A Call for Slow Writing :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education’s Source for News, and Views a

[jason]

Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.

A Call for Slow Writing :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education’s Source for News, and Views and Jobs: “What will it take to make essays the standard of achievement once again in the scholarly world?”
Oh, would that a well crafted essay be the hallmark. Sigh.

Comments

[dracschick.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. Students seem to be reading less and it is reflected in their writing (or at least IMO).

[roger-kuin.livejournal.com]

What would it take?
a) primary schools that teach the abc of the ABC, then do it again, then again, and then some more.
b) secondary schools that take that primary school result and build on it with reading and parsing of well-written prose, and then practice, and practice again, and then some more, the ancient rule of 'art (i.e. theory), imitation, and exercise'.
c) colleges and universities that do not admit anyone who does not have a solid standard of reading and writing by those standards; and who then take the ones who do measure up and teach them how to study, then to reflect on what they have studied, and then to combine that reflection with the good writing they already know how to do.
The result will be well-crafted essays.
If colleges and universities were to begin by the non-admission policy, they would force schools to convert. There would of course be an outcry, mainly from college bursars losing income, for a year or two.
And a few ageing hippies would cry 'Elitism!'; but those are the ones who defend the 'social pass' and believe that the incompetent have a democratic right to a BA, MA, or doctorate why not? and that making them learn is a form of oppression.