Week 3, Post 4: Pros and Cons to the South Plains Syllabus

After you look at the "conventional" remedial course syllabus:  In what ways does that course fit with your ideas about how a developmental reading/writing course should be taught?  In what ways does it contradict your ideas?  How would you modify the syllabus to fit with you own views of how developmental/remedial reading/writing should be taught?

The South Plains College English 0302-201 syllabus looks, sadly, like the typical syllabus one would expect at a typical JC.  It meets the bare minimum requirements in that it provides instruction in both reading (sort of) and writing.

However, after reading Goens' articles, based on the successes of the SFSU IRW program, one has to feel sorry for South Plains developmental students.  Unlike IRW, the South Plains program does not integrate reading with writing.  In fact, there is very little college level reading to challenge these students, the majority of readings a mere 2 pages in length (paltry even by high school standards).  Regarding the principle of time, Goens notes that reading and writing are gradual processes, requiring more than a single fall semester to learn; the South Plains course is designed to be squeezed into a single semester compared to the SFSU model that covers a full year.  To be fair to the teacher, Joseph Fly, even if his intention were to authentically integrate reading and writing (he notes, if in passing, "In the study of the written word, rarely is writing isolated from reading since these are mirror processes.") nonetheless, he appears hamstrung by the time factor alone.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the IRW, and the greatest downfall of this average remedial course, is the lack of what Goens calls Academic Membership.  The IRW accomplishes this by including students in the intellectual conversation of the general university.  Where the South Plains course tends to treat students like juvenile delinquents by punitively chastising them for attendance errors (then it "rewards" them with the "incentive" of skipping the final exam?), and presumably denying them credits for remedial coursework, the IRW offers full credit and, by challenging students with a rigorous college-level curriculum, treats them like the scholars they are.