home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!jvnc.net!darwin.sura.net!paladin.american.edu!auvm!USL.EDU!JCM5337
- Message-ID: <9211092049.AA15646@usl.edu>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
- Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 14:49:59 CST
- Sender: "Megabyte University (Computers & Writing)" <MBU-L@TTUVM1.BITNET>
- From: "(McDonald James C)" <jcm5337@USL.EDU>
- Subject: Re: stretch and jumbo comp classes
- Lines: 19
-
- Patty, it's been ten years since I taught in the program, but Northern Illinois
- University has had a one-year freshman composition course for special admissions
- students instead of a basic writing course. I don't know what the program is
- like now, but when I was there, class sizes were smaller than regular
- composition
- sections (18 instead 25), and students went to the writing center once or
- twice a week at assigned times and were assigned a tutor for the semester. Each
- tutor worked with three students an hour.
- The first semester students received no grades on their writing but worked on
- drafts and revisions of 4-6 assignments during the course of the semester.
- They could receive an F for poor attendance or for not producing enough writing;
- otherwise they received an I. Most had a different instructor in the spring,
- which was taught much like a regular composition course. Students usually
- handed in a couple of the papers they had worked on in the fall for a grade
- at that time.
- The program worked pretty well. The year before the program was restructured,
- only 20% of these students passed the course. The second year of the program,
- only 20% of these students failed the course.
- Jim McDonald
-