Theory

First off all I have to say is that was a whole lot of information. My head is swirling with all these different approaches and pedagogies. I am simply amazed at how much information Williams is able to fit into what equates to still a very long chapter. I think to really grasp all the information that he is trying to convey I would need to read this chapter alone two to three more times.

I think that there is a lot of good information with this chapter and some pretty controversial issues as well. What I found the most interesting is how we changed our college curriculum to go with the new population of students. This does not show to me the integrity these colleges tout about within their degree programs. Basically because they still wanted to bring in the money for this increase in the college population, they dumbed down the curriculum. That does not put much value on the B.A. or B.S. we seemingly work so hard to obtain!
Writing across the Curriculum was interesting as well because we already hear so much about. That is a term that even someone that is not an education major is familiar with. I like what Williams says on page 68 “no single set of skills is applicable in all situations; instead, different kinds of writing for different audiences and purposes require different sets of skills.” This one sentence says a lot about what I feel we are trying to teach kids. Why is it that not until you get to college that we learn about how to write a lab report, and then a persuasive piece, and then something creative. To top that all these different types of writing are meant for different audiences therefore require a different voice from the author (or you).
Even now in my college courses I find myself getting frustrated with the constraints that teachers want to put on you for the ending product of a writing process. I won’t get started on that though because that is a long sordid story……..