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[amewa_silk]

The article blew my mind when it stated:
"Most students take few courses that demand intensive writing (defined here as 20 or more pages across the semester)"

I do not read articles in newspapers because I get the sense that journalists are products of this curriculum. Instead, I prefer academic articles.

[euro_trash]

Students do not read newspapers because they are all biased by the liberal media to promote hatred of America and class warfare.

[hmaria1609]

I lost count of how many short papers (4-10 pages at prof's stipulation) I wrote for classes in undergrad.  When it came time to write the required 25+ page history paper senior year, I could deal with it.  Did a lot of assigned reading too.

[dr_alcott]

An interesting response to the book:

http://www.ginandtacos.com/2011/01/19/inmates-running-asylums/

The author self-identifies as "an instructor of a giant, state legislatively mandated Intro to American Government course in which students generally have not one shred of interest."

My favorite part: "You do not walk into college, 18 years old and brimming with all the worldly knowledge concomitant with that age, and tell us what we should be teaching you. If the students already know what knowledge and skills they need, then why are they in college?"

[systeme_d_]

My favorite part of the article:

Students who majored in the traditional liberal arts — including the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences and mathematics — showed significantly greater gains over time than other students in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills.

<snip>

Greater gains in liberal arts subjects are at least partly the result of faculty requiring higher levels of reading and writing, as well as students spending more time studying, the study's authors found. Students who took courses heavy on both reading (more than 40 pages a week) and writing (more than 20 pages in a semester) showed higher rates of learning.

I interpret this to mean that all students should take my classes, all of which require over 40 pages of reading a week, and over 20 pages of writing in a semester.  (Except my huge intro class, which requires less writing, but which I am redesigning next year to meet those parameters.)

[mountainguy]

That part also struck me as being really interesting, Systeme_D.

As I recently commented on another thread, the departments at PepsiU that have made a genuine commitment to designing writing-intensive classes and to providing adequate faculty support produce great students. The departments that cram students into classes like sardines and rely on poorly-trained TAs or adjuncts to cover smaller sections?? Not so much. It's a "you get what you pay for" situation. (To be clear, there are wonderful TAs/adjuncts and not-so-great full-timers out there. But I don't think it's realistic to expect PT faculty to be consistently rigorous in the classroom when they're underpaid and more often than not, underappreciated).

[changinggears]

I haven't read the book, yet, but it's on my summer reading list.  I'm thinking about focusing a future freshpeep comp. course around academia--how it works, why students have difficulties adjusting to it (including those that the academy creates for them), the divergent/opposing expectations of students and professors, etc.  I've got a good reading list going that includes Bartholomae, Rose, and Nathan's My Freshman Year.  I'm wondering if Academically Adrift might make an appropriate and usefull addition to the reading list.

What are your thoughts on having it on a freshman reading list and asking them to read/discuss/write about it?

[elsie]

CG,

I've been thinking about doing that as well. You might use Graff's Clueless in Academe as well. The only thing that bothers me, and why I haven't done it yet, is that all the books I can think of filter academe through the professorial perspective. I'd like a book written by a younger person as well.

[changinggears]

CG,

I've been thinking about doing that as well. You might use Graff's Clueless in Academe as well. The only thing that bothers me, and why I haven't done it yet, is that all the books I can think of filter academe through the professorial perspective. I'd like a book written by a younger person as well.

Yes, I've selected passages from Graff, as well.  And I also would like to have some readings from the students' perspective.  I thought it might be interesting, since I haven't been able to locate one so far, to have my students author that perspective.  This would work to reinforce my teaching of college writing as an academic conversation and my students as experts/conversants in their own right/write--no one's presented this side of the issue, yet? Then you should be the first!  But you must do this by engaging with/coming to terms with what the other side has to say in a rational and critical way.

[dr_alcott]

CG,

I've been thinking about doing that as well. You might use Graff's Clueless in Academe as well. The only thing that bothers me, and why I haven't done it yet, is that all the books I can think of filter academe through the professorial perspective. I'd like a book written by a younger person as well.

Yes, I've selected passages from Graff, as well.  And I also would like to have some readings from the students' perspective.  I thought it might be interesting, since I haven't been able to locate one so far, to have my students author that perspective.  This would work to reinforce my teaching of college writing as an academic conversation and my students as experts/conversants in their own right/write--no one's presented this side of the issue, yet? Then you should be the first!  But you must do this by engaging with/coming to terms with what the other side has to say in a rational and critical way.

I'm sure there's countless student perspectives available in student newspapers, easily found online. But I also like the idea of students providing their own perspectives in response to what you assign.

[changinggears]

CG,

I've been thinking about doing that as well. You might use Graff's Clueless in Academe as well. The only thing that bothers me, and why I haven't done it yet, is that all the books I can think of filter academe through the professorial perspective. I'd like a book written by a younger person as well.

Yes, I've selected passages from Graff, as well.  And I also would like to have some readings from the students' perspective.  I thought it might be interesting, since I haven't been able to locate one so far, to have my students author that perspective.  This would work to reinforce my teaching of college writing as an academic conversation and my students as experts/conversants in their own right/write--no one's presented this side of the issue, yet? Then you should be the first!  But you must do this by engaging with/coming to terms with what the other side has to say in a rational and critical way.

I'm sure there's countless student perspectives available in student newspapers, easily found online. But I also like the idea of students providing their own perspectives in response to what you assign.

Yes, this idea is really starting to grow on me.  Since I haven't read Academically Adrift yet, I'm wondering what other forumites think about students' ability to read the book  without using it as an excuse for/positive reinforcement of their behavior.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I would hold off on assigning it until the Cliff Notes version is available. - DvF

[mignon]

College transformed me.  I was thrilled by the authors I discovered and the atmosphere of intellectual inquiry.  This was because I cared, not about grades, but about what I was learning.  When I was assigned Dostoyevsky, I read not just the required book but everything he wrote. 

Students like this still exist; they're just invisible to test and survey takers.  I know I was invisible.  My school was all about parties, frats, and sports, as far as the media were concerned. 

[changinggears]

College transformed me.  I was thrilled by the authors I discovered and the atmosphere of intellectual inquiry.  This was because I cared, not about grades, but about what I was learning.  When I was assigned Dostoyevsky, I read not just the required book but everything he wrote. 

Students like this still exist; they're just invisible to test and survey takers.  I know I was invisible.  My school was all about parties, frats, and sports, as far as the media were concerned. 

Yes, no matter how much I get depressed by the lack of intellectual or academic investment that my students are willing to make, I'm always heartened to see those students who remind me of myself when I was an undergrad--they want to be stimulated intellectually with new ideas, new texts, and new ways of viewing/exploring things.  They haven't disappeared.  They just don't elicit/require the kind of attention that the snowflakes do and that makes them not as visible.  I'm making more of an effort this semester to locate and encourage these students (and pay less attention to the snowflakes).  I've already been pleasantly suprised by several students in my freshpeep comp. course--they are excited about bringing their own ideas to the table and learning how to present them in academically acceptable way (as opposed to moaning about how "hard" the assignments are because they have to think about them instead of just sitting down at their computer and typing out some pointless tripe about their favorite childhood memory or their first-day experiences as a new college student). <to those who give these types of assignments--I'm not saying there's not a place for these types of assignments, so please don't flame>

[mystictechgal]

Writing has definitely diminished over the years I have been off-again-on-again enrolled. At least, i think it has. Since I've returned this time, the most, and longest, papers I've written for any class were my Bio lab reports. We did 4 of them, IIRC, and mine ran ~30 pages to ~17 pages, each, depending on how many individual experiments were covered in each applicable lab. Most of my fellow students seemed to turn in reports of ~2-6 pages, but I don't recall any of them earning full points for the papers. Outside my lab, I have had to write, perhaps, 3-4 other papers for all of my other courses combined, over three semesters. Every one of those was specified to be no longer than 2 pages, double-spaced.

Now, these are STEM and Education classes. In my prior lives in school I was a Poly Sci and, later, Business major, and most of my classes taken have been in the humanities. Perhaps, those folks are still writing as we were when I was in those areas, but I really don't get the overall sense that that's true.