UA's English Dept. must get back to the basics

Sadly, there are no Fr. Beckers teaching English 101. Granted, such language mastery is rare, but the methods of UA's English department surpass ordinary inefficiency. No, it takes work to be this weak.

Let's look at the gems of UA English. First up, critical analysis. A Student's Guide to First-Year Composition claims that one goal of English 101 is learning to think critically in writing. Sounds good to me. The problem is that few students are prepared for this leap.

Learning to write critically first requires learning to write. A majority of freshman students still struggle with proper grammar and punctuation- some can barely create a coherent thesis. Asking freshman students to write critically is asking constructio n workers to build a skyscraper without bricks. They just don't have the tools.

UA's English classes fail to offer those tools. They focus on writing style and cultural issues. Style is paramount to good writing, but it is the last rung on the literary ladder. Elevate students to the steps of basic expression, and they will soar from there. Cultural issues, however, have no place in introductory English. I've wasted too many class periods listening to "why" a writer writes. Learning to write has nothing to do with "why." It is only "how." If you want to tell students why, call yourse lf the Philosophy Department.

Return English classes to the grunt work of language. Yes, I know it's a pain for students and teachers alike, but verbs, nouns and adjectives have been butchered for decades. We owe it to the words to know what they do not like. Do not use double negativ es. Do not let pronouns dangle. Do not do anything that would cause Fr. Becker a coronary. These are the lessons that must be learned. Expecting students to "write critically" when they can't write correctly is asinine.

Also trash the St. Martin's Pocket Guide to Research and Documentation, a handbook used in some freshman-level English classes. It's absolutely worthless. Make every single student in this entire university buy The Elements of Style. Sear it into their br ain. It's a whopping eighty-five pages; it shouldn't take long.

Next up, peer reviews. You have to love this idea. Take a group of students who can not write, and have them teach each other. Brilliant.

Let's try the same for first-year medical students. Have aspiring doctors meet after class and take out each other's spleen. They'll learn from their mistakes, even if they can't digest dinner afterward.

The point is this: TAs are there to teach students. Peer reviews are useless when three-quarters of the class has no right holding the red pen. Furthermore, the burden of grading should never fall upon students. We're here to be graded, not to grade. We'r e here to learn, not to teach.

Finally, stop assigning ridiculous essays by poor writers in the name of "diversity." Case in point: bell "white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy" hooks. This woman and her cute lower-case name can barely form a sentence without making an unfounded, acc usatory blast. She is not a role model. If you want to present feminism, do it right and find a coherent writer. Writers need evidence and clarity. Writers can not rant without reason. Leave that to columnists.

Do all that, English department, and you might start teaching the glorious language that bears your name. You have a wonderful pool of students on your hands, but they need help. They need to learn how before they can know why. Follow the footsteps of Fr. Becker and start drilling the basics of language. The words deserve better, and so do the students.

Mark Joseph Goldenson is a freshman in psychology and molecular and cellular biology. He uses English in his column, 'Gold Standard,' every Friday.

By Mark Joseph Goldenson (columnist)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 7, 1997