General Education's Stepchild

If General Education Ahf were just a course in expository writing, it would be high on the list of glorious guts. But since it is supposed to be training high school graduates in writing college papers, it occupies a strategic educational position. All other General Education courses look to Ahf for improved student writing, and whatever shortcomings it has weakens the whole G.E. program.

The Committee on General Education set up Ahf as the reciprocal of all other General Education courses. It was supposed to teach freshmen clear and facile writing techniques to express the new ideas they learned. In return, section men were to correct papers with an eye toward expression as well as content.

The plan never got off paper. Ahf became a weekly chore with lessons applied only to the next week's assignment. Section men in other G.E. courses have plodded through papers noting only the more flagrant deviations in syntax, spelling and style. Ahf instructors have divorced the content of weekly assignments from the students' range of interest and experience.

This lack of integration between Ahf and the rest of General Education finds its base in practice rather than plan. The Committee envisioned a single compulsory course that would bring together G.E.'s divergent course subjects on a common plane of good writing. If the section men and Ahf instructors revert to this principle, the course can still become an asset to the program rather than a burden to the Freshmen.

First, of course, Social Science, Natural Sciences, and Humanities section men must better understand their duties toward written English. They should encourage clear, interesting writing by marking papers with style and clarity as well as subject in mind. Ideas and facts without adequate expression do not deserve the highest grades.

Then, as suggested in Tuesday's editorial, Ahf instructors should accept recently written course papers for a percentage of the year's total assignment. This would both relieve Freshmen writing cramp and allow the instructor to check students' ability to sustain decent writing through fairly long papers.

Most important, the Ahf reading list should be overhauled to better relate to the kinds of courses Freshmen will encounter in the College. Rather than reading "The Hundred Best Poems" and other works, which, though interesting, exist in an educational vacuum, the reading might illustrate the kind of effective writing Freshmen need to learn.

Implementing these ideas, and keeping a keen eye on Ahf's original purposes, the men behind this course can make it more effective as a guide to scholastic success in College.