On collegiate education I

I have deep concerns about the state of higher education in America and they begin with several of the most fundamental skills required: grammar, argument and the five paragraph essay. Students simply do not understand the concept of stating a thesis, providing three proofs and a conclusion. They also do not seem to comprehend the difference between opinion and analysis, or argument and statement.

Why am I worked up about this issue?

I teach at an open-enrollment campus of a state university. All applicants are admitted so long as they hold a G.E.D or a high school diploma. I despaired at first, as I graded an assignment where I asked students to answer a question (requiring a thesis and so on) following from a reading of a passage. What I received, in nearly every case, was a (poorly written) paraphrase of the document itself. Most lacked thesis statements or conclusions; paragraphs and complete sentences marred more than half. I did note one similarity, one glaring consistency; older students generally understood the concept of the five paragraph essay, even if, in most cases they failed to address the question, they comprehended, naturally, the proper form.

The uniformity of poor performance forced me to toss aside the scheduled lecture (the material I am being paid to teach) in order to run a 75 minute explanation of grammar, argument, sentence and paragraph construction and so one; the very sorts of things collegiate instructors should be able to assume incoming students understand (albeit at different levels of competency).

As I pondered possible explanations for all of this terrible writing I came to the conclusion that much of the problem lay with pedagogy, particularly the late 1980s and 1990s fad of "Whole Language" instruction in the primary and secondary schools. The idea behind WL was that older pedagogy on writing and composition sought to teach young students the grammar and structure of writing first before allowing students to write. Arguing that this approach stunted creativity and unfairly penalized "visual learners," educational theorists argued (quite persuasively) that young students should be encouraged to write early, unfettered by rules concerning spelling, grammar, argument. Furthermore, instead of exercises designed to teach the format of formal writing, letters, essays, editorials and the like, young writers should work with narrative, personal stories, diaries, journals, writing; if you will, that trained the 1st person and ignored the 3rd person.

This movement spread faster than virgin soil smallpox through the public education system in the 1980s and 1990s. Lost in much of the translation between theory and practice was the second half of the pedagogy, as it was argued by its developers. Once young learners were comfortable with writing, teachers and instructors could use students' own writing to teach them the rules and practices of formal writing, spelling, grammar and argument. It is clear to me that most students never had the opportunity to progress past the initial stage. The blame, most likely, lies with all manner of culprits: poverty, higher teacher to student ratios, diminishing federal funding for education, the resistance of the teacher's unions, and others too numerous to recount.

So we have raised a generation (nearly 20 years) of students who cannot spell, do not understand grammar, punctuation, argument and formal writing. They now attend college and lack the skills that most professors assume they posses. Professors either pander to these students, passing them along when they need to learn basic writing skills, or fail them large numbers, those students becoming embittered of the entire experience.

What is the solution?