Thursday, February 6, 1997
EDUCATION:
Faculty appalled by poor quality of students’ writingBy Brooke
Olson
Daily Bruin Staff
How to write a topic sentence.
Staff and faculty members believe this should have been mastered
in high school or, at the very least, learned in an English 3 class
freshman year.
So how is it that an English 10A student recently turned in a
paper with the topic sentence: "The importance of the feudal
society was important in society."
This is a question UCLA staff and faculty have been struggling
to answer for years.
In an effort to improve the flawed and flabby prose of students,
the university devised the Writing Programs 16 years ago. The
programs teach freshman composition  a 10-week course
focusing on articulation, grammar and prose.
Today, though, not only are these programs facing cutbacks, but
their overall effectiveness is being questioned.
"I’ve been here since 1980 and I’ve seen a drop off in
undergraduate students’ abilities to write," said Cheryl Giuliano,
director of the Writing Programs.
Student’s poor writing skills are due to in part to an ever
dwindling Writing Programs budget, faculty members said.
The staff, which has declined from a high of 43 in the mid-1980s
to just over 25 this year, could be cut again over the next few
years.
Already, some upper-division courses have been canceled. And
some instructors are worried that the quality of UCLA’s 10-week
freshman composition course is in danger.
"This is all in the context of a budget crisis. … If there’s a
quick hit needed, it’s relatively easy to look in the direction of
the Writing Programs," said Bruce Beiderwell, assistant director of
the Writing Programs.
UCLA administrators, though, believe the students exemplify only
the highest quality of writing standards.
"We have the cream of the crop of the school system," said
Chancellor Charles Young. "Over 30 percent of our applicants for
last year had a (high school grade-point average) of 4.0 or
greater."
All the more reason that some faculty and staff find it hard to
believe that students are unable to write even a simple topic
sentence. One possible solution, staff and faculty said, is for
students to receive more rigorous writing instruction in
college.
"There are students who have such incredible grammar and
spelling problems that it’s unbelievable that they graduated in the
top 10 percent of their high school," said Jennifer Bryan, an
English 4 teaching assistant (TA).
"I definitely think that good writing skills cannot be taught in
just 10 weeks of instruction," she added.
Currently, UCLA has one of the most lax writing requirements of
all UCs. At UC Santa Barbara, students are required to take a year
of writing instruction, compared to the single quarter course
offered at UCLA.
Every year, about one-third of the California high school
graduates entering UC fail to satisfy the university’s writing
proficiency requirement and must take English 2, a basic English
skills course, before enrolling in English 3, freshman
composition.
For the two-thirds who meet the requirement, English 3 is enough
to satisfy UCLA’s writing requirement.
But even some students who take the course still do not learn
the art of writing. The student who wrote that topic sentence, for
example, had already satisfied the requirement.
How best to remedy that situation, though, is at the crux of a
debate at UCLA. Some staff and faculty question the value of having
graduate students teach the freshman writing course.
According to Giuliano, over 60 percent of the freshman
composition courses are taught by TAs, while the remaining classes
are taught by writing instructors.
"It does matter who teaches the class," Giuliano said. "The
graduate student TAs do as good a job as they can, but they’re very
fresh and they’re just learning.
"It’s a tall order to take on a writing class," she added.
In addition, some faculty believe that the TAs receive only
limited instruction before being thrown into a classroom
situation.
Currently, TAs are required to take a once-a-week course for one
quarter before being assigned to teach a class. During the second
quarter, the TA teaching a single course on writing is paired with
a mentor, usually someone from the Writing Program.
The TA and mentor meet once a week for that quarter, and at the
end of 10 weeks, the graduate student is left on his or her
own.
"The TAs really have very little guidance (after their training
ends)," Beiderwell said.
But some graduate students believe that the TAs receive more
than enough instruction and aid before entering the classroom.
"You can’t really teach someone how to teach. … They have to
just kind of do it," Bryan said.
Despite these differing views, some faculty believe that
professional writing instructors  the ones who read scholarly
journals, compose writing textbooks and attend conferences in the
field  can teach students how to write.
However bogged down with teaching and scholarly research, many
of the university’s tenured or tenure-track faculty will take on
the additional labor-intensive job of teaching students to write,
some faculty members said.
In addition, at UCLA, writing instructors are not valued as
tenure-track faculty. Instead, writing instruction remains largely
the domain of temporary instructors.
Lack of appropriate instruction, though, is only one of the
problems facing the Writing Programs. Class size is also a hotly
debated issue.
"It is important in a writing class to keep the classes small,"
Beiderwell said. "Only through specialized instruction can students
really receive the help and guidance that they need."
But budgetary constraints have severely limited the ability of
the Writing Programs to provide smaller classes. Over the last few
years, the programs budget has been cut by over 10 percent, said
David Wilson, assistant dean of humanities.
"We need all the writing instruction we can get," Wilson said.
"Unfortunately, we’ve had a decrease in our budget and have needed
to cut back."
The Writing Program comprises nearly 50 percent of the
humanities budget and most often, "the cuts will be noticed there
more than anywhere else because the program is a huge proportion of
our budget," Wilson added.
These cutbacks to the program serve as a demonstration to some
staff and faculty that the university tends to underestimate the
importance of good writing skills.
"You put your money where your values are," said Charles Batten,
an associate professor of English.
Instead, faculty research and graduate student training remain
the top priorities of the university, staff members said.
"The fact that (the administration) can’t find money for the
program says something about their view (of writing)," Giuliano
said.
But administrators contend that all departments of UCLA have
been hurt by the recent budget constraints. Since 1990, UCLA’s
College of Letters and Science has lost 13 percent of its state
funding, or $13.5 million, and the faculty has shrunk from 835 to
702.
During the last year, though, state funding has slowly begun to
stabilize, and UCLA is seeking to rebuild the faculty. In the
humanities division alone, new faculty have already been hired.
But this hiring represents a paradox in higher education Â
in order to fund the new faculty, other areas must be cut. Programs
which have low student-to-teacher ratios, such as the Writing
Program, are the easiest target.
"Yes, the programs do cost a substantial amount of money because
they are small," Beiderwell said. "But that is the only way a
student can really get specialized help for their writing."
Some staff fear that the Writing Program could fade into
obscurity over the next few years. Already, the program is
operating on a shoestring.
"We’re really bare-boned right now  there’s too much
demand and too little classes," Giuliano said.
But staff and faculty have not given up on improving the writing
quality of students.
For two years, a general education council composed of Vice
Provost for Undergraduate Education Judy Smith and other staff
members, has been reassessing the current general education
program.
"Part of the purpose of this program is to include a greater
emphasis on basic skills, including writing," said Smith.
The revised version of the program is set to come up for campus
review during Spring Quarter 1997. If approved, it could be
implemented in the 1998-99 school year.
In the meantime though, students are left with fewer and fewer
options to improve their writing skills.
According to an National American College Teacher report
released last summer, nearly 60 percent of all students believe
that their writing ability is below average.
"The students don’t feel as confident in their writing ability
as they do in other areas … such as overall academic ability,"
said Linda Sax, associate director for the Institute of Higher
Education.
Nationally, only 24 percent of entering freshman believed they
were well prepared for college, while 11 percent of the students
think they will need remedial work in English, Sax said.
For now, non-English majors must master their writing skills in
either English 2 or 3. And for some, that is not nearly enough
instruction.
"In the real world, all employers want to hire someone who is
articulate and can write clearly," said Gene Liu, a first-year
undeclared student.
"When I get out of UCLA I might know all there is to know about
economics or science or history," he said. "But will I adequately
be able to express my knowledge?"