Date:    Wed, 25 Mar 1998 18:41:40 +0000
<br>From:    Lynne Murphy  M_Lynne_Murphy[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BAYLOR.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: Banned wds
<br>
<br>frank abate wrote:
<br>  What's all that tuition for if not to get some of those highly skilled
<br>  people to actually
<br>  teach my kids?  And why not freshman comp?  There are few more valuable
<br>  life skills
<br>  than being able to write clearly, confidently, and gracefully.
<br>
<br>
<br>the thing is, almost none of us are actually qualified to teach freshman
<br>comp.  so a lot of students get taught worse by people with ph.d.'s in
<br>linguistics or english than by people with an m.a. in english and some
<br>on-the-job training.  our univ is very big on making professors teach
<br>freshman comp so that they can claim we're better than university of
<br>texas in that regard, but the truth is, that many of the people who
<br>teach it are on autopilot and the really good classes are those taught
<br>by graduate students who are excited by the opportunity and not too
<br>jaded to put in the effort.
<br>
<br>lynne
<br>--
<br>
<br>M. Lynne Murphy
<br>Assistant Professor in Linguistics
<br>Department of English
<br>Baylor University
<br>PO Box 97404
<br>Waco, TX 76798
<br>