Theory, Research, and Pedagogy

Abstract

THE WRITING PROGRAM I WILL BE DISCUSSING here began in early seventies at a university which admits only those whose grades and test scores are in upper twelve percent of graduating high school seniors in state.1 The basic course was a two-quarter requirement for all incoming freshman. These students were quite likely to have produced writing which fit in well with expectations of their high-school English teachers. They were students who would have readily adopted a version of what Richard Lanham has called the style. The founder of our program, Lowry Pei, now at Harvard University, saw that problems that these students had with their writing were derived from their college prepatory training. They could write in style, but they had no style of their own. They could also repeat official ideas, but they had difficulty expressing their own thoughts, communicating their own perceptions of world in a written language which corresponded with their personal voice. Consequently, Pei designed a program that stressed writing of personal narratives. The program's instructors were given Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers and Ken Macrorie's Telling Writing as guides to transforming styles into personal styles. Consistency of standards and content in program was achieved not through use of a syllabus or a uniform final examination, but through weekly meetings of instructors and other members of program's staff. The instructors usually met with their students three times a week for regular classes and once every week or so individually. Writing assignments went from What I Did Last Summer to My First Drug/Sexual/Political Experience. (These were often same paper.) Many of teaching assistants practiced charismatic teaching. One had a woodblock print of Buddha with attendant Bodhisattvas. He said that yellow