ultimately, the organizational structure of the entire Expository Writing program—from bottom to top—has got to change. The University is doing a disservice to its students and should adopt a reformed model that does not force the majority of students to take a useless and boring class from which they learn little.