I will just start off by saying that the reading for this reading circle is somewhat out of my comfort zone, but hopefully this will help me see matters from my student’s perspective. What I got out of that essay was that the author had very high standards for determining whether a new student would qualify for the introductory English class that was beyond the remedial level. Not only did the student have to have a solid understanding of grammar and be able to articulate how they thought, but they had to have enough immersion in the subject matter they wrote about to see things from the instructors perspective.
As an example, the author talked about a writing exercise in which students would have to “describe Pittsburgh to someone who has never been there”. The author then mentioned that this is a typical beginning writing assignment, but that he would expect something closer to “describe Pittsburgh to a resident”. My brother lives in Pittsburgh, I have been there many times. I think I would struggle with the basic writing exercise; I doubt I would be able to write something that my brother (much less an English Prof at University of Pittsburgh) would approve of. Many of the new crop of University of Pittsburgh freshmen will have had less experience with Pittsburgh than I have. What expectations should we have of such an essay?
However, this article does make me realize that many of my expectations may be too close too the authors. I have been immersed in Biology for decades. My students struggle to read anything close to what I have been trained to read. At what level can I expect them to write about it?
