Damaged Tutorial

If Warren House has a phobia, most likely it is a microphobia, a fear of smallness. The English department's undergraduate courses, especially the basic English 10, are noted for their grand, sweeping approach to English literature, and a relentless pace to boot. The Department has always eschewed specialized courses at the lower levels to favor the large survey type approach to literature.

While this attitude may be defensible for the department's regular program, it is hardly apt when carried over to tutorial work. The fear that sophomore groups might wander off the grand sweep, studying Collycibber instead of Pope, has led the department to climinate self directed tutorial sessions by anchoring them to the hard core, of English 10. The sections of English 10 are the tutorial sessions; the section men are the tutors, and they must necessarily gear their work to that of the course. All groups, therefore, study roughly the same material, at approximately the same speed and diversions are kept to a minimum by the necessities of English 10.

By thus directing tutorial sessions to a particular course, the department has not only skirted the problems but also the benefits of effective sophomore tutorial.

For the kernel of the group tutorial lies in the group's freedom to work on and develop, at its own speed, any projects that hold its interest. By denying tutorial self-direction the English department has rejected most of the deliberative, personal aspects of the sessions and reduced them to little more than, as one sophomore put it, "glorified section meetings."

Besides damaging the tutorial idea Warren House microphobes have at the same time raised hard problems for future concentrators. Since tutorial begins in the second year, the department has had to close English 10 to freshmen. This leaves a prospective English concentrator practically no choice of courses in his freshman year, while it affords an undecided Yardling no chance to sample the department's staple course before making up his mind.

Moving the course up to the sophomore year also puts it in an awkward and illogical position in the program. A survey course fits naturally in one of two places, either in the freshman year as an introduction, or in the senior year as a binder. For sophomores, a survey course makes little sense at all.

Warren House rests these administrative problems on the assumption that free, individual tutorial is not the best type for sophomores. The many difficulties in the present system, couples with the success of sophomore groups in other fields should cause the department to review this assumption. The logical step would be to separate tutorial groups from English 10, thus solving both difficulties by giving self-direction to the groups, and making English 10 once more open to freshmen.

This step would be in character with the department's past world. After one of the longest records of successful tutorial in the college, it would be a curious anomalie if the English department continued to negate, in effect, the University's experiment in sophomore tutorial.